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Notable or noted?

In this Wikipedia editor gathering on Zoom, during a discussion with other editors, a question arose about the practical usage of the definition of 'notable' on Wikipedia.

We considered this sentence: “Article and list topics must be notable, or "worthy of notice"."


There are many new user discussions around notability and inclusion, which implies that it could be more clear.

We ask: does Wikipedia actually require a person to have been noted by some reliable sources, rather than to be noteworthy?

In other words, does our current practice actually differ from what we say we do?

Instead of looking for notability, or worthy of note, do we actually just look for any substance of reliable sources that have noted that thing or person?

BessieMaelstrom (talk) 17:30, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

An interesting question- this is so confusing to newbies . It leads on to newbies then trying to apply notability criteria to each reference too. ClemRutter (talk) 17:36, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

When the word "notability" was first introduced to Wikipedia, which was a few years after it started, it was simply used to show that something could be written about a topic that conformed to the basic content policies of verifiability, neutral point of view and no original research, and didn't fall foul of what Wikipedia is not. Since then more and more bureaucracy has grown up around this word and it has become the driving force behind what articles we can have. The word is so ingrained in Wikipedia culture now that is would be next to impossible to change it, even if it is inaccurate. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:52, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

If notability has become the driving force behind new articles, but it is difficult for new editors to understand or implement the concept, are there any practical steps to make it easier? For example, structure in new page templates requiring entry of sources/references/whatever people call the evidence. MerielGJones (talk) 10:35, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

MerielGJones, absolutely - as well as clarifying the concept, it's equally important to facilitate other ways to make following the new article process as accessible as possible without compromising the carefully considered concept. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 12:08, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

MerielGJones, it's never been difficult to understand. It's always been difficult to accept, when your cherished article is found not to merit inclusion. Guy (help!) 20:07, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy, that is also true, but it does a disservice to opportunities for growth if we just accept that it's the only thing going on here. It also does a disservice to all those who have had instances of confusion. My understanding is that that happens to both experienced and new editors. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 23:23, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I hear you, Phil Bridger, but we didn't so much intend to discuss changing the word itself, as to discuss the "driving force" part. If the driving force is now something else, instead of trying to turn it back to the road it was on, if we could identify it more accurately, we could perhaps give it a more honest description. Our discussion began on the subject of women and others who are underrepresented in Wikipedia. We determined that, if the criteria for inclusion is confused in its description, clarifying that description seems a fundamental part of being able to address that inequality. Here is our question:

- the original criteria is chosen: 'notable'

=> someone finds something they deem to be a 'notable' thing

=> to confirm that this criteria has been met, "verifiable evidence" from "suitable sources" is requested

=> said evidence is located by that person and presented to other people, resulting in article being included

Thus the process begins to drive, and...

=> locating proof is the most overtly substantial action in this process

=> that action becomes viewed as The Action Of Notability, ie: it becomes the driving force, but...

=> it is not identical to the original intention, which was that a thing should be notable, which is a quality in abstract that needs the acknowlegement of People, and...

=> the acknowledgement of People could equally be some People agreeing that a thing is notable, without any evidence from any reliable sources. Because there might not be any, especially when it comes to those who are generally underrepresented in the capturing of world events.

What the driving force currently focuses on isn't whether or not a thing is notable, but rather, whether or not it has already been noted by someone else. So we are perpetuating that inequality of capture and, by perpetuating it, we are tacitly reaffirming it. And by 'we', I mean everyone who uses or contributes to Wikipedia. (How many is that these days?) On the other hand, 'we' who are actively discussing this stuff here, and 'we' who are more active in editing Wikipedia, could have a discussion about how we might respond to that problem. Not by trying to change the direction of an unstoppable force, perhaps (although maybe it isn't unstoppable?) but certainly by acknowledging the actual practice in so many words. It seemed to us that that would be an excellent place to start. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 11:53, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

The word notable is itself a source of confusion to new contributors (and also some long-established editors).

• In normal usage, notable is generally understood to mean "worthy of note" — see Wiktionary Thesaurus and definition 1
• In Wikipedia usage, notable means "has been noted" — perhaps Wiktionary definition 2?

While we cannot reasonably expect Wikipedia to stop using the word, it is important that this difference in usage is very carefully explained at each of the places where a new contributor would reasonably encounter the word for the first time. There is a need to untangle the use of notable to variously imply both noteworthy and notedness. Wikipedia is itself unclear:

• Wikipedia:Notability says Article and list topics must be notable, or "worthy of notice" — which was the trigger for this post.
• Help:Your first article states that ... the topic should be notable and be covered in detail in good references from independent sources ... implying that notable and referenced are two different requirements, with notable being used as "worthy of note"
• Step 2 of the article wizard starts Your article will be rejected if the topic is not notable, is not referenced properly ... again implying that notable and referenced are two different requirements, with notable being used as "worthy of note"

The use of "worthy" (and the implication of worthy via the normal usage version of notable) is itself dangerous. Worthiness is a subjective judgement highly sensitive to the interests and beliefs of the reader, whereas Wikipedia strives for impartiality to become a high-quality encyclopedia. - GhostInTheMachine (talk) 10:56, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks to you, GhostInTheMachine for observing this fundamental distinction in the first place, and for describing it so succintly. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 12:03, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you especially for encouraging us to act on our discussion. Just posted a cross-reference at The Village Pump that should raise visibility. — GhostInTheMachine (talk) 13:34, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• "Worthy of note" isn't that hard to understand if you balance it with our other policies. It means that multiple, 3rd party, fully independent sources have found it noteworthy enough to discuss in a significant way. Not just passing mentions, but actual coverage in detail. Being a tertiary source, Wikipedia's job is simply to summarize what many reliable sources have already deemed "notable" by virtue of their coverage. Whether or not you and I deem it "notable" or "important" is irrelevant, it is the policy criteria that matters, and 3rd party coverage that determines a topic's fate. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:43, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• The only way to verify whether something is worthy of note is to have evidence in reliable sources of that worthiness. That evidence proves the notability, or worthiness of note, or whatever you want to call it. If there is no evidence, the notability/worthiness cannot be verified. The reason that references are mentioned in the above-linked pages is that references provide that verification, allowing readers and editors to verify the notability without having to do their own research. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:27, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• Keep in mind that verifyability of a topic is a much easier threshold to meet than notability. Verifyability is just about being in reliable sources. Notability is about being in reliability sources in a matter that we can discuss at length (eg: that its not failing WP:NOT) but without evoking original research and in a neutral viewpoint. That's where we want the topic to have been noted in-depth in independent, reliable sources. So just saying "Notability is about a topic having been noted by sources" is a bit too soft. It's that coverage that leads to us being able to talk about the topic at length that is important. This is particularly true for anything where there may exist a fair bit of primary sources but not much secondary sources (read fictional works). --Masem (t) 17:43, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• This is a classic case of people getting too caught up on pedantry. "Notability" on Wikipedia isn't some vague, esoteric concept that editors are expected to interpret based on their understanding of the dictionary definition of the word. It is a policy, and the definition/meaning of the word is quite literally spelled out in black and white. At it's core, it's defined as "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal. This isn't rocket science. Anyone who's confused by what the word means can have their confusion resolved by simply reading the actual page that literally explains what the word means. A tall order, I know. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 19:20, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your excellent responses, all.

Dennis Brown said: >>It means that multiple, 3rd party, fully independent sources have found it noteworthy...<<

Yes - our observation was that the driving force behind inclusion is that things have already been noted, rather than simply that they are notable. As you say, it's notability by virtue of their coverage. The proof itself has become the pudding, so to speak.

Jonesey95 said: >>The only way to verify whether something is worthy of note is to have evidence in reliable sources of that worthiness.<<

Precisely. This system requires there to be evidence. As you say: "If there is no evidence, the notability/worthiness cannot be verified."

Masem said: >> we want the topic to have been noted in-depth in independent, reliable sources <<

That's really important, absolutely. It still confirms that we need something to have already been noted.

~Swarm~ said: >> This is a classic case of people getting too caught up on pedantry. <<

Actually, our point was not to argue the meaning of 'notability', but rather, to point out that we don't actually require something to simply be worthy of being noted. We require that it has worth which has already been noted. It's not a question of definition, it's a question of verb tense.

Our proposal is that we clarify this aspect within the article about notability.

We pointed at this sentence, specifically:

"Article and list topics must be notable, or "worthy of notice"."

That is inaccurate. The simple fact of something being worthy of note is not actually the whole of the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia. We are proposing an addition to the page to accurately reflect our actual practice. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 22:45, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

I have to disagree, because basically everything above in the discussion is how we define when "worthy of note by external sources for WP's quality's standards" (the latter my emphasis is determined for WP. And actually, this point "We require that it has worth which has already been noted. " is not true either. Notability includes a presumption of notability, to allow articles that look like they have the worthy of notice to be kept and be developed over time. The statement we have is still accurate, its just people try to read this too much like exact law, which we are not, rather than descriptive guidance. --Masem (t) 23:10, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Masem, thanks so much for this. You said: "Notability includes a presumption of notability, to allow articles that look like they have the worthy of notice to be kept and be developed over time." Great! Because this started as a conversation about the liminal spaces in which the notability criteria have not yet been actioned on a subject in any reliable sources. My understanding, though, is that Wikipedia deletes articles rather than keeping them in a liminal space - or have I misunderstood that? Do we have a place where we say "Hey, let's keep an eye on this person, they're doing some cool stuff and I bet you they'll meet the criteria soon"?

You said: "The statement we have is still accurate, its just people try to read this too much like exact law, which we are not, rather than descriptive guidance." I wonder if we could put that in somehow? It seems especially important here because this bit is fundamental to Wikipedia:

Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable, independent sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics. Article and list topics must be notable, or "worthy of notice". Determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity—although those may enhance the acceptability of a subject that meets the guidelines explained below.

That totally reads like exact law, no? So the liminal things aren't allowed to be in a grey area, because we don't describe a grey area. In our original discussion, we were proposing adding something here, to clarify that common practice discounts the liminal things. If we could agree on that, and include that... if we could point out that there is a distinction between "these are general guidelines" and "this is actually what invariably happens", then we would have identified the parameters of the liminal space. And we could, you know... maybe have a proper look at what's in it. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 23:37, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

The fact that wp:notability has so many kluges (SNG's) , patches (SNG's) widely accepted exceptions, and some glaring imbalances and is such a source of confusion means that some tuneup is needed. Even though the system mostly works. Sometimes the best policy is to put into words the common sense decision-making which mostly works. This would be:

A decision that weighs all three of these:

1. Degree of Enclyclopedicness (a consideration aside from just meeting the low bar of wp:not)
2. Real world notability as gauged by #3
3. Coverage in sources per the last 3/4 of wp:gng. And, besides being this it's own criteria, it is also the gauge for #2 although it must be unequally applied to compensate for coverage-heavy and coverage-light fields.

And determines if the the result is enough to merit an article in an encyclopedia which will "only" have 10 or 20 million articles.North8000 (talk) 11:00, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

North8000, so glad you jumped in. You said: "some tuneup is needed [...] to put into words the common sense decision-making which mostly works" - and that is exactly what we were suggesting, yes. Although I think we were suggesting some more wording about the "common sense decision-making" part because we felt that, in order to have conversations about what is actually being left out (especially with regard to underrepresented groups), what seems most important is being able to accurately describe what gets put in. And right now, what is written on this page isn't precisely what happens.

To give an example: let's say there were another way, upon which we all agreed, by which a subject could be considered for inclusion. Perhaps we agree that three independent experts can bear witness to the notability of a subject. Say there's a new system on the website where you can log this notability, and also link to evidence of your expertise in this matter. Three experts in the field of physics, for example, might have proposed an article about Donna Strickland well before she received the Nobel Prize.

Regardless of whether a system like that could work, my point here is that she must have already been worthy of note in the world of physics, but that notability had not been captured in such a way that Wikipedia could deem it noted. Again, I'm not talking about the definition of notability. I'm talking about the state of being notable, and the state of having been noted, and the space between the two. Because there is one, and we don't note it on this page. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 00:00, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

There are two separate issues when it comes to something like Donna Strickland: externally it is lack of coverage of academics/scientists in general, more so for female academics and even moreso for those prior to the 21st century, and that is something we simply cannot magically create, as WP:V is non-negotiable; notability can't override that. No one wrote about them? We can't write about them. Now, in Strickland's case, she was written about prior to the Nobel and that's our fault and represents the second problem that we're still a volunteer organization and we write what interests us, and clearly there was a lack of interest in academics in physics. There is a very topical discussion I will point to over at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Preventing_Wikipedia's_Misuse_as_a_Military_Propaganda_Engine which is similarly about what volunteers focus on and ignoring other topic areas. That's something "fixable" but it requires us to have events like the Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red drives to help highlight areas that could use more volunteer support. But we're always going to be lacking topics, particularly in any area that is not routine covered by the mainstream media (which is going to include academics). This arguably is not notability's fault here. We can't make sourcing appear from nowhere, nor can notability force volunteers to edit in other spaces.

Particularly in the academics field, WP:NPROF is bending notability over backwards to be as least restrict to allow articles on academics to at least have some independent reliable sourcing, the bare minimum that WP:V requires. We can't go to a system like "three reputable recommendations" as that's not meeting WP:V, the core requirement. What I think some people tend to forget particularly with academic is that we're not a who's who; we should be listed really only notable academics and that does not necessarily mean every tenured research professor gets an article as not all research and work is considered equal. We want to catch those that are recognized as doing the best work but it is hard to capture this because of how little there is reported from the academic side of this and the lack of volunteers in the area, but notability still is fine here. --Masem (t) 00:19, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Donna Strickland was a very particular situation, & makes for a poor example, especially when discussed in these terms. Someone was sufficiently interested in her to write an article, which then was deleted at Afd. This is now recognized as a mistake, but, imo, was a fairly understandable one. Among other things, when she got the Nobel she was an assistant prof (not at a terribly well known college either), was not a member of her national academy, and had done the research the Nobel cited as a doctoral student, not the first-named author. Johnbod (talk) 03:29, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

In methods that I've talked around before, but really haven't put to paper, our system really works in a three-tier fashion.

• There are key encyclopedic topics that could easily be sourced left and right, but even if the article wasn't sourced, would remain and never be challenged at AFD. This is like the Vital Articles: Country articles, articles on the planets, articles on major human conflicts like WWII, etc. Because these are so vital to human knowledge and history, they implicitly are "worthy of note" by that very nature. Not every topic can get here, but we recognize there are classes of topics in this area that we give lenience towards (and technically the only class right now with that great a lenience is recognized geographic locations as part of being a gazetteer).
• Below that, there are those that may not be obvious vital articles, but there's more than enough sourcing in the article that there is zero doubt that the topic has met the basis of being "worthy of note". That is, they are so well sourced, we're miles beyond the presumption of notability of the GNG, and no AFD will come about. We want articles to get to this point, but recognize that this is an ideal, and not always possible.
• Below that is where we need to bring in the need to show that there is a trendline for the topic to be "worthy of note" so that articles are appropriate kept on the basis of presumed notability and let that trend develop. Whereas we've treated the GNG as the "parent" of the SNG, it really is more the case that the GNG and SNGs are equal as providing presumptions of notability towards reaching the case above - where there is no question that the article has clearly met the "worthy of note" basis and is in no danger of being deleted by any editor. The GNG/SNGs exist because this is a wiki, it takes time to research and build articles in the open structure, and this will remain a work in progress with no final goal, with no deadline to get it right so we give a lot more caution when "Worthy of note" can't be immediately shown.

Operationally, it doesn't change how we use notability, GNG, SNG and AFD, but it represents a change in how all these work together that should make it clearer (when I can write it down in a more cohesive fashion) of the rational for notability nowadays and why we stress for editors to make sure some sign of it is there, as well as better justification for the relationships between GNG and SNGs. --Masem (t) 23:59, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

To summarise the original point of this extended (and excellent) discussion, and make sure we don't get sidetracked (by me as much as anyone else) -

Wikipedia does not actually require something to be worthy of note. It just requires some reliable sources to state that it is worthy of note. It does not actually rise and fall on Notability but rather, on Verifiability. As you rightly said, Masem: "WP:V is non-negotiable; notability can't override that".

Your three-tiered description would be a great addition to the WP:N page. If I've understood it correctly, there are:

1. Vital Articles on major aspects of nature (eg: geography) and humanity (eg: world wars) that stand on a foundation of common knowledge
2. Key Articles that stand on a foundation of broad collective knowledge (eg: Lego); one might call that 'renown'
3. Subject Articles that require a foundation of evidence in order to be verified

- which is where WP:SNG comes in. (I'm presuming 'SNG' means 'Subject Notability Guidelines'? It doesn't actually say that anywhere on the page, that I can see. Maybe we could add it in?!)

You said: "the GNG and SNGs are equal as providing presumptions of notability" and this is clearly where our question 'noted or notable' lies. Things that fall into category #1 or #2 above, Vital or Key Articles, are known outside their specific field. Geography is commonly shared, and Lego is a well known global brand.

Category #3 things need proving outside their specific field in order to be noteworthy to the world in general. An expert might be notable within their field, but until they have been noted outside their field, they don't meet our criteria. And that's why SNG is an equally important tool to GNG.

Is that accurate?

Ref academia, which is an excellent field to use as an example, you said: "we should be listed really only notable academics and that does not necessarily mean every tenured research professor gets an article as not all research and work is considered equal. We want to catch those that are recognized as doing the best work but it is hard to capture this because of how little there is reported from the academic side of this and the lack of volunteers in the area..."

So are you in fact saying that people within their field can start an article about someone who is notable within their field, even if they have yet to be noted from outside their field? (How we might define this is an extension to our discussion; right now, I'm just focusing on whether or not this is accurate.)

Johnbod - hey John, thanks for joining in - said: "Someone was sufficiently interested in [Donna] to write an article [...] when she got the Nobel she was an assistant prof (not at a terribly well known college either), was not a member of her national academy, and had done the research the Nobel cited as a doctoral student, not the first-named author"

I'm not commenting on Donna specifically, but this describes a situation in which a person was notable in their field, but had yet to be noted from outside their field.

To keep focused, again - because there's a lot attached to this kernel of clarity - I'm not talking about Verifiability at all here. How that works is another discussion entirely. I'm just talking about category #3 people, the difference between being notable within a specific field, and having been noted from outside that field.

Edited to add: with ref to subject notability criteria in academia it seems that all of those also require that someone on the outside edge of the field has noted the subject of the Article, ie: independent reliable sources, awards bodies, scholarly societies, major education or academic orgs, and journals. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 08:42, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• To a degree you have what I was getting at, right. Focusing on #3, we don't need topics to be noted outside their field, only that they are noted in sources that are considered authoritative for their field . So to take the idea of an academic, having a colleague simply write about them on their university blog page is not going to work, but on the other hand, there are numerous opportunities for naming these people to awards and recognition in the field that get published in journals and periodicals in the field that are seen as authoritative. And while I don't know of a specific case like this dealing with academics, I do know we have had articles created in the wake of events that go like this:
  1. non-WP editor comes onto WP complaining we don't have an article on a topic
  2. editors explain why we don't have an article, explaining the lack of coverage in sources (with an earnest effort to find sources for notability) - there may be mention in passing but not enough on the GNG
  3. that non-WP editor goes off and because of whatever their position, are able to publish in an RS a key secondary article about the topic, enough to satisfy an GNG or an SNG.
  4. we proceed to support the creation of the article to meet the GNG or an SNG.
• Which is 100% fine. I know specifically I had an hand in a Streisand effect that occurred around the article Old Man Murray in rescuing that (see [1], [2]) in using the sources that suddenly appeared when the target article was deleted. So this is a 100% valid process where we allow external people that are interested in seeing an article created to take the steps to make sure the proper sources within their field are there for the article to exist; we do not ask why articles are written as long as the nature of independence is still there. That's where the fact WP:V still is the key to all to all this, we just can't do anything without usable sources. --Masem (t) 15:19, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• There is another factor in play here: Exploring to what degree a topic/subject is “worthy of notice”. Some topics/people are “worthy” of having an entire article devoted to them (ie a lot of notice)... while others are only “worthy” of mention in the context of some other, related article (ie only a little notice). Again, we look to the source coverage to determine which level of notice applies. Blueboar (talk) 17:44, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for another really helpful expansion of this, Masem. That seems to make absolute sense as common practice.

Presumably because it's simply common practice, we don't specifically scribe it anywhere obvious (that I can see), so I'm looking at the ways in which we make an obvious invitation for that process to take place.

Say someone who doesn't want to be an editor (for undestandable reasons) wants to tell Wikipedia that there should be an article about a specific thing they think is worthy of note. Right now, their options are:

• Go to the Help page, find the most obvious section (Create a new article) and then follow a multi-stranded path of actions, only one of which gets them to the information that you can request an article (and they have to both register and make a public declaration before they get there).
• Scroll further down the Help page to Directories and think to click on Request directory: for services and assistance that can be requested on Wikipedia, then scroll past Assistance with editing and General knowledge questions before they get to the Requested articles link. (Which isn't even called "Request an article".)

If we are reliant upon them to do this work in order to bridge the notable-but-not-yet-noted gap, surely the least we can do is make it more obvious that they can request an article in the first place, thereby enabling this 100% valid process to have a fighting chance.

A fighting chance, I mean, against such things as the complexity of the user interface, or not being confident enough in your belief that the article belongs and worrying about experiencing rejection, or simply not having the time to figure it all out. (It's no coincidence that these are also the top three in Sue Gardner's list of possible causes for gender disparity on Wikipedia.)

I propose that the main Help page needs a section called Request an article which advises your precise process, Masem, as an actual scribed invitation, an acknowledged process which is fully provided for.

Which it already is, of course. This page could happily be an edited version of the existing Requested articles page, and include opportunities for those who are requesting an article to do some searching on behalf of the article to provide assistance with Verifiability. It could be specifically noted that one might encourage the creation of independent sources where none yet exist (which sources are already governed by our definition of 'reliable', as you said: we don't ask why). None of those things require anyone to necessarily learn how to use an entirely new platform.

The page could also include the excellent point made by Blueboar that, whilst perhaps not meriting a unique article as yet, nonetheless some people and things do merit inclusion in other articles.

This proposal of mine warrants related discussions on other pages if we reach a positive consensus, of course. On this page, I am proposing it simply as the official adopting of what is already common practice, with regard to those who stand betwixt notable and noted.

Verifiability may guard it, but Notability is our actual door. If our goal as an encyclopedia is to gather and guard the knowledge out there in the world that is worthy of reference, then let's make it as easy as possible to at least knock on that door, no matter who you are. -- BessieMaelstrom (talk) 14:09, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Bessie, WP:notability is not a matter of using sources to determine whether or not a topic meets some other non-Wikipedia meaning of notability, existence of suitable sourcing is the definition of wp:notability. But there are some "in progress" states as you are alluding to. One is for cases explicitly defined in the SNG's where sources are presumed to exist. Also, in any review (e.g. at AFD) if suitable sourcing exists but is not in the article the article is generally kept. North8000 (talk) 16:09, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

... is the definition of notability, I know, but something has to achieve a state of being worthy of being noted down before it gets noted down, and then becomes Wiki-notable. Ah, the joys of language. I should find another word for pre-notable, like the pre-chicken that came before the chicken that came first. Anyway, yes, absolutely, other things can support inclusion. All I'm proposing is that we make more visible a very simple doorway that we already have, and make explicit that nudging something into being is perfectly acceptable. Because we don't have SNGs for everything, and because we do have a bunch of people who find most of our doorways intimidating. --BessieMaelstrom (talk) 16:30, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

But people shouldn't be looking for doorways into Wikipedia. The point of the notability guideline and the verifiability policy is that we cover things that have been covered by genuinely independent reliable sources in the outside world. We are not in the business of providing doorways that shortcut that process. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:40, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I would argue that we are literally all about doorways. Wikipedia is open source: it's one massive doorway. The only thing that goes any way to defining entry are the processes that we ourselves discuss and shape and change. I am not suggesting that we change any process, or create any new process. I'm suggesting that we stop hiding an existing process, and think about how best to make it do the thing we want, and not do the thing we don't want. -- BessieMaelstrom (talk) 19:17, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

While I don't necessarily agree with Bessie's characterization, wp:notability is a gigantic kludge bundle that is incredibly hard to learn. Just to start is wp:GNG, SNG's, the fact that the SNG's stated principles and advice are contrary to their operative statements, another other guide which defacto says that a whole lot of topics are defacto exempt from wp:notability. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes, plus other unwritten accepted practices which are applied. And lack of any clear and consistently used statement of what wp:notability is. And the latter is necessarily so, because the actual wp:notability standard is unwritten, and is a combination of the ostensible notability standard, plus degree of enclyclopedicness. Anybody want to work on tidying this up? I'd help.  :-) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:55, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to help. And 'kludge bundle' is my new favourite phrase. -- BessieMaelstrom (talk) 21:01, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@North8000: Indeed. Thank you very much for kludge bundle! — I think that we mostly agree that there is a firm understanding of the notions behind the various note* words, but endless trouble with scribing crisp definitions. I would initially aim to identify the main entry-points where WP offers a statement on the validity of creating a new article and how to make that judgement. I feel that it may prove easier to create working definitions by instead trying to first produce answers to the questions that new editors might ask when pondering their first article and then try to unify those answers into a single definition. I have identified four main front doors so far, but there will be others. Is there a better place than this talk page for ongoing work across multiple pages?  — Ghost in the machine ^{talk to me} 19:24, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

It could be here or maybe for preliminary work y'all are invited to my talk page. It could starts as a section there then a sub page and then move back here if something comes out of it. North8000 (talk) 19:51, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@North8000: Thanks for the invite. @GhostInTheMachine: Do you want to sketch something out to start us off? I am a new editor, and have yet to attempt a new article, so I can happily feed in from that POV. -- BessieMaelstrom (talk) 23:07, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I took a baby step at User_talk:North8000#WP:Notability workshop. Anyone interested is invited. North8000 (talk) 11:04, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Gone to the Village Pump

Somewhere towards the end of this discussion, I posted a three-part proposal at the Village Pump in the Policy section: Clarifying common practice ref inclusion. Am grateful to all who have participated here. -- BessieMaelstrom (talk) 14:00, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Notability confirmation

I want to create a page on 'Raffughar'. So, I want to know opinions of people if it is notable. Thanks Frankhad (talk) 13:25, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Note: Draft:Raffughar. Alsee (talk) 08:04, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:VPP

I have started a discussion about the lede section of this page at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#The introduction to WP:Notability is terrible (permalink).

All interested parties are invited to discuss. Mysterious Whisper (talk) 23:15, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Scope of notability criteria

Can the article be clarified to emphasize that the notability guidelines refer purely to the subject of an article? I put together a full list of presenters for the Times Radio article and a couple of them were removed on the grounds that they were "not notable" (i.e. did not already have a page on Wikipedia). I put them back and they were removed again. This is surely not the purpose of the notability criteria - if it were, no one would be able to create a Wikipedia page about anything or anyone that wasn't already on Wikipedia! GDBarry (talk) 12:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

This policy already makes that very clear in multiple places. But that doesn't mean that editorial decisionmaking /discussion can't use some criteria (such as whether or not they have an article) to limit who gets on a list. North8000 (talk) 13:12, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Especially in lists or sublists involving people, where often editors do restrict to the use of only notable entries to avoid excessive non-notable ones. That's a discussion to have at the respective talk page. --Masem (t) 13:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

GDBarry, the page you want to read is WP:LSC. Be prepared for someone (who has never read the actual rules, because Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions) to tell you that since some particularly enormous lists – a "List of people from New York" is the canonical example – would follow a bluelink standard (which is already having an existing article, not merely being notable/eligible for one) that All True™ Lists must have the same rules. Patience is often required in that situation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for that, but it appears that WP:LSC is the policy on stand-alone list articles. As far as I can see, it does not apply to lists of people that are included as part of larger articles - in this case, a list of presenters on a radio station in an article about the radio station. I am not aware of any restrictions on who can be named in lists such as this. GDBarry (talk) 07:17, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

That is correct: WP:LISTBIO is the policy for embedded lists and it was rewritten a few years ago to make it clear that notability is not required for inclusion in embedded lists just as it's not required for any other content in an article. ElKevbo (talk) 08:23, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'll cite WP:LISTBIO if I'm challenged again, GDBarry (talk) 08:43, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Chemicals

I am wondering about the possibility of a SNG for chemicals. There are an almost infinite way in which atoms can be put together, and the notability of those isn't as obvious as some other things. For one, while some chemical might be used everyday by ordinary people, they might not even know it, or know much about it. On the other hand, a chemical that isn't well known might happen to be especially notable in some strange way, but not well described by GNG. Gah4 (talk) 00:13, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

It's been considered before, and ultimately no, there isn't any reasonable presumption. There should be more about a chemical than just raw data to support an article for it (how it was discovered, how its synthesized, how its used, etc.) and particularly for any chemical used in medical areas, that sourcing needs to meet MEDRS quality. --Masem (t) 00:59, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

OK, for example there is oxyhydride which it seems to me is more a mixture of oxide and hydride, besides being only half a chemical. (Not that being half is bad, as many common anions have an article.) If you mix two compounds with a common cation, you get something with a mixed anion, but it might just be a mixture of the two, and not a real compound. Maybe a few articles have been written about it, or maybe not. Gah4 (talk) 01:15, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Intersting, when you do a Google search on oxyhydride it says about 13200 results. When you get to the 7th page, it says 65 results. I suspect that most, or all, of these are primary sources, and that it isn't notable. But also, this means be very careful with the initial page of a Google search. Gah4 (talk) 01:22, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

But do notice most of the sources on that page are scientific papers which you'd have to switch over to a scholarly search engine like Google Scholar or similar to find. Peer-reviewed papers can be secondary sources as well as textbooks, but we do have to be a bit careful at times. --Masem (t) 02:40, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I thought this had been said enough times for it to have sunk in by now, but counting Google web results is meaningless. The first figure you see (13200) is simply a wild guess, and the later 65 results that you see are generated by the fact that Google takes the first 1000 mentions that it finds and then eliminates duplicates. It is just as meaningless as the 13200. Try searching for anything ultra-notable and it will never give you more than 1000 results. I wish people would simply eliminate web searches from any enquiries and concentrate on searches that are likely to find reliable sources, such as Google Scholar and Google Books. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:36, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I always knew that they were somewhat meaningless, but not that they were that much meaningless. Gah4 (talk) 18:13, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Before we go overbord here, chemicals used in medical fields do not require "MEDRS quality" sources per se, but they only require them for the description of medical aspects/properties.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Is there a problem with people creating articles on non-notable molecules or compounds? I helped shoot down an insane proposal a while back to bot-create newly registered molecules (over 1,000 per day, I think), but I'd hope real people have better ways to spend their time. Johnbod (talk) 17:29, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

notability

I believe an artist who has numerous interviews with the independent newspapers and his films have been showing in many international festivals and has many independent reviews by well-known sources is considered a notable person, otherwise please enlighten me on what is a notable person according to Wikipedia? thank you for your insights.Inception 111 (talk) 00:59, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

The article on question is: Bahman Tavoosi, which was deleted “G4”.

First read see WP:Notability (people). Then read WP:ARTIST. Blueboar (talk) 01:49, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that many things are notable, as being slightly important to a large number of people. Some things are very important to a smaller number of people, but adding up to the same amount of notability. It isn't always easy to compare, though. Gah4 (talk) 18:16, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Gah4 and Blueboar, I’m a tad suspicious because the author is a new account with the majority of edits concerning this subject. The users behind the previous incarnation of this article were all paid or related to the subject. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bahman Tavoosi. SK2242 (talk) 17:30, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

statues

I was recently wondering about notability to statues. It seems to me that if something is worth the time and money to build a statue for, it is likely notable enough for wikipedia. This comes up now, as statues are being removed, and are now notable for being removed, when they were not notable enough before. Or is it that they were notable, but no-one got around to writing about them? Gah4 (talk) 18:18, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Probably mostly the latter, or they were just in the biography, which is often the best place for them. Coverage of statues is patchy - in some cities they will all be covered, in others not. Most public statues have enough sources if you know where to look. Johnbod (talk) 01:15, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Literally any piece of artwork, architecture, or engineering was "worth the time and money to build" but that's certainly not the basis for automatic notability! No, statues are not notable for their existence, or their removal. With so many thousands of statues and other types of art around the world, only those with substantive independent coverage are notable – the GNG is not that complicated. They are not "all covered" unless they all have significant coverage. Another good way to cover statues is in the context of a park they're located in, the building they stand with, or their subject. Reywas92^Talk 17:12, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

To expand: in practice, thanks to heritage listings, guidebooks, press for the unveiling, & straight art history books, most statues - large expensive objects - will easily meet the GNG. Johnbod (talk) 17:57, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Jeez, you're from Indiana - you ought to know all about that! Johnbod (talk) 17:59, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

If a statue is built, it'll usually have the minimum coverage to meet GNG anyway. This was raised at Statue of Edward Colston, an article about a listed building which was only created after its recent toppling. This statue would've met notability anyway, just nobody got around to creating the article till it hit the news heavy. Same with most other statues; many are likely notable, editors haven't gotten around to creating the article yet. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:54, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I suppose for a large collection of statues in a small place, one article covering all would be fine. Maybe with redirects for each. For one by itself, of the usual large size and expense, and in a public place, I suspect it will usually be notable enough. Gah4 (talk) 21:47, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I assume that by "statue", the question is really about "original, permanently installed pieces of public art, especially those that memorialize a specific historical person or event". If the question is about any and all statues (using a definition of a roughly life-size sculpture of a human figure), then I'll point out that eBay has a few thousand life-size statues for sale today, and I think it's extremely unlikely that all of them are notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikiproject Notability

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get more people working on CAT:NN? The backlog goes back 12 years. Some of those aren't complicated, they are very clearly notable or not notable, though some are trickier. I think we really need to address this, and if anyone would like to post at the Wikiproject I'd be grateful, or look at any articles in CAT:NN. Thanks, Boleyn (talk) 14:43, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• Just needs a bit of advertising, I didn't know it was an area of the project which needed cleanup. It didn't help though that the first article I looked at was How Students Learn, which was a recent no consensus even though it needs to be thrown into the article wood chipper, probably through a merge, even though it looks like Ravenswing at least copied the references from the AfD. SportingFlyer T·C 16:39, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  Yeah, Boleyn made a separate plea on WikiProject Sports which caught my attention. It's a considerable bit more of a chore than it might seem, unfortunately: either there's a lot of work that needs to be done to find sources, or else they'll bring out the kneejerk-unprodders. Still needs doing, but yeeesh, sixty-five thousand of them. Ravenswing 18:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  Is there a way to separate them out by topic? I can fix sports/geography articles very quickly and everything else is a bit of a slog. SportingFlyer T·C 18:40, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  SportingFlyer, there are some lists that might be useful to you. See https://bambots.brucemyers.com/cwb/bycat/Football.html#Notability%20unclear for one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:43, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

I may be in the minority but I would be in favor of placing a deadline on these articles (12 months?) and if nothing happens to them - new references added, someone objects to the template and removes it, etc. - then delete or move them to draft space. I don't think it's reasonable to ask volunteers to clean up this big of a mess especially if other volunteers are unwilling to help them (I'm pointing my finger primarily at the editor(s) who initially created these articles without providing adequate evidence that the subjects pass our most basic of standards). We could even make this a 2-stage process where there is time for editors to edit the articles in main space and then, if necessary, more time to make edits in draft space before the final deletion.

I admit that I'm making a lot of assumptions about the good faith of many editors that are line with the principle of WP:AGF but may not work in practice. Most importantly, I am assuming that the "not notable" template was placed in these articles in good faith. I am also assuming that further edits, particularly edits to remove that template, would also be in good faith. ElKevbo (talk) 18:45, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree with any deadline. Sometimes the tag is added by someone who just thinks the subject is not notable. I removed a few today that I believe would clearly survive AFD. But others need more digging for sources before making a determination. There are lots of backlogs. There are 10k new articles waiting to be reviewed also, many which might get added here eventually because there aren't enough people working at NPP either. MB 18:54, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I think that the 12-month deadline could also work the other way: in 12 months, people either bring the articles to AfD or we remove the notability tag. I'm not actually suggesting that we do that, I'm just pointing out that making either decision for 65,000 articles would make a lot of mistakes. Personally, I'm wondering why we see a backlog as inherently something that must be cleared down to zero. There will always be more pages tagged for notability than people to clean them up, because adding the tag takes two minutes and assessing notability and looking for sources takes significantly longer. — Toughpigs (talk) 19:00, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It needs to become more of the norm that creating articles including finding and putting in the sources, including those that establish wp:notability. It isn't just generating titles and then leaving it for some overworked volunteer at NPP to do the source search (including in every foreign language of the world) and all of the work to provide or disprove notability. Rather than start some whole new mechanism to encourage this which might push things too far the other way, we should start by removing statements in a non-policy non-guideline that are doing damage. We have a oft-quoted place that is neither a policy or guideline that says that is the job of the AFD nominator (and by extension, not the editors). And where is this non-policy non-guideline is immensely quoted? In the AFD instructions with a redirect from WP:Before North8000 (talk) 19:58, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

No, this is not a problem and there shouldn't be anything done about it other than good-faith editors actually looking for sources, rather than moving articles automatically to any of our deletion processes. Many articles are in this category purely because some clueless editor has added the template. Why is the assumption so prevalent that people who add tags to articles know better than people who add content? That has been the reverse of my experience. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:29, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Phil, I'm with you in spirit because I've been on both sides of that fence. But I think that you imagine an option not available to the people who who are most often faced with this. Namely, for each article of the firehose of about 700 new articles per day the NPP folks need to either determine that it IS notable (and mark it as reviewed) or else AFD it. A notability tag is just a hope for addition of sources before revisiting in 1-2 months, it does not take it off of the "to do" list. They (collectively) don't have a "do nothing" option. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:37, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

That's not actually relevant to what we're talking about. The vast majority of the 65,000 articles in the NN category aren't brand new articles; they're articles that were written in 2007-2012, before the standards were raised. The content can be just as good as any other article, but the references are written as external links rather than inline citations, or they're in books owned by the writers who left Wikipedia because people started deleting their articles. The most helpful thing that people can do is find an article in the list that's in their area of interest, and do a quick Google Books search to add a reference or two. It's not that complicated; I do it all the time. You can wring your hands and fret about the terrible backlog, or you can add references and improve the encyclopedia. — Toughpigs (talk) 03:12, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

All good points.North8000 (talk) 20:44, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

• Having actually made a start at some of those articles, I'd like to clear up a point: so far, I've not seen a single article in that backlog where notability tags have lingered for over a decade despite sufficient reliable sourcing. (I am not talking about inline citations.) I would absolutely pull those tags at once if that sourcing was already there. Ravenswing 21:29, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I just looked at two from 2008. One (a large school) I took the notability tag off despite having no sources but left on the "no sources" tag. The other needs a trip to AFD but I just left it. North8000 (talk) 21:49, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Here's an example: Reg Bolton (clown). It was tagged for notability in October 2009, ignored until today. I did a Google Books search and easily found independent reliable published sources that discussed Bolton's work. I added two references and took off the notability tag. It took maybe 15 minutes. That's a lot easier for me now than it was in October 2009, because Google Books is way more comprehensive now than it was 11 years ago. There are a lot of articles languishing in CAT:NN that are easily referenced, if someone takes the time to look at Google Books, Internet Archive and Newspapers.com (which is available for free through the Wikipedia Library Card platform). There's also a lot of junk about garage bands, which should be identified and deleted. It's a real mix. — Toughpigs (talk) 00:36, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• I dunno; my take is that at least two thirds of those article are indeed NN. But beyond that -- and I realize I'm feeling harsh here, because some of the resistance to redirects, prods and AfDs boil down to intentional obstruction in the "You nasty deletionist, how dare you??" camp, verging on bad faith -- I'm with ElKevbo. My strong feeling is that a notability tag placed on an article for ten damn years without resolution ought to be the dictionary definition of the community not giving a flying fig, and that the right of anyone to object to cleanup is damned limited.

  Rather than wasting their time and energy obstructing that cleanup, the rescue squadroneers and their ilk should be plowing just as hard through CAT:NN as anyone else, spending those 15 minutes per article and coming up with adequate sourcing ... where and if it exists. Those are the articles the cleanup crew is leaving alone. I am pretty damn disinterested in whining that after ten years or more, a 7-day deletion countdown is hasty, precipitous or places undue burdens on editors who favor retention. Either do the sourcing work or get out of the way. Ravenswing 13:12, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

• IMO it's not worth it. 65k articles is like 1% of the encyclopedia, and it will take years for even a team of editors to perform 65k WP:BEFORE searches. Meanwhile there are 3x as many articles tagged unsourced, which is another backlog we'll never get through with current systems, although that's still just 3% of all articles. Unsourced BLPs are probably the best place to start, but our efforts should be focused on making PROD work more like BLPPROD, which I think should be done in tandem with an addition to WP:V requiring every article to have at least one reliable source (and any article that doesn't can be PRODed, and only de-PRODed by the addition of a reliable source). That will allow us to at least cut down on the backlogs in a reasonable time (yes, by mass-PRODing), and at least get to a point where, eventually, every article on Wikipedia meets WP:V policy. 100% verified, after 20 years, is a goal we should meet, and shaving the number of articles by 4% or less is a cheap price to pay. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 03:05, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Sure it's worth it. Six million articles and counting: there is NO cleanup effort, none, that can make a large impact on things. But it's a start. In three weeks, even with a clique of anti-prodders trying to run me out of Dodge, I've either gotten prodded, AfDed, merged a couple hundred articles. (This not counting the several dozen where I've been satisfied enough with the subjects' notability to untag them.) One editor, three weeks. And that's something any experienced editor can do. Meanwhile, changing how PROD works, changing the text of WP:V? Leaving aside those who would view any attempt to make deletion easier as a war to the knife, there's a large number out there reluctant to change the status quo, whatever that may be. I'd rather deal with the art of the possible. Ravenswing 05:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)