Template talk:Notability/Archive 3

Findsources integration here?
It would be quite useful, if the notability template could integrate the findsources template in some neat way... Right after "The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject" we could add "You can do this by searching the web, newspapers, books, and journals." It would be very convenient to have those search links right there. The findsources template takes two parameters, the second I think is not needed here, but the first should then be turned into an optional parameter "search" of this template. --Merzul 16:06, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Content vs. subject
Somebody changed the first phrase of the template from
 * "The subject of this article may not satisfy the notability guideline..."

to
 * "The content of this article may not satisfy the notability guideline for its subject..."

I do not think this is correct. The WP:N guideline refers to the subject of an article (which may be notable or not) and not to the content of the article. --B. Wolterding 09:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * True, it was right before but is wrong now. Spacepotato (talk) 23:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It was technically correct - trying to say that the content of the article was insufficient to establish the notability of the subject. However, I agree that the wording was unclear.  I have simplified the wording to hopefully increase the clarity.-- Kubigula (talk) 23:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it would be clearer to write The subject of this article may not satisfy&hellip; rather than This article may not meet&hellip;. The notability guidelines refer to objects in the real world, not to Wikipedia articles. Spacepotato (talk) 00:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * We may be over parsing this, but WP:N is an article inclusion guideline. Several reliable sources generally = notability and article inclusion.  User:Mikkalai's point was that this template is used if the contents of the article do not demonstrate the notability of the subject.  I agree with him, though his phrasing was confusing.-- Kubigula (talk) 02:20, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Tweak
Currently the wording states that If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for deletion, per Guide to deletion. The problem is that that isn't per Guide to deletion. I'd like to expand it so that it does delineate Guide to deletion, namely that If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirecting, merging or ultimately deletion, per Guide to deletion. That's what Guide for deletion actually states: '''consider making the page a useful redirect or proposing it be merged rather than deleted. Neither of these actions requires an AfD.''' Seems straight forward. Hiding T 20:29, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added it. I know I only waited two hours, but I figured WP:BOLD applied. Hiding T 22:47, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Good tweak :)-- Kubigula (talk) 23:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change to documentation
Recently, I have created a new template which contains more neutral language about notability and notes that there is an ongoing discussion about the tagged article's notability in its talk page. It also does not explicitly suggest that articles which cannot be established as notable should be put up for deletion, so as to avoid accidentally prodding editors unfamiliar with the debate into putting the article up for deletion on notability grounds.

The reason for this is that I have had some trouble with debating the notability of a string of articles. The standard notability template is supposed to be used when the article is likely to be non-notable, and suggests deletion if notability cannot be established. Another editor and I had a debate about which template was appropriate to use, and ended with the other editor saying that he would forcibly maintain the "notability" template. Also, during the discussion in the talk page about the article's notability, an editor which was new to the debate offered to AfD the article on notability grounds to end the disagreement.

I feel that previously, there was no template available which was a good fit for those kind of situations, and therefore made a modified version of this template. Therefore, I would appreciate if the documentation for this template could be modified to include a link to the new template so other editors who possibly have a similar situation will be able to find the new template more easily.

Proposed text to add:

At the end of the main section:


 * You may use Template:Disputed Notability in cases where there is an ongoing debate about the article's notability in its talk page.

At the end of the "See Also"" section:


 * Template:Disputed Notability

Thanks. Dalamori (talk) 09:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * nb: I am one of the other editors referred to above; I did not use the word 'forcibly'. The other editor referred to is User:Masem.
 * Talk:Paladine (Dragonlance)
 * Talk:Bahamut (Dungeons & Dragons)
 * Your new template can probably be speedy-deleted per CSD (point 3). I have no real issue with the wording of this template being tweaked to offer a link to the talk page. Please note that this template does not say should be deleted, although when notability is not established, that is one thing that can happen. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The suggestion to change the documentation will have to wait until Mr. Merridew's suggestion to speedy delete the new template has concluded. Dalamori (talk) 11:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I should point out that I never said "take it to AfD". I said that's the likely fate of Bahamut if others that want to delete it are set on that, and I suggested pre-emptive merging to a list to avoid any AfD discussion.
 * On the template itself, I don't see a problem adding the wording to this, as to push deletion as a last resort for non-notable articles; deletion being listed as the alternative to establishing notability is how the whole TTN thing got started. --M ASEM 13:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Apparently, the template was speedy-deleted, I'm currently following up with the admin who performed the speedy delete to find out what the best way to address these issues is, since I don't think that modifying the existing {tn|notability}} template is the way to go, I imagine it would be a lot easier/simpler to make a seperate template for Notability diputes. If anyone here has a suggestion on how best to proceed, please feel free to post it on my User Talk Page  Thank you.  Dalamori (talk) 17:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Category?
editprotected Could a category be added to this template, so we can find all articles tagged with it? Category:Articles with disputed notability would be good. Thanks, --S.dedalus (talk) 02:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It's Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability. Jfire (talk) 04:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * So it is.  Is it by design that it doesn't appear in the category list at the bottom of a page as in Dan Biederman? --Deadly&forall;ssassin 21:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. It's a hidden category. If you wish to have it displayed, you can enable that in "My Preferences -> Misc -> Show hidden categories". --B. Wolterding (talk) 09:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

This template is way too big
I see the importance of this template but does it need to contain a paragraph of text. It really make the tagged article look ugly when its almost as big as the article (Example: TeamCity) --MarsRover (talk) 04:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The text of the template has been tweaked over and over (for its content, not its length), and I think it now has a quite broad consensus. And further, the purpose of the template is to point out a problem, not to prettify the article. By the way, specifying the notability guideline as a parameter, such as, shortens the text a bit; I have done this now in TeamCity. --B. Wolterding (talk) 07:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

New parameter for alternate category
I have a feature request for the template, which regards the categorization behavior. This will be used by WikiProject Notability to move certain articles off the main worklist into a special category. (See discussion here).

A new parameter "cat" should be added to the template. If this parameter is specified and nonempty, the article should not be categorized into Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability or its dated subcategories, but rather into the category " articles of unclear notability".

Thus, for example, would send the article into Category:Foobar articles of unclear notability.

As far as I understand, this requires the following change to the template code: The part



gets replaced by



Thanks, --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The template (now) incorporates category optout, whereby the default categories can be disabled using, eg,, or overridden using, eg,  .  Is this useful to you?  If it's not possible to use this system, readd the editprotected tag and I'll add the code you requested. Happy‑melon 15:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the change. However, I would prefer if only the first part of the category name needs to be given explicitely, i.e. " category=Foo ", not " category= ". We need to tag 100+ articles with this type of tag, and giving the full category link seems quite prone to typing errors. The name of the parameter ("cat", "category" or else) is not really important (just in case there are any restrictions). --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Happy‑melon 17:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Works fine now. Many thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

More specific categorisation?
Would it be helpful to people if this template automatically put articles into e.g.

Category:Academic articles with topics of unclear notability,Category:Music articles with topics of unclear notability as well as the chronological cats?

It's fairly straightforward to code, I've done similar work on Template:Football.

Could even have Category:Academic articles with topics of unclear notability from May 2007 and the like. (I belive this wouldn't require re-tagging, as long as the template isn't regularly substituted).

Would like to know if this would be beneficial before putting the coding time in!Paulbrock (talk) 13:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The question is whether it would really be used consistently. Already today, few editors actually add a parameter, most just use notability. However, as an alternative, see WikiProject Notability/Listing by project, where notability tagged articles are listed by their assigned WikiProject. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replying! Thought these pages may not get any traffic....Maybe that's because there is not (yet) a real difference between the options - the advantage in having these cats alongside is they wouldn't require manual updating - the code would automatically put them in appropriate categories.  I wonder if there may be value in cross-referencing the two - say for bios, an article may be tagged with  without being a member of WP:BIO, or, perhaps more likely, a member of WP:BIO, but only tagged with  . Some clever bot writer might be able to reconcile the two.
 * Put it another way - would anyone OBJECT to me doing this, maybe initially only for say Neologisms (likely to be small in number, reasonable chance category would be useful as well)? Paulbrock (talk) 21:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If you have a good use for it, if you wish to scan these categories - I don't object. Still, I think they won't be filled consistently. --B. Wolterding (talk) 22:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Could there be a general "Articles of unclear notability" category attached to this tag like the one attached to the hoax tag? Guest9999 (talk) 17:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * See . --B. Wolterding (talk) 22:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

List?
Where can I find a list of all articles that currently have Notability Tags? Kingturtle (talk) 12:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * For a list of all such articles, categorized by month, see . For a listing by WikiProject, see WikiProject Notability/Listing by project. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:57, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

This template confuses me
I'm confused by this template. If the article is not notable, why are we tagging the article with this template? Wouldn't it be better to take the article to AFD?

I was think one alternative might be to add the template, then after a period of about a fortnight if no objections have been formed or the tag has not been removed that the article be taken to AFD. What do people think? - Tbsdy lives (talk) 10:29, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The tag is meant to be used when things might not be notable. If people believe something is not notable then they will likely bring the page directly to AfD. -- Ned Scott 06:14, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * In addition to Ned's explanation, there are also cases where things might not be notable enough for their own article and should potentially be merged rather than deleted. Using a notability tag in such cases will help to consider what options to take after a reasonable period of alert through this template. – sgeureka t•c 07:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
 * These are all good points, but should they not be better explained in the template? - Tbsdy lives (talk) 10:56, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Judging by Template messages/Cleanup, this template already has one of the longest template texts. Notability is a vague term and is constantly under discussion. The best this template can thus do is link to all important project pages, and so it does. – sgeureka t•c 12:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, it certainly says a lot, yet amazingly it simultaneously manages to say very little. I mean, it says that "If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirection, merge or ultimately deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion." So who decides this? How long must you keep on this tag before its considered time for it to be taken for deletion? Or if you don't agree that the article isn't notable, can you just remove it?
 * As far as I can see, this template is, well - useless. Why don't we just take it to AFD and be done with it? - Tbsdy lives (talk) 10:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Since there is no hard-and-fast rule for notability, people are left decide when to add the tag, how long to leave it up, when to remove it, and when to take the article to AfD. You are free to ignore this "useless" template and take an article to AfD for lacking notability immediately - but be prepared to be asked why you didn't "warn" the article creators through a tag and didn't check [insert obscure reliable source with significant content] first. On the other hand, if you want to use this tag two months before going to AfD, you should still be prepared to get snow and speedy deletion !votes. For illustration - does this episode have notability or not, and does this episode (same article half a year later) have notability or not? This is just one of (the tens or hundreds of) thousands of articles where this template with the current wording comes in very handy before nuking a significant portion of wikipedia's database just because a overeager newbie started an article without establishing the notability of an obscure but nonetheless notable topic earlier. – sgeureka t•c 11:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Wording
The word "ultimately" is unneeded and should be stricken. It seems to imply that deletion follows a merge, which is, of course, erroneous. MrZaius talk  09:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Seems reasonable. Done. --- RockMFR 15:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Add films parameter
Template needs film lines &mdash; something like: | notability (films) Notability (films) is an established guideline. Hopefully uncontroversial. --Closeapple (talk) 01:10, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * film
 * movie
 * movies
 * films = notability guideline for films
 * ✅ ~  L'Aquatique   [  talk  ] 22:32, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Policy should not be linked to from Template
The proposed Notability (fiction) policy is currently linked to from this template. However, it clearly states on all proposal pages that they should not be linked to as policy. This should be removed immediately as it gives false authority from the viewer's perspective. If/When accepted, it should then be readded.Hooper (talk) 23:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, let's treat the "fiction" parameter value as an alias to "notability" then, i.e., link to the general notability guideline. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That makes sense to me. Atleast until the proposal is passed (which I assume it will be eventually).  That way we're not giving undue weight to non-policy. Hooper (talk) 19:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Is this a reason for deletion?
Is the presence of this template on an article for a period of time in and of itself a reason for deletion? Wikipedia isn't on a timeline, but I've seen AFD nomination that basically say "Notability template undressed for X months" (the exact number varies greatly). Is that a valid reason for deletion, even if there aren't any other major problems? Thanks. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:47, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


 * An article that does not establish notability can be nominated for deletion at any time by any editor. Tagging such an article with a clean-up tag is a courtesy to other editors who may be interesting in working to find reliable, independent, yada yada, sources, et al. Edit warring over the tags is disruptive and a waste of time that could be spent either working on other things or properly sourcing whatever article received a 'grace period'. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Way to not answer the question Jack. Shouldn't you be re-banned by now?  ;) Anyway, courtesy is not what it is.  If an article clearly doesn't meet Notability, the tagging editor would nominate it for deletion through one of the various methods of doing so.  This is just to alert other editors in hopes that one (possibly one more aware of the subject) can find those references.  I'd say it could be warranted for months if necessary.  We aren't on a timetable. Hooper (talk) 21:13, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

When can the notability template be removed from a page?
After a Notability has been added to a page, when is it reasonable to remove it? That is, who decides when the page has been enhanced to show that it is a notable subject? Is the Notability meant to be a message to administrators or a message to readers? &mdash;TedPavlic (talk) 18:14, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It should be a consensus of those that edit the page, though if you believed you've addressed the issue, you can be WP:BOLD and remove it yourself after doing so. If it's reverted, make sure you discuss this on the talk page instead of edit warring over it. --M ASEM 18:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Use common sense. If you're the only editor there, just improve, remove and watch. Most wikipedia article will never attract even a two-person "consensus". NVO (talk) 18:53, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Five lines long?

 * Note to users arriving from WP:CENT: The current draft idea can be seen at Template:Notability/sandbox. You may also view samples of the idea with many of the parameters already in place at Template:Notability/testcases. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:11, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I've started a new sandbox to experiment with changes to this template which make it less intrusive. Somehow it's been allowed to expand to a rather ridiculous fix lines long on a high-res monitor - and that's without an icon. For cleanup templates which are not specifically time-limited (as speedy, PROD or AfD templates are) this is totally excessive. I'm going to have a shot at correcting this myself later, but feel free to make suggestions in the sandbox. Test cases are also available to show the output given various parameters. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
 * How's this look? It's three lines, and has an icon more in keeping with cleanup templates. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Or even shorter: . I think that version looks much less obtrusive and more like most any other cleanup template. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I like the shorter versions, and don't see much of a good reason to insist on the old version. What still needs to be done though is the bolding of notability when categorizing this template (e.g. ). – sgeureka t•c 18:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I like the shorter versions as well. I would suggest two further changes: change "establish its notability" to "establish notability" (it's not the article's notability that's in question, but the subject's) and remove "more" from "more likely to be merged or deleted" as there is no antecedent to which "more" could refer. Jfire (talk) 18:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added in the bolding (bolding all instances of "notability guideline" and specific guideline names, but not the "for" in each one), and remove the "its" and "more." Should I look into posting something at a relevant noticeboard about this? -Drilnoth (talk) 19:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose the version referring to notability guidelines (even if it pipes to GNG). No article meets all notability guidelines. Keep reference to one and only GNG. NVO (talk) 18:48, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Changed to read "General Notability Guideline." -Drilnoth (talk) 18:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I suggest "reliable and independent sources". Autobiographical sources aren't what are wanted. Uncle G (talk) 15:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point; I've changed it to read, "Reliable, independent sources." I've also reworded the previous sentance slightly to keep it to two lines once parameters have been added. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I would add "secondary" in there somewhere. You're going to get users who think they can establish notability with sources from their own website or whatever. Also "independent" is misspelled. MuZemike 18:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Changed. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Since we're improving the notice; let's improve the procedure. To save us a lot of drama, anything tagged with this should be automatically sent to AfD within one month of tagging unless edits have been made. This will help keep the encyclopedia filled with articles written by one person and another person has called notability into question: we as a community can then decide which of the two positions has consensus - rather than having an interminable backlog of things tagged for years. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 20:59, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That would need a much bigger change, and I don't think that it would garner much support. Wikipedia is not on a timeline, and deletion is not a substitute for cleanup. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Interesting proposal, but I don't think Wikipedians freqenting AfD will be able to handle the literally thousands of articles sent to AfD a month after this rule is implemented. Furthermore, the placing/discarding of this template could and probably would be manipulated for personal interests. Themfromspace (talk) 22:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That's what PROD is for, not AfD. Also, this is not really the place to have this discussion. Ray (talk) 02:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd drop the templates that claim an article doesn't meet a proposed guideline. With proposals often failing, it should have no bearing on specific articles' fate. (Can you get a link in there that makes it easy to click to the template rather than typing it out? I prefer easy access to documentation) Also, there are several nn templates that should probably be rewritten in the same vain. - Mgm|(talk) 09:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Good points; other templates, like importance could probably use a rewrite at the same time. I'd fully support having an easy way to access documentation in the template itself, but I don't think that any of the other ambox templates have one, so it might be kind of odd. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd leave the importance template as is, since it states that an article does not say how the subject meets the inclusion criteria (but assumes that such a statement will come), while the notability template assumes that the subject does not meet them. Let this, however, be a statement of support for the shortening of the notability template. --  Blanchardb - Me•MyEars•MyMouth - timed 16:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I was thinking of rewording importance to read something more like: "The topic of this article appears to be notable, but the article does not currently indicate it." But that can be discussed more once this is resolved. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

editprotected Editprotected request: There seems to be some amount of consensus above... the reason for the only actual oppose !vote has been fixed. There have have also been four actual support !votes (including myself), but there are also numerous users who commented on possible changes to the new idea without actually saying "support;" most of those changes have now been made so I'd assume that those users now support the change. The only significant change related to the article's coding and parameters is the removal of the "proposed" parameter, since many proposed SNGs fail and so until they pass article's should probably be held against the GNG. The basic request is to just replace the content of the current notability template with the contents of Template:Notability/sandbox. If this needs further input before being changed, please let me know where I should request it. Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 22:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The last three Template:Notability/testcases don't look quite right: TV episodes links to a guideline that isn't about notability, "notability guideline for " doesn't link anywhere, and Wikipedia:Notability (software) is a defunct guideline and that parameter should probably just be dropped. Jfire (talk) 23:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Removed; they should now display as the default template without parameters does (I've also removed them from the testcases). -Drilnoth (talk) 23:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done--Aervanath (talk) 08:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)