Template talk:Notability/Archive 9

The notability template's google newspaper search is broken. A simple change to the search string should fix things, I hope?
An editor has tagged the Bonanza Air Lines article with a notability template. I strongly disagree with that action, but I'm here to address not that issue, but the template itself. While the notability template tries to be helpful by generating links that supposedly help you find sources, in actuality the template's newspaper search is currently broken.

Here is how the template does a Google newspaper search for the exact string "Bonanza Air Lines"...


 * https://www.google.com/search?&q=%22Bonanza+Air+Lines%22+site:news.google.com/newspapers&source=newspapers

The result from Google is No results found for "Bonanza Air Lines" site:news.google.com/newspapers.

Now, try this Google newspaper search for the exact same string...


 * https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Bonanza+Air+Lines%22&newwindow=1&tbs=bkt:s&tbm=bks&start=0

The result is a page filled with 100 newspaper articles, the maximum it can show at once. There are an additional 100 more hits on the second results page. Simply put, the notability template is using a broken search method. If people patrolling for notability are relying on the template's newspaper search link to determine if they need to tag the article, I can state without qualification they're being terribly misinformed by the bogus template search results.

Another issue, albeit probably beyond the scope of the template's logic: the template search used only "Air Lines" as part of the search string, but it did not attempt to also find "Airlines". Both terms are valid when dealing with mass-media searches for airline names, because people (including newspaper editors/writers/reporters) pretty much don't care if the official airline name uses "Air Lines" or "Airlines"; it's all the same to almost everyone, right? I don't know how/if it would be possible to make the template newspaper search aware of such nuances, of course, but I'm just pointing it out as another way the search can be misleading.

Clicking on the working Google newspaper searches below, using both terms, will result in just under 400 hits...


 * "bonanza airlines" (results page 1 of 2) 100 hits
 * "bonanza airlines" (results page 2 of 2) 100 hits
 * "bonanza air lines" (results page 1 of 2) 100 hits
 * "bonanza air lines" (results page 2 of 2) 96 hits

Bonanza Air Lines/Airlines getting mentioned in about 400 newspaper articles goes a long way towards establishing notability; yet when I clicked on the template's newspaper search link, I got no hits. I suppose it's possible, even likely, the template's search method worked in the past, but google (as they are known to do) might have changed something to break it, without notice.

It appears to me that a minor tweak to the generated search string should fix things. Can someone please look into this? Thanks. – Itsfullofstars (talk) 01:59, 29 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Note: this is implemented at Template:Find sources mainspace, which in turn is implemented by Module:Find sources/links/google newspapers. — Goszei (talk) 02:11, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe that I have made the necessary change at Special:Diff/1036028100. Like User:Itsfullofstars says, Google appears to have moved its newspapers to Books search, with special url parameters (instead of the previous News search). — Goszei (talk) 02:15, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
 * It's working again! Thanks for the incredibly quick response. Bravo! – Itsfullofstars (talk) 03:21, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Protected edit request 3 August 2021
Add the value  for WP:NEO (neologisms) in the SNG parameter. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 04:19, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ firefly  ( t · c ) 08:03, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Edit request: Make phrasing more suitable for use in Draft namespace
Core change: When in  namespace, change wording to suggest that notability should be fixed before publishing an article or submitting it for review.

Specific changes to the wikitext are implemented in the sandbox and shown in this diff between the primary template and sandbox.

A demo of the /sandbox version as seen in draft-space is available at.

The testcases all appear to still work with proper "article" text displaying outside of the draft namespace. I'm not familiar with the test case methodology used here though and haven't been over each case with a "fine-toothed comb" so any extra eyes there are appreciated.

Reasoning for requested change:
 * Wording specific to the purpose of the WP:Draft namespace may help avoid moving notability issues from draft namespace into main-space.
 * This template is already transcluded on over 500 pages in the Draft namespace. Since there doesn't appear to be any prohibition on using this template in Draft, it will likely continue to be used there. Indeed the "find sources" links provided in this template can be particularly helpful for drafting new content.

Why this is presumed to be uncontroversial: (edited to clarify presumption of uncontroversial-ness at 20:44, 18 March 2022 (UTC)) --N8wilson 20:22, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:N is well-established guideline which, if not addressed in draft, typically results in disposal of the main space article at a later time by merging, redirecting, or deletion.
 * If drafts are carried over to main-space with this template intact, the messaging specific to drafts just reverts to the same message currently used on articles. (So this is essentially no change in main article space.)
 * ✅ * Pppery * it has begun... 01:06, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

"Template:Unencyoclopedic" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Template:Unencyoclopedic and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 6 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 1234qwer1234qwer4 00:21, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Notability tag after no consensus AfD close
If the notability tag is removed, then the article should be nominated for deletion (if anything) rather than retagged. If the discussion ends in Keep, then the tag should not be re-added. But what if the discussion ends in No Consensus? The practice that I've seen is that the article is usually (though not always) retagged. This seems appropriate to me -- the article should not be immediately renominated, but tagging it as something that should possibly be nominated in the future may be of some value. Should the instructions be updated to handle this case? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 16:30, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I was wondering this, too, and to add some background, the problem derives from this:

Guide to deletion says:

Template:Notability says:

It turns out the latter is a very recent addition to the template page made on 15 June 2022 by the personal account of a Wikimedia Foundation employee, who is not an administrator. I agree this issue needs some clarification.  5Q5 &#124;&#9993;

When to remove this tag
Currently, the documentation for this template says:

I don't think this makes sense; the purpose of this tag is to help identify articles that need work to address notability issues. That includes articles that some editors are convinced are notable, but no one has demonstrated are notable.

It also can result in wasting the communities time; if we can avoid an AfD by demonstrating that a topic is notable prior to the AfD then we should encourage that, but the current text of this template does the opposite.

To address this, I suggest changing this to:

BilledMammal (talk) 07:36, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree with the proposed revision. In my view the template is useful when the cited sources don't appear to satisfy our notability criteria. However I know other editors feel it should only be used if the article is likely to be deleted at AFD. Looking for past discussions I did find [an old RFC] that closed as no consensus. Looking at the template revision history I found where the language was added ( Revision as of 13:20, 17 March 2007 ) but no comments about why. Looking at the Template talk archive #1 I found no discussion of the 'when to remove' material. Gab4gab (talk) 15:54, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:BOLDly implemented. BilledMammal (talk) 10:01, 21 May 2023 (UTC)