User:Sam Sailor/Boilerplates/Nnotes

__NOINDEX__ {| width=100% class="plainlinks" style="border:2px solid #FDD5B1; ; margin: 5px;"
 * - padding:1em;padding-top:0.5em;"
 * colspan="5" |

This page was last edited or modified on --.

AFD header
===PageName===

AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Alternative search terms
Old-fashioned, bulleted Find sources in-text


 * For India related AfD discussions per Points to note while debating in WikiProject India related AFDs


 * Search for always performs a whole phrase search. There is no need to use quotation marks in the parameter.

Arguments to avoid

 * Age - – Just because it's old, that doesn't mean it's notable.
 * Popularity - /  /  – Word-of-mouth is not only insufficient for Wikipedia notability, but it may also be original research.
 * Fame - /  – Regardless of the degree of fame, a living person or even a deceased person may only have an article about themselves if they meet notability guidelines for biographies. Brief public exposure or word-of-mouth only fame does not make one notable.
 * Talent - – It is nice to have such talent. If you are one of these people, keeping up the hard work may lead you one day to a Wikipedia article. But all too often, one's talent and greatness is a matter of personal taste.
 * Rank -
 * Prestigious position - – There are plenty of people out there in these positions who have never received the coverage needed to be given a Wikipedia article. In fact, a very small percentage of those in such positions have accomplished just that.
 * Non-profit/government operated - /  – An entity that is not out there to make a profit, and is funded by taxes or private donations, or does not operate using money at all, can be excluded if it fails to meet Wikipedia's general notability guidelines.

Arguments without arguments

 * Just a vote - – Try to present persuasive reasons in line with policy or consensus as to why the article/template/category/whatever should be kept/deleted.
 * Per nominator - – Participants are always encouraged to provide evidence or arguments that are grounded in policy, practice, or simple good sense to support their positions.
 * Just unencyclopedic - – Saying something is "encyclopedic" or "unencyclopedic" are empty arguments.
 * Just notable/Just not notable - /  – Simply stating that the subject of an article is not notable does not provide reasoning as to why the subject may not be notable.
 * Just does not belong - – Such arguments are purely personal point-of-view. They make no use of policies, guidelines, or even logic.
 * Just pointing at a policy or guideline - – While merely citing a policy or guideline may give other editors a clue as to what the reasoning is, it does not explain specifically how the policy applies to the discussion at hand.
 * Assertion of notability - – An assertion of importance or significance (not "notability", as such, though these are often and unfortunately conflated) is related to a potential reason to delete an article, but not one that is relevant at Articles for Deletion, where the merits of notability are determined.
 * Begging for mercy - – Such arguments make no use of policy or guidelines whatsoever. They are merely a campaign on the part of the commentator to alter others' points-of-view.

Personal point of view

 * I like it - – Personal preference is not a valid reason to keep or delete an article or other content.
 * I don't like it - /  – This is the converse to I like it directly above.
 * They don't like it -
 * It's interesting / It's not interesting - /  – Any subject or topic may be of interest to someone, somewhere. And on the converse, there are any number of subjects or topics which an individual editor may not care about. However, personal interest or apathy is not a valid reason to keep or delete an article.
 * It's useful / It's not useful - /  – Just saying something is useful or useless without providing explanation and context is not helpful or persuasive in the discussion.
 * It doesn't do any harm - – While it is certainly a good thing for Wikipedia articles to be aesthetically pleasing or well laid out from a graphic design perspective, the mere appearance of an article is not a factor in whether the subject of the article is justifiably suitable for an article on Wikipedia.
 * It's funny - – Wikipedia is not the place to seek publicity for a cause, product, individual, ideology, etc. Promotional or partisan "information" in particular generally fails Wikipedia's requirements of neutrality and verifiability.
 * It contains valuable information - – Value is subjective. Simply saying it has value or no value with out substantiating the position of why or how is not a helpful or persuasive contribution to a discussion.
 * It's valuable / It's not valuable - /

Surmountable problems

 * Poorly written article - /  /  – In the Wiki model, an article which may currently be poorly written, poorly formatted, lack sufficient sources, or not be a comprehensive overview of the subject, can be improved and rewritten to fix its current flaws. That such an article is lacking in certain areas is a relatively minor problem, and such articles can still be of benefit to Wikipedia. In other words, the remedy for such an article is cleanup, not deletion.
 * There must be sources - – Our criterion for good articles is to include enough references so that all their content is verifiable. When an editor challenges the verifiability of a claim, the burden of evidence to provide reliable sources is on the editors that include it. Unless you can indicate what and where the sources are, they are not verifiable.
 * Offline sources only - – On Wikipedia, we assume good faith. There is no distinction between using online versus offline sources. Offline sources are just as legitimate as those that are accessible to everyone online.
 * Nobody's working on it (or impatience with improvement) - – The article shouldn't be deleted for its current status only because no one has improved it yet.
 * Orphan status - – An article being an orphan is not a valid reason for exclusion.
 * Out of date - – To consider a page for deletion on the basis that it is not up to date is to demolish the house while it is being built.
 * Susceptibility to policy violations -
 * Delete this page because the topic isn't notable (I've never heard of merger or redirection) - – The fact that a topic is not notable is not, alone and in of itself, a valid grounds for deleting a page, its content, or its page history. It is at most an argument for merger and/or redirection.

Notability fallacies

 * Existence - – The main purpose of the requirement to have all articles and information drawn from identifiable sources  is to prove that everything is true and accurate. But mere existence does not automatically make a subject worthy of inclusion.
 * Google test - – Note further that searches using Google's specialty tools, such as Google Books, Google Scholar, and Google News are more likely to return reliable sources that can be useful in improving articles than the default Google web search.
 * Article age - /  – Having survived a long time on Wikipedia does not guarantee the article a permanent spot. Conversely, being a new creation does not protect an article from being nominated for deletion.
 * Subject no longer exists - – Notability is not temporary. The continuing existence of an article does not depend on the continuing existence of its subject.
 * Pageview stats - /  – Simply because a page is not of interest to Wikipedia readers does not mean it is not notable. Conversely, just because an article is popular does not mean it is within the project scope, although article popularity is likely to correspond with some form of notability which should then be straightforward to verify.
 * Support for article - – AfDs are not about voting. The outcome of a deletion discussion is determined on the basis of reference to policies and guidelines, not a simple headcount.
 * Number of editors involved -
 * Article size - /
 * Unreliable sources - – News sources that publish in a blog format may be as reliable as a traditional newspaper.
 * Trivial coverage - – The general notability guideline stipulates that in order for a subject to be worthy of a standalone article, significant coverage that addresses the subject in detail is required, to the point that original research that involves extracting information is not needed. Merely being mentioned in a source whose primary purpose is to cover an entirely different subject does not necessarily satisfy this guideline. Once notability has been established, some of these sources may be useful in verifying additional information, but they should not be used as a reason why the subject is notable.On the other hand, the notability guideline doesn't require that the subject is the main topic of the source material, only that it's more than a trivial mention. The spirit and the letter of the guideline are concerned with having enough content to write articles from a neutral point of view. Critical commentary from reputable professional reviewers and prestigious awards are examples of short but significant (i.e. non trivial) mentions that have been used to establish notability and are useful to write Reception sections (see the specific guidelines for books, films, music and artists); common sense and editorial judgement should be used to reach a consensus about the sources available.
 * It's in the news -
 * Geographic scope - – Notability is not about assigning an elite status to a select group of subjects. It is about having the ability to write neutral, verifiable, encyclopedic-style information about them.
 * Arbitrary quantity - – A commonly seen argument at AfD is "Subject has X number of Y, that's notable/non-notable". Notability isn't determined by something's quantity of members, but rather by the quality of the subject's verifiable, reliable sources. An article on a topic is more likely to pass the notability test with a single article in Encyclopedia Britannica than because it has 1 million views on YouTube.
 * Subjective importance - – Conversely, some subjects' notability may be limited to a particular country, region, or culture. However, arguments that state that because a subject is unknown or not well known among English readers it should not have an article encourage a systemic bias on Wikipedia.
 * Crystal ball -
 * Past inaction by sources -
 * Notability is inherited - /
 * Lots of sources - /  – Whilst showing the subject is mentioned in a number of sources, not all sources are reliable and may only be trivial mentions.
 * Wikipedias in other languages - – A notable topic will often be covered by Wikipedia articles in many languages other than English; however, the existence of such articles does not indicate, by itself, that a topic is notable.

Individual merit

 * What about article x? - – The nature of Wikipedia means that you cannot make a convincing argument based solely on whether other articles do, or do not, exist; because there is nothing stopping anyone from creating any article.
 * Other categories exist -
 * All or nothing -

Meta-reasoning

 * Wikipedia should be about everything - /  – Yes, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and as such, it should convey information on all branches of knowledge. However, "all branches of knowledge" is not "everything".
 * Do not lose the information or the effort - – It is unfortunate that editors put effort into writing or maintaining articles that do not meet Wikipedia policy or guidelines.
 * Better here than there -
 * That's only a guideline, proposal or essay - /
 * Arguments to the person - /
 * Repeated nominations - /
 * Denying the antecedent - – Denying the antecedent (and its variants, like the fallacy fallacy) is a formal fallacy. It basically consists in confusing a necessary with a sufficient condition. All Wikipedia policies are necessary conditions, not necessarily sufficient.

Article page

 * (1st time nomination)
 * (merge contents from AfD'ed article)
 * (1st time nomination)
 * (2nd etc. nomination)
 * (Cleanup req'd after AfD)
 * (Post AfD CSD G4 deletion needed)
 * (Post AfD CSD G6 deletion needed)

Discussion page

 * (participant clarification) – When to use: the user commenting has no contributions other than in the discussion and the article(s) being considered for deletion.
 * Tag:
 * Edit summary:
 * (closing in process)
 * (participation clarification)
 * Tag:
 * Edit summary:
 * (discussion clarification)
 * Tag:
 * Edit summary:
 * (previous discussions)
 * Tag:
 * Edit summary:
 * (participant clarification)
 * Tag:
 * Edit summary:
 * (participant clarification) – When to use: the user commenting has few contributions other than in the discussion and the article(s) being considered for deletion.
 * Tag:
 * Edit summary:
 * (participant is a confirmed sockpuppet) – When to use: the user is a confirmed sock.
 * Use: or
 * Tag:
 * Alt. tag if account is blocked:
 * Edit summary:
 * (participant clarification)
 * Tag:
 * Edit summary:
 * (participant clarification)
 * Tag:
 * Edit summary:
 * (sensitive discussion close)

User talk page

 * (for nominator mistake)
 * (for new participant)
 * (warning)

Article talk page

 * (1st and subsequent nominations, preferred template)
 * (2nd+ nom)
 * (merge contents into AfD'ed article)
 * (AfD, Good/Featured, and many other article "events")

General


Then comes the Subject-specific guidelines. Per April 2019, we have 12 such guidelines:

Events




Geographic features






Geographic regions, areas and places




Music




Musicians and ensembles

 * and



Songs and singles

 * and

Hospitals

 * – not a notability guideline, but part of WikiProject Hospitals

Schools






Products and services


If a company is notable, information on its products and services should generally be included in the article on the company itself, unless the company article is so large that this would make the article unwieldy.

Software
/

People










Pornographic actors and models


Criteria for pornographic actors and models was superseded by the above ( / / ) and the basic guidelines after a March 2019 request for comment.

Politicians and judges




Sports personalities




Others
'''Watch out for essays! They are marked with '''

Aircrafts
and



Aircraft accidents and incidents
/

Fiction
/ / Fictional elements

Media
Notice that despite the page name Notability (media), it is not categorized in Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines, it is in Category:Wikipedia supplemental pages.