Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Krista White


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. I think and  are just not going to see eye-to-eye on this. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  14:58, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Krista White

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Non-notable person. Lack of GNG and has dubious sources. Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 15:52, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 18:08, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Arkansas-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 18:08, 1 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. Background: tagged for WP:PROD by the nominator with the comment:
 * non-notable person
 * Proposed deletion contested by me with the comment:
 * Presumptively notable as having "received a well-known and significant award or honor" (America's Next Top Model winner) per section WP:ANYBIO within guideline WP:BIO
 * Whatever any one person thinks of America's Next Top Model, it is, without reasonable doubt, a "well-known and significant award or honor" from the point of view of the general culture. And the General notability guideline (WP:GNG) is only one section of the guideline WP:Notability (WP:N), which unequivocally states that the GNG is not the only way of showing presumptive notability (emphasis added):
 * A topic is presumed to merit an article if:
 * 1. It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right; and
 * 2. It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy.
 * The guideline WP:Notability (people) (WP:BIO) is one of those listed in that box. Contrary to popular deletionist opinion, a topic need not necessarily meet WP:GNG in order to have a presumption of notability. Does Krista White meet WP:GNG? We don't even need to know.
 * Likewise, the section WP:NEXIST within the guideline WP:N states as its title:
 * Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article
 * Deletionists frequently cite "dubious sources", but that is not a valid basis for deletion according to guidelines. I'm aware that there are essays that make claims to the contrary. They're simply wrong.
 * This nomination for deletion was contrary to guidelines and should be rejected out of hand, without any need to improve the article beforehand, or to investigate its sourcing, or to evaluate whether its topic meets the GNG. Doubtless as a recognized stub the article does need improvement to make a better encyclopedia—but not to justify keeping the article.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 19:09, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I do not agree that winning this title is the type of honour envisaged by the "well-known and significant" wording of WP:ANYBIO, or used in practice at AfD in evaluating notability. And, as for WP:NEXIST, there has to be some reasonable prospect that notability-granting coverage exists for it to be invoked. For an American subject involved in popular culture whose purported notability was achieved in recent years such significant coverage in independent reliable sources should be easily findable online. Have you found any such coverage? 86.17.222.157 (talk) 18:57, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Past AfDs that contradict the plain meaning of the guidelines are irrelevant. As explained in the policy WP:CONSENSUS, there are varying levels of consensus, and that of policies and guidelines is the most rigorous standard. It may not be overridden by the marginal consensus of AfDs, which barely counts as consensus at all by the standards of WP:CONSENSUS. Any one AfD draws a negligible fraction of the community, nor do most editors habitually frequent AFDs. AfDs are answerable to policies and guidelines, not the other way around.
 * The whole point of having notability guidelines other than WP:GNG is that "reasonable prospect" can be demonstrated in other ways than by actually exhibiting sources. In cases where the conditions of one of the special notability guidelines are met, any demand that sources be exhibited to justify a keep amounts to an attempt to reduce all notability guidelines to the GNG, an approach which is explicitly rejected by the guideline WP:N, of which WP:GNG is merely one section.
 * There can be no reasonable doubt that ANTM is well known. And if the significance referenced in "well known and significant" is to be judged by the same general culture whose state of knowledge determines what is well known—and not by AfD participants—then that significance cannot be doubted either.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 20:22, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I doubt it, and I'm a pretty reasonable person. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 20:34, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not a matter of what you (or I) consider to be significant. Whatever you or I may think, the general culture has made its own judgment that winning ANTM is significant. If you still doubt that, try doing searches, not on Krista White, but on ANTM itself. You'll get an eyeful.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 21:03, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not so stuck in an ivory tower as not to know what America's Next Top Model is, and I don't doubt that there are loads of web sites that write about it, but I have seen no evidence that its winners are covered to such an extent in reliable sources to mean that they can automatically be considered notable. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 22:47, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

[unindent for readability; still replying to 86.17.222.157]
 * According to WP:ANYBIO, having "received a well-known and significant award or honor" like ANTM is presumptive evidence of notability. Without a specific and cogent rebuttal to that presumption, no further evidence is needed before making a keep decision, which is the whole point of having a guideline like WP:ANYBIO. Any demand to produce such further evidence before making a keep decision is contrary to the guidelines unless it is accompanied by strong and specific evidence to rebut the presumption of notability. (Such rebuttal evidence might consist in reporting of thorough WP:BEFORE searches with negative results. Have you done this? If so, you haven't mentioned it.)
 * Similarly, it would defeat the purpose of WP:ANYBIO if we judged "significance" in "well-known and significant" by the opinions of AfD participants as to what characteristics make it likely that suitable sources exist. Such opinions could be argued on their own merits, as direct applications of WP:NEXIST, and WP:ANYBIO would add nothing. The point of WP:ANYBIO is that an award that the public knows well, and sees as significant, confers a presumption of notability independently of any arguments that could be made from WP:GNG and even WP:NEXIST. The only reason the guideline needs to add "significant" to "well-known" at all is that there could be well-known awards that the public does not see as significant. What AfD participants, as opposed to the public, see as "significant" is beside the point. Applying WP:ANYBIO involves judging public opinion—not polling our own opinions about the significance of an award.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 09:37, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fashion-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:10, 4 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete lack of sufficient reliable sources to show notability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:54, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Please read the above. The GNG is not the only way to show notability. For the winner of a well-known award or honor, a presumption of notability is already present. —Syrenka V (talk) 07:35, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * GNG takes precedence over anything else. In this case the subject in question does not have 'enough' GNG to warrant an article. Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 15:17, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * No, the guideline is WP:N, not GNG. Unscintillating (talk) 16:02, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Nothing in any policy or guideline supports the idea that "GNG takes precedence over anything else." And as discussed and documented above, the guideline WP:N, of which WP:GNG is merely one section, explicitly rejects the idea that satisfying GNG is the only path to a presumption of notability.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 19:26, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * This !vote is based on looking in the article, so is not a valid notability argument. Further the !vote is WP:IGNORINGATD, where WP:ATD is a policy that all editors should normally follow.  Unscintillating (talk) 16:02, 5 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep NPASR No arguments for deletion.  The WP:IGNORINGATD of the nomination is unambiguous.  Further, WP:BEFORE D1 Google news shows sources not mentioned by the nominator.  While the absence of the WP:BEFORE D1 remains unexplained, I think these sources are sufficiently strong (NYT and articles in Vietnamese) that the explanation is that the nomination was made without using the WP:BEFORE checklist.  Unscintillating (talk) 16:02, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that this New York Times article supports notability, or have I missed another NYT piece? The message that I get from the brief quote from White there is that winning this competition did not lead to any sort of notability in the modelling world. And I don't understand Vietnamese, but the sources in that language all appear to include her in a list of winners of the competition, rather that say any more than a few words specifically about White. Or can you use your knowledge of that language to point to a source that has significant coverage of her? 86.17.222.157 (talk) 19:00, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * What I see from the snippet is that the MYT article's URL calls the title, "americas-next-top-model-finale-where-are-the-winners-now". I can also see that the article is capable of sourcing one of the "citation needed" tags in the article regarding "Rip the Runway".  I can't imagine how this doesn't support notability, but I'm not arguing to notability, I'm arguing that this source should have been discovered as part of WP:BEFORE D1 to prepare the community for this nomination.  I also don't speak Vietnamese, but again, I can see enough of the snippet to see that it should have been discovered during WP:BEFORE D1.  The fact that you have questions about these sources shows that you could have used better preparation.  Unscintillating (talk) 20:26, 5 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. Comment. With all due respect, I can not see in the "sources" currently provided on the page any proof of notability. My very best wishes (talk) 01:35, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The current state of sourcing isn't used to define notability. Unscintillating (talk) 01:55, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Indeed, quick check shows a number of additional sources. Moreover, checking America's Next Top Model shows that winners are probably sufficiently notable to satisfy criteria for a person. My very best wishes (talk) 02:16, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 00:46, 8 November 2017 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 01:14, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete My apologies, but I am not convinced that winning a reality show competition qualifies as a "well-known and significant award or honor". The claim that winning ANTM is, without reasonable doubt, a "well-known and significant award or honor" from the point of view of the general culture, needs some sort of source, as there is plenty of room for interpretation of the word "significant". In order to claim that "consensus is overridden" by the policy itself, it must be crystal-clear what "significant" means; I would argue to the point of actually stating in the policy itself that winning a reality show competition qualifies. Failing that, we must fall back to either a reliable source actually documenting the "significance" of winning a reality competition (and not just claiming that "public opinion says it is significant"), or using tried-and-true consensus to determine what "significant" really does mean specifically in this context. Two people here have already come to opposite conclusions, so clearly there is ambiguity in the term. Furthermore there has yet to be anything approaching a consensus (that I can find) that reality show winners have any special notability on WT:Notability itself where WP:ANYBIO actually lives, let alone on any of the AfDs for ANTM contestants . WP:REALITY attempted to codify such a stance but failed; WP:NMODEL (and WP:NACTOR, etc.) don't mention anything about winning a competition of any kind. And honestly, what makes winning a reality show significant in the first place? The Scripps National Spelling Bee is much harder with far more contestants, fewer winners per year (1 vs 2), viewed by nearly as many people, and clearly doesn't impart notability. Winning the Jeopardy! College Championship has approximately the same number of contestants, also takes place over a series of episodes, and typically watched by more than three times as many people as ANTM. So what makes ANTM, the 142nd-rated television show of 2011-12, and the 30th-rated reality show of that same season, worthy of being called a "significant" award? Even Survivor, a much higher-rated and longer-running series, doesn't have articles for all its winners. So let's just set WP:ANYBIO aside for a moment, as I don't think this qualifies. (never mind declaring that passing WP:ANYBIO prima facie entitles someone to an article is patently false; all of these additional criteria come with the caveat meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included.) So now we are back to WP:GNG. Yes, this is not the only way to pass notability, but as we've already addressed WP:ANYBIO, and she doesn't pass WP:NMODEL/WP:NACTOR, that's really all that's left. So what kind of coverage does Ms. White have? I can find a number of sources that were published within a few days of her winning , but I would argue that these merely support WP:BLP1E. So what about significant WP:SUSTAINED coverage? That's a bit harder to find, but these are what I located that weren't passing mentions: , , , , , . Notice how every one of these articles discusses the whole group of winners (or contestants in one case). They clearly establish the notability of the group as a whole (and would qualify for a standalone list, if it weren't already an integral part of the ANTM page itself), but I don't believe they establish the notability of the individual members of the list. Clearly all of the models merit inclusion in the list, and they are indeed all mentioned on the ANTM page. But I don't see them as individually notable as a result.  C Thomas3   (talk) 11:13, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your thoughtful contribution. These are interesting arguments on interpretation of guidelines like WP:ANYBIO. And some serious WP:BEFORE work has been done. Accordingly, I'm listing Krista White at the rescue list of the Article Rescue Squadron (ARS), which I hadn't done before. Until now, I didn't think any of the arguments for deletion warranted a search for sources. Since your arguments are on a number of separate points, I'll be replying to them piecemeal.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 03:34, 17 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment on wider categories to which ANTM belongs: no one advocating a keep here has claimed that all reality shows, or even just all televised modeling competitions, are so culturally iconic as that winning any one of them counts as a "well-known and significant award or honor". There are some other individual shows (like American Idol) that would qualify, but probably not broad categories. As some of the notability guideline talk-page discussion quoted by indicates, the differences within these categories are more significant than the similarities.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 04:52, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I would hesitate comparing American Idol, the number-one show on television for a number of years in two separate time slots, with America's next top model, which never had high viewership and was out of the top 100 for all but its first few seasons. American Idol and Survivor may not have invented the reality TV competition show, but they are the two franchises primarily responsible for popularizing it, and were both ratings juggernauts for over a decade. ANTM could probably be considered a WP:MILL copy, to be honest. It received less than a tenth of the viewership of those two franchises, and significantly less than probably 30 or 40 others as well. And its winners have simply not parlayed their turn on the show into any kind of lasting significance like the winners of American Idol largely have (with a couple of exceptions, who would be notable under WP:GNG). Are we also saying that receiving the winning rose on the Bachelor/Bachelorette is a "significant and well-known award"? Those shows have been far more popular than ANTM, and the winners receive equal or greater coverage. I am not doubting the "well-known" part of winning a reality TV competition, just the "significant" part. Awards like the Nobel and Fields medal are ones that recognize a global and historic career accomplishment; similarly, Academy awards and such indicate high achievement against the best of the best in their own fields. Reality shows like ANTM find unknowns to compete against each other in order to give one of them the chance to begin a career in that industry. It's like saying we should give significance to winning the Pacific Coast League MVP when it specifically excludes all of the best players (who are all in the majors).  C Thomas3   (talk) 19:55, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * On viewership numbers: being the number-one-rated show surely does contribute strongly toward notability, but lesser ratings are not at all strong evidence against it. Most indicators of notability are sufficient conditions, not necessary conditions; "OR", not "AND". Think of Star Trek: The Original Series, which had its first run canceled after three low-rated seasons. Statistics for name recognition over a period of time might be more compelling, if available; if not, remember that the things that are easiest to quantify need not be most important. I don't think it's an accident that I recognized the name of America's Next Top Model instantly, but had no idea that the Pacific Coast League even existed. (For that matter, does any specific minor-league baseball team have good name recognition?) How many people watch a show live is less important than how many still know or care a decade later. (This is one reason why I draw the opposite conclusion to yours from "where are they now" articles.)
 * On "award or honor" versus merely "winner": despite the uncontested fame and notability of Survivor, it sounds odd to me to call winning Survivor an "award or honor" at all, let alone a significant one. Ditto for getting the rose on Bachelor/Bachelorette. An extreme case would be winning a particular lottery, which is clearly not an award or honor no matter how notable the lottery itself might have become. I think you're onto something about the distinction between victories that are merely victories, versus those that convey some form of commendation that makes them awards or honors. But, returning to one of my original points, it's public opinion and the general culture that determine which victories count as significant awards or honors. WP:ANYBIO cannot possibly mean "significant award or honor" by some objective criterion (no such exists), nor by the personal understanding of "significance" on the part of the few people who show up at a given AfD. If there were a consensus at, for example, WikiProject Biography (or in this case, at WikiProject Fashion) as to a specific understanding of "significant award or honor", I would defer to that. But without such a consensus, the understanding of "significance" that is most in line with the purpose of WP:ANYBIO is that status as a "significant award or honor" is determined by the same public opinion that determines what is or is not "well-known". And the public is under no obligation to be fair or objective. Are spelling bees, Jeopardy!, minor-league baseball, and even Survivor more demanding than ANTM? It doesn't matter, if it's ANTM winners that the public tracks for years, and not the others.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 04:26, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment on "where are they now" articles that feature Krista White (like those linked above, from BuzzFeed, the New York Times, In Touch Weekly, E! Online, PopSugar, and Entertainment Weekly): the significance of these articles is quite opposite to what attributes to them. "Where are they now" articles exist on a variety of competitions, and they do not automatically feature capsule biographies of all the winners, as these on ANTM do. (The one from PopSugar even gives individual capsule biographies for all 204 contestants!) For comparison, I searched for "where are they now" articles on the Scripps National Spelling Bee, introduced above by  as a term of comparison. I found a couple of "where are they now" articles from Slate and Inverse Culture, but their structure was very different from the ANTM articles. There was no attempt at capsule biographies of all winners, or even of all recent winners for some definition of "recent". Instead, they gave broad generalizations about the winners as a class, with more detailed information about a very few winners selected as examples. This kind of article supports the notability of the competition itself and of the specific winners given detailed coverage (Rebecca Sealfon in particular clearly needs her own article, not just a redirect as she has at present!), but it does not present the competition as conferring notability on all its winners. By contrast, six different publications giving capsule biographies of all ANTM winners for the competition's entire history are making a very strong statement that all ANTM winners are worthy of coverage (and thus notable!) as individuals simply because they won a cycle of ANTM. (PopSugar even votes to extend that to all contestants, but it appears to be alone in that.) Note that WP:SIGCOV within WP:N specifically states that the topic "does not need to be the main topic of the source material". So these articles not only support the notability under WP:GNG of ANTM itself, and of every one of the individual winners they cover, including Krista White—they also support the status of winning ANTM as a "well-known and significant award or honor", conferring notability via WP:ANYBIO even on winners in cycles after their publication.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 06:30, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. —Syrenka V (talk) 08:49, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't equate the inclusion of a couple of lines of bio with significance of the award in question. As an example, I couldn't find an article with bios for the list of Nobel laureates for economics, but I don't think you would find anyone who would say that is less well-known or prestigious than ANTM.  C Thomas3   (talk) 19:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I also agree that in order to establish notability, the subject need not be the primary topic of the article, but the coverage does need to be significant. A large image and a single paragraph of bio is not, in my opinion, significant (remove the image from the article and then give it a more honest assessment of the depth of coverage). The articles are merely expanded lists, giving notability to the entirety of the contents but not to any individual entry.  C Thomas3   (talk) 19:27, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * "Where are they now" articles with capsule bios are one way of showing notability of those covered, and of showing an award's power to confer notability; there are many, many others, and this particular form of evidence of notability is not to be expected in every case, nor does it trump all other evidence in deciding which awards are well-known or prestigious. The power of the Nobel to confer notability was never in doubt. And there are publications about Nobelists that attempt comprehensive individual coverage, at least within a subfield; they just don't (to my knowledge) take the form of online news stories. I actually read, not too long ago, a short book entitled The Nobel Prize winning discoveries in infectious diseases (Rifkind and Freeman 2005, Elsevier, ISBN 978-0-12369353-2). It wasn't exactly a "where are they now"; it was more a matter of recounting their discoveries, setting them in historical context, and drawing out their implications for the present. What matters is what level of coverage the audience expects, and that expectation is likely to be quite different for scientists than for fashion models.
 * The audience's expectations also make a great deal of difference to what counts as significant coverage. The bar set by WP:SIGCOV is not particularly high: merely that "no original research is needed to extract the content" and it is not a "trivial mention"—essentially, an aside, irrelevant to the principal point, as shown by WP:SIGCOV's example of mentioning that Bill Clinton belonged to a particular band in high school. None of these capsule biographies are asides, nor do any require original research to extract their content. If these six publications had not felt that these capsule bios would be seen as significant by their readers, they would not have included them at all—as the "where are they now" articles on the spelling bee did not, except for a few examples singled out. And in no case would a mere list, without the biographies, have been an acceptable substitute from the point of view of the audience; there is a qualitative difference between a series of capsule biographies and a simple list. (Nor would a gallery of photos without text, or a sequence of text biographies without photos, have been acceptable—the separation of text from photography for purposes of determining significance is not legitimate.) Unlike the case of the spelling bee, omitting any of the capsule biographies of ANTM winners would have impaired the impact of the article.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 02:53, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I do appreciate the points you are making, but you are basing many of them on claims about the publishers’ motives and their readers’ expectations that are simply not possible to know. It is also not possible to know what the general public thinks about anything without some kind of reliable source (and ideally sources), which is the original point I was trying to make. If you can direct me to a source that clearly and explicitly asserts that winning ANTM is “significant” (which is problematic on its face because that word is itself subjective), then I would accept it. But without that, the only thing we can use is consensus of Wikipedia editors to determine if it is or isn’t. That is how we both create and interpret policy when it is even slightly ambiguous, which this most definitely is. You clearly have an opinion, as do I, but that’s just the (dissenting) opinions of two editors. A number of other people have also inconclusively weighed in on the topic elsewhere, as I pointed out in my WP:BEFORE, which clearly indicates that this isn’t a case of WP:BLUE. So as of now, we don’t have a consensus that reality show winners meet the WP:ANYBIO requirement, which I would argue means it isn’t a valid notability test at this time.  C Thomas3   (talk) 06:04, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Lack of absolute certainty does not equate with "impossible to know". Both the guideline WP:N and the policy WP:CONSENSUS are full of implicit—and, in some cases, explicit—appeals to judgment (in deciding what is notable or what the consensus of a discussion is, respectively).
 * While WP:N does ask for "objective evidence" of notability, it is equally clear that interpretation and judgment will be required in deciding what qualifies. The evidence required by WP:N doesn't take the form of explicit assertions that a topic is notable ("worthy of note")—it takes the form of sources that have treated the topic as notable, by taking note of it. We still have to judge whether those sources are reliable, and whether their decision to cover the topic was motivated by its journalistic or scholarly interest to their audience, or might have been influenced by promotional factors. Similarly, even if a source did state explicitly that winning ANTM is "significant", that would merely give us that one source's opinion, and would be less telling than what we actually have—the publication of multiple sources that treat the victory as significant by tracking all the winners over time. The relevant judgments about the psychology of the publishers and their audiences are no more uncertain than those typically made in most evaluations of sources.
 * If I might play devil's advocate against my own position, what comes closest to creating real, rather than theoretical, doubt about these sources is the possibility that the impetus to publish them might somehow be traceable to ANTM's PR department. In rejecting this possibility, I see the number of sources as significant—as well as the fact that one of them is the New York Times.
 * More about ambiguity in consensus later.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 03:06, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * On ambiguity in consensus: a notability criterion like WP:ANYBIO, which is supported by long-term and broad-based consensus, does not cease to be "valid" in cases "when it is even slightly ambiguous". In the context of legal theory, that kind of claim would be called textualism or strict constructionism, and WP:CONSENSUS does not encourage such narrow approaches. Instead, it makes sense to refer to the purpose of WP:ANYBIO—why those who participated in the creation of that consensus reached the conclusion they did—and to avoid excessively narrow interpretations that would defeat that purpose. WP:ANYBIO largely loses its point if its intentionally vague language is interpreted as inapplicable whenever its application would require judgment—that's almost every case. Instead, WP:ANYBIO should be interpreted as an extension of WP:GNG—a way to judge that something is "worthy of note" in a slightly less direct way than WP:GNG dictates, by leveraging public opinion—and source coverage—of an award rather than an individual.
 * Indeed, this kind of process of reasoning is largely what achievement of consensus is, at least at levels below that of policies and guidelines. It is not a separate source of information that makes interpretation of ambiguity unnecessary. According to WP:TALKDONTREVERT with WP:CONSENSUS:
 * In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing policies and guidelines. The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view.
 * At the policy and guideline level, pure numbers (across the whole community) may have to carry some weight. There are a few policies that come down from Jimbo and the Foundation and are "non-negotiable", like WP:NPOV, but pure reasoning from them isn't likely to determine what the other policies and guidelines should be; in cases of disagreement, it may be necessary to fall back on "This is what the majority of Wikipedians want Wikipedia to be". But at lower levels of consensus—particularly that of AfDs, the lowest, shortest-term, and smallest-scale consensus there is—consensus is just a matter of interpreting what our best reasoning can derive from higher-level consensus, and that remains true when the higher level is ambiguous.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 05:21, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Again, I appreciate your arguments, but I have to disagree. You are mixing arguments for notability of an award versus significance of that award. You are claiming that awards are significant merely because published sources seem to take notice of them; I would argue that makes them notable, but not necessarily significant in the WP:ANYBIO sense of the word. The Golden Raspberries are notable, certainly, and garner significant reader curiosity, but I doubt that anyone would consider winning one to be a significant achievement (most winners are too embarrassed to accept them). If significant were intended to be a synonym of notable, the policy would have used that word (which has a much more specific meaning at Wikipedia) and “well known” would be redundant and unnecessary. Clearly the intent was that the award be both notable and separately significant, which therefore must have a different meaning. Also: I didn’t say that policy becomes invalid when it is ambiguous: I said it requires interpretation in that case. You mention the law, which follows the exact same process. If a law is clear in its meaning and everyone agrees that it means the same thing (i.e. it is never challenged), then consensus has been achieved. However, if a law is challenged, it is up to a court to interpret how the law applies in that specific circumstance . It is no different here, except we are our own court: it is up to us as editors to weigh in and decide what the appropriate definition is. And while I do agree that AfD is the most temporary form of consensus due to lack of participation (very low on the precedent scale), it still can be applied if there is no higher consensus to draw upon. And the only higher discussions to date (linked above) are inconclusive. So of course you are welcome to start an AFC to build a higher consensus, but as of now one does not exist. And until a consensus does exist, I don’t believe you can apply the policy in this way.  C Thomas<sup style="font-size: x-small; color: brown;">3   (talk) 06:52, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Let me also point out one other thing: I am not saying that reality show winners (or even winners of this particular reality show) can’t be notable. I am merely saying that there has yet to be a consensus at any level of discussion that winning this reality show (or any reality show) meets the criteria set in WP:ANYBIO. And as I noted before, I have found many attempts at such a consensus, so it isn’t that there simply hasn’t been a previous discussion. Clearly you feel they should meet the criteria. Just as clearly I feel they shouldn’t (at least automatically). So we haven’t achieved consensus here either, either way. That doesn’t mean, however, I don’t think you have some reasonable arguments for notability of Krista White specifically under GNG (you do, though I think I have some equally reasonable arguments the other way :) ). And I would be interested to hear more on that front, but I think we’ve just about beaten WP:ANYBIO to death without accomplishing much.  C Thomas<sup style="font-size: x-small; color: brown;">3   (talk) 07:22, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * "Without accomplishing much"? On the contrary; however this particular AfD is decided, we're getting at some fundamental issues underlying Wikipedia's understanding of consensus; I'm considering incorporating some of this material into a userspace essay—or even into policy-level arguments at places like the Village Pump and the talk page for WP:CONSENSUS.
 * It's true that arguments for significance of an award or honor have a slightly different and more complex form from those for notability. But the difference isn't that arguments for notability avoid judgments about the psychology and sociology of authors and audiences, while arguments for significance of an award or honor require them. Both types of argument require such judgments, and neither is rendered questionable by the need to do so.
 * The court analogy also merits further analysis. It's true that when there is ambiguity in the law, courts must use judgment in interpreting it. The question is how they use their judgment. Unless the law gives no indication either way, they generally do not feel free to decide on the basis of what they personally feel is appropriate. And ambiguity is not the same thing as "no indication"; "not clearly applicable" is not the same thing as "clearly not applicable"; and a consensus that is less than "crystal-clear" is not the same as no consensus, and should not be treated the same. Ambiguity in a law is not treated as a delegation of authority to the court, but as an invitation to consider the history and purpose of the law. You evidently feel that unless it is "crystal-clear" that WP:ANYBIO applies in a given case, then it doesn't apply and the decision must be made on other ground, like WP:GNG (whose applicability in this case is also not entirely clear!) or our own preferences. That is a textualist or strict constructionist approach, and as I have argued above, it would not make sense to interpret WP:ANYBIO that way, since it would render this special notability guideline effectively useless, and force us to fall back on WP:GNG.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 01:37, 23 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.