Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise

Quick results (closer analysis in progress)
=RfC: Notability compromise =

WP:Notability is a guideline that determines which articles should be included in Wikipedia. This guideline has withstood several disputes, although it is unclear exactly how this guideline should be interpreted. The General Notability Guideline states that a topic is notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject (or, more succinctly, coverage in reliable third-party sources). Even though editors generally accept this as true, there are two issues without a clear consensus:


 * 1) What is the notability of a "spin-out" article? Does it need reliable third-party sources, or can it inherit notability from a parent article?
 * 2) What is the relationship between WP:Notability and specific guidelines such as WP:Notability (music) and WP:Notability (people)? To what extent can subject-specific guidelines re-write or override the General Notability Guideline?

For the sake of this discussion, it is important to ignore Wikipedians who abuse this guideline to delete articles that are actually notable, or keep information that is clearly not notable. Yes, abuse is a legitimate problem. But we cannot target abuse of the guideline until we have defined its proper use.

How to discuss

 * Focus on the spirit of each proposal, rather than the exact letter. Wording can be tweaked as needed.
 * In supporting the spirit of a proposal, you are encouraged to offer wording or technical changes that will refine a proposal to achieve its spirit.
 * Be flexible and open to compromise. Literally every editor has their own interpretation of notability, but consensus is impossible if every person insists on their own viewpoint.
 * Stay on topic. Focus on the main two issues with notability. Further discussion about indirectly related issues should be placed elsewhere, perhaps on the talk page.
 * Wikipedians are encouraged to support more than one proposal, even if you support one more strongly than another.
 * Be conscious of WP:civility and Etiquette. This is not a vote, so don't make multiple votes on the same proposal, let alone with multiple accounts. Work towards consensus.

Events leading to this RFC (why this RFC is important and necessary)
In recent months, discussions on notability have become more frequent and contentious. There have been literally dozens of theories of how the notability guideline should be interpreted. However, virtually every attempt at a compromise has faced resistance. As such, most discussions about the finer details of notability end in "no consensus".

The lack of consensus has prompted this RFC. Wikipedians from all points of view have tried to find a middle ground. From the dozens of interpretations of our guidelines, only a few have gained enough support that it would be possible for them to be supported by the larger Wikipedia community. We hope that one of these proposals will be adopted to clarify central issues with the notability guidelines, and allow other discussions to move forward.

Terminology

 * "Appropriate sources": shorthand for "significant coverage in reliable third-party sources". These are sources that help an article meet the GNG.
 * "GNG": the General Notability Guideline. This says that "if a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable." It also defines words such as "significant", "reliable source", "independent", and "presumed".
 * "SNG": the subject-specific notability guidelines such as WP:MUSIC and WP:ATHLETE.
 * "Spin-out" or "Sub-article": an article that is created by splitting a long section out from another article. For the purposes of this discussion, it does not refer to the technology of the use of subpages.
 * "RFC": Request for Comment, a discussion that Wikipedians use to resolve disputes among smaller groups of editors.

Issue A: Notability of "spin-out" articles
Issue: Wikipedians dispute whether every article must prove its own notability, or if notability of one topic can allow several articles to claim notability. On one hand, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia: there is no practical limit to the number of topics it can cover. On the other hand, it is unclear how a verifiable article is to be written without coverage in reliable third-party sources.

Additional comments on issue A

 * The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


 * 1) I am sad to see that my fears regarding this RFC were, in fact, wholly justified. The poor phrasing of A.1, which doesn't even come close to the proposal I advanced on WT:N that gained significant support, has, indeed, alienated people by virtue of its phrasing.

I repeat my request that this portion of the RFC be shut down and that an actual developed and careful policy proposal in this direction be considered, as opposed to a poorly phrased sentence that seems almost designed to generate opposition. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) * In fairness I don't seem to remember that Phil's proposal for sub-articles included any inclusion criteria that could be used as a replacement for WP:N per se. In the absence of alternatives, I thinkw we would have to assume that either WP:N would still apply, or it would not. If you have thought of alternative criteria, make them known at WT:N. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:00, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) **I agree ... I went around and around with him on that point, and he never provided an inclusion criteria beyond his view of what constituted proper encyclopedic coverage.Kww (talk) 15:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) ***My proposal suggested that instead of thinking about it as an inclusion issue vis-a-vis notability, for sub-coverage of notable topics we would think about it as an inclusion issue vis-a-vis NPOV, which demands a level of thoroughness and rigor. The central question, in my proposal, is "If we did not cap article length for readability and browser functionality purposes, how much detail would we go into on this area?" And then, once we've answered that question, deal with the question of how to split the information up into individual pages. Which is to say, content decisions before organizational decisions. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 4) ****You say your proposal was "instead of an inclusion issue", but what you didn't say is what constitutes a notable topic for inclusion as a sub-article. Is is WP:N or no? Is it so called "expert opinion" or expert opinion dressed up as consensus of like-minded editors? Your proposal did not spell this out, and that is what we are trying to work out here.--Gavin Collins (talk) 15:22, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 5) *****Bear with me - I really am answering the question. What is the criteria for inclusion for, picking a random article, the "Rudder era" section of History of Texas A&M University? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:41, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 6) ******I actually wrote much of History of Texas A&M University. The information included in that article reflects what is found in reliable sources.  There are actually a number of reliable, independent sources that specifically discuss the effect that James Earl Rudder had on Texas A&M University during his tenure as president (I'm talking whole newspaper articles and chapters of books on this topic).  There are other presidents of Texas A&M that are not mentioned in the article at all - and that is because the reliable, independent sources glossed over them at best, so it would be undue weight to include more information in this WP article.  Yes, I could find a source to say that "so-and-so" was the university president for these five years.  But if the sources don't mention what the person did as president or how that impacted the history of the university (the article's topic), then that information does not belong in the article. Karanacs (talk) 16:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 7) *******OK, but that approach, if extrapolated, in conflict with WP:RS and WP:NOR, which spell out areas where primary sources are fine to use. Also, I suspect you're committing an error of scale. I'm sure the Rudder information is easier to find than some Presidents, but if Texas A&M has a school newspaper, its library surely has archives of that newspaper that could be browsed to add secondary information on any era of the school's history. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:26, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 8) * I know Randoman asked for input several times before this was finalized, but also know we planned for the addition of other suggestions. Please feel free in the section above this to add any other proposals that fit along this line to get input on. --M ASEM  15:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 9) **I expressed my displeasure with the wording of A1, and was shot down. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:41, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 10) *Phil, don't you think it is possible that we are hearing from a spectrum of editors who disagree with a statement like "The logical extension of this is that the depth of coverage we can provide on a given area of a topic is constrained by the notability guideline. This is not an acceptable outcome." (your comment in opposition to A2)  I think that you should be able to make whatever proposal you want about notability, but we can't keep calling do-overs if the consensus is that the GNG basically applies and should apply to articles. Protonk (talk) 20:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I am unwilling to make any conclusions about what editors think about a proposal that has not actually been put before them. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:38, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I will go so far as to say "The logical extension of this is that the depth of coverage we can provide on a given area of a topic is constrained by the notability guideline. This is as it should be." I certainly was exposed to the full range of Phil's proposal. I found it unacceptable then, and it didn't win a lot of support when he first put it forward. It isn't surprising at all to me that he failed to convince other editors to put it forth verbatim, and I hope that we don't get stuck in a loop of do-overs because that didn't happen.Kww (talk) 03:43, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The end point of that line of thought is the replacing of WP:V with WP:N. I am wholly unable to believe that view has any grounding in consensus or in policy as normally interpreted. It is more of a fringe view than the most radically inclusionist views. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:38, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:V is a content policy. WP:N is an article guideline.  Requiring that articles have secondary sourcing does not in any way lead to the demand that all claims must be sourced from secondary sources. Protonk (talk) 14:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem is that "article" on Wikipedia is based in part on an arbitrary technical standard that caps an article somewhere in the 60-100k range. Whereas an article on EB can hit 1.1 megs in pure text. A page in the mainspace is not equivalent to an article in practice - technical guidelines cause us to split what any other encyclopedia would consider an article over multiple pages. Which is the problem that leads to the WP:N dispute - because demanding that WP:N expand to cover the question of how to organize coverage of a topic that cannot be covered in 60k is functionality creep - WP:N was designed to kill articles on garage bands, not handle the delicate splitting of complex and detailed topics into multiple pages. We absolutely need a policy to handle the task of figuring out what areas of a topic to cover, in what depth, and how to organize those areas. But WP:N was never designed to be that policy, and it does a shit job of being that policy. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I would argue that 100k of text is a sensible restriction not in technical terms but in terms of what the brain may handle in chunks. further, if the largest discrete chunks are 100k in size, notability shouldn't be an issue.  We honestly shouldn't be writing ~100k about something that doesn't have a single secondary source on the subject. Protonk (talk) 16:40, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, but that's a web function more than anything - an artifact of our medium. We do smaller chunks of info than EB because screen reading is a different experience than paper reading. The question is, how does that affect our organization. And here's where the Britannica comparison becomes tricky - they use a peer review and credentialism system instead of a secondary sourcing system. They are also limited by page count and by a concept of notability that is more... culturally based than ours. So it's difficult to take our cues on this issue directly from them. Further aggravating the situation is the fact that, pre-Internet, publishing a secondary source is a financial decision. The reason that there isn't a published episode guide for every TV series ever is not that they're insignificant, but that the mechanics of publishing are such that it's not always profitable. The degree to which that translates to unworthy of coverage is... tenuous at best.
 * My point here is simply that organization of these subjects is actually a tricky task. It's not obvious how they should be organized, and it's not obvious that page and topic are equivalent in this case. We have no problem, with a short story, using two paragraphs of space to summarize the plot. But expand to an extended serial work - a 100+ hour television series - and providing the same thoroughness takes up a huge amount of space. That fact is unrelated in principle to the fact of our 60k limit on article size. They're just not related matters. That's not to say there aren't issues to deal with in terms of depth of plot summary and sourcing and coverage. It's just to say that WP:N was not written to handle that task, did not evolve from processes designed to handle that task, and is ill suited to handling that task.
 * Which is why I'm so frustrated at this RFC - because that point - that WP:N is not even the correct guideline to be using here, and that we need to actually look at the issue of organization of large topics for what it is instead of shoehorning it into a guideline that was designed to kill garage bands, not organize complex topics - has somehow been collapsed in this RFC to "notability is inherited." Which isn't what I've said at all, and it certainly isn't what most of the people on this RFC have been discussing.
 * Nobody has gone to greater lengths to try to formulate good policy in approaching plot summaries than I have. Nobody has been a stronger supporter of pulling out fan speculation and reducing bloat in fictional articles. I am not your enemy on this topic. I oppose a policy that will get abused to lead to massive amounts of in-universe spam that cannot be contained. But I also oppose handling the organization of complex topics with a blunt instrument that was designed for other purposes. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't compare to other encyclopedias when it's convenient, and reject them when it's not. EB doesn't have the problem of editors that believe that the plot, casting, and production credits of every episode of every TV show ever made needs to be included. That is really the problem being fought here: there isn't a reasonable inclusion criterion that would permit that to happen, yet that is your goal. As a result, you struggle against inclusion criteria.Kww (talk) 16:53, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm happy to compare consistently to other encyclopedias. I have no desire to reject them in any context. Britannica's coverage is limited by financial concerns and paper - Wikipedia is not, and we cover more subjects and in more depth. However, because screen-reading and paper-reading are different experiences, we also chunk our information in smaller bits than EB. What I see no explanation for is why a page-sized chunk - a unit that exists for technical reasons, and is an artifact of a desire to have Wikipedia be editable on browsers that couldn't handle more than 32kb at a time - is being equated with a topic. They are completely separate concepts. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) * People aren't opposing the wording. They're opposing the spirit of a proposal which would lead to virtually endless coverage of minutiae for a single topic, with no verification in reliable secondary sources. I doubt that a re-wording would change the fundamental problem. Randomran (talk) 13:44, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * In answer to Phil, I don't think you realise the effect of having sub-articles without inclusion criteria. You say that WP:N was designed to kill articles on garage bands, but your proposal would resurrect them as sub-articles! Even if they were exempted from GNG, you would still have to devise inclusion criteria as a way of avoiding duplication and content forks. If you cannot propose alternative inclusion criteria that would apply to spinouts, then this RFC outlines the existing choices in A1,2 & 3.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:35, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Which is why I didn't want this proposal on the RFC in the first place, and asked Randomran to take it off! Because it's not a finished proposal. But unfortunately people are too hung up on either seeing me as the enemy despite my long-standing support for reigning in coverage of fictional topics, or on fighting over how best to apply WP:N to a task it was never designed for that there's been an alarming lack of willingness to step back and actually think about the question of how to organize complex topics and what policies do or do not govern the organization of complex topics. Now if somebody wants to start an open RFC on the question of article structure and organization and where the overall shape of our coverage comes from, that's an RFC I'd love to have. Because it would be a hell of a lot more applicable to the problem than this one, and it wouldn't be full of bastardizations of serious proposals that serve to kill discussions in the cradle instead of having them. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Nobody here owns a proposal, and there was support for a proposal like this outside of your preferred modifications. Enough to put it to the wider community.
 * Calling this RFC unproductive and calling for a completely different RFC is akin to walking into a gay bar and complaining that it's too gay, and demanding it become a straight bar. In other words, you might yourself be in the wrong place, rather than the problem being the rest of us.
 * You might want to keep track of the opposition to this proposal. If it continues to be this strong, it's safe to say that people aren't opposed to it on some technical basis. They're outright opposed to an indefinite number of pages on a single topic without appropriate sources. That's my advice to you, which you can ignore at the risk of wasting your time. But maybe I'm wrong. Randomran (talk) 22:55, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * In response to Phil, I think you are a bit cheeky by objecting to this RFC on the basis that your proposal for sub-articles is not finished. Assuming good faith, I would say that to finish it, you will still need to come up with inclusion criteria to regulate sub-articles in order to address some of the issues raised in this RFC, such as how you deal with content forks and and article duplication. However, in the absence of alternative inclusion criteria, we still have to consider how sub-articles could work within the context of existing policies and guidelines. The reason is that every structure or system of organization for sub-articles must be regulated by some sort inclusion criteria that are consistent and explicit. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:49, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I am going by the spirit of the proposal and not the wording, and I object to the concept of guidelines and mainspace pages not conforming to policy and consensus. I object to the notion of setting up notability guidelines in opposition to each other and providing conflicting advice. I support the notion of guidelines assisting people with advice gained from experience and consensus - where alternative options are discussed in context within the same guideline. I support the gathering of arguments in one place with a summary of what we have learned so people can benefit from that. I don't quite understand the thinking behind this proposal of scattered and conflicting advice. I don't understand the thinking behind this proposal of breaking the Wikipedian principle of Verifiability. Every mainspace page needs to be verifiable. No exceptions.  SilkTork  *YES! 18:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) I find his whole issue somewhat of a concern for the future of Wikipedia generally. This whole thing seems to be going the way of arguing about how many angels can sit on a pin head.  Surely we should stick the basic principles of notability and verifiability, and this applies equally to main articles, sub articles, spin out articles, sections, etc.  Any content must be suitably notable or supporting notability, and appropriately verifiable.  A sub article, a list, or whatever, should be able to stand on its own merits.  Exceptions, sub exceptions, variations, ad infinitum, will be (is already) just a growing nightmare. Peet Ern (talk) 00:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Issue B: Relationship between GNG and SNGss
Issue: Wikipedians dispute the relationship between the general notability guideline and the specific notability guidelines such as WP:Notability (music) and WP:Notability (people). This depends on the flexibility of the GNG, and whether SNGs can extend notability to a wider range of articles.

Additional comments on issue B

 * The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

''Please add any additional comments on this issue here that fall outside the above proposals.
 * 1) I probably won't !vote on Proposal B as I am torn (I see an advantage of some SNGs but not all), but has it ever been considered to create a middle ground like de.wiki has achieved with de:Wikipedia:Relevanzkriterien (their version of WP:N)? One guideline for notability to explain the concept (i.e. instruction keep and redundancy is low), and it still lists indicators of notability per article type. – sgeureka t•c 12:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) Like sgeureka, I do see value in having SNGs, but I think their role is to provide subject-specific guidance to editors as to how GNG should be applied, rather than providing additional inclusion criteria based on "expert" opinion. I used to believe that because real-world subjects can be observed and recorded (unlike elements of fiction), that notability could be presumed/acknowledged/inhertited, and this belief justified the creation of inclusion criteria that supplemented GNG. However, I realised that this belief is based on so called "expert" opinion, and that any presumption of notability cannot be taken at face value; notability must be evidenced by reliable secondary sources, and that GNG is the only reliable inclusion criteria, since it is based on verifiable evidence.--Gavin Collins (talk) 11:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * So you really think you can create a set of criteria that will encompass the notability of everything and not be so vague as to render itself useless (as the current "Stuff should be notable" has obviously done)? padillaH (review me)(help me) 15:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I have not seen any proposal for inclusion criteria to better GNG so my answer would be no.--Gavin Collins (talk) 13:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) I just realised I either opposed or went neutral on all the issue B options, none of them seem to express my viewpoint which I tried to best express in opposing option B.4 Would have prefered an option existed along the lines I tried to raise there. Davewild (talk) 19:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC) Striking now I have supported B.6. Davewild (talk) 19:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) This comment may be more appropriate for another forum, but it seems related to the GNG/SNG split so I'll advance it here. There are numerous domains where it is unarguably useful to have complete, comprehensive listings for reference, although what domains qualify are arguable. Some would say Baseball statistics, filmographies, Nigerian beauty pageant contestants. Unfortunately proponents of these compendia believe that each entry is / would be notable--which is a load of rubbish. I suggest a new top-level entity (en.wikialmanac.org?) that can contain all of these sorts of facts--still subject to [WP:V], but without a notability requirement (though perhaps there could be guidelines on sufficient notability for a separate article as opposed to inclusion in a list). That way, people who believe all places are notable or that every single released deserves a page will have a place where they can pursue their urge. That approach has a number of merits.
 * 3) * Wikipeida becomes a place for articles on notable topics again.
 * 4) * There is a place to go for comprehensive information, with that as a stated goal. Despite my lack of affection for non-notable subjects in Wikipedia, like everyone else, I often find myself in search of non-notable information.
 * 5) * The store for comprehensive information could be better structured and have better tools for categorization, automatic generation of chronological lists, etc., making it better suited as a reference tool for people who are trying to find the information (rather than those who are simply editing articles on their own pet topics). Bongomatic (talk) 03:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I really really like your idea. I really want Wikipedia to be an encyclopedia, exactly the way the founders want it, and I don't want it to be a pile of information on every non-notable thing in existence. But at the same time, I would appreciate having a "Wikialmanac" to go to, where I could look up every non-notable thing in existence. I think this would vastly improve Wikipedia, while also not destroying the content that people have obviously worked hard to add. Please everyone, read this proposal above! AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 16:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) General comment: In many arguments above I notice a general confusion between proof of reliable sources for article topic and proof of notability of article topic.  The notability itself should be proved by a reliable source, but that is not the same as the article subject.  Example: If I want to write an article on fairies, I may make a claim that "Many people believe fairies exist".  What I need to show is NOT that fairies exist, but that many people believe they exist - and that is probably verifiable.  Yet I have seen many deletion comments based on the argument, "Delete the Fairy article, there are no reliable sources on Fairies, therefore they are not notable."  And I've seen the same flawed argument surfacing above, hence the comment here. Walkerma (talk) 05:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) Remember the purpose - one of a specific guideline's purposes is to avoid systematic bias and to allow for the notability criterion to be met in situations where similar topics/people meet the notability guideline.  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 08:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) I've read many people talk about the SNG's that seem to forget an important fact about them, they are still subject to other guidelines and policies, specifically WP:V. So if there is not a source to verify the band had a platinum hit, they should be deleted. Take the MUSIC guideline which specifically spells this out: In order to meet Wikipedia's standards for verifiability and notability, the article in question must actually document that the criterion is true. So its not a free-for-all. This same line should simply be added to all the SNG and it be made perfectly clear that if you pass any of those, the article passes notability, or if it doesn't pass under that criteria but does under GNG then it is still notable. And if there is a project based guideline that has not become a community guideline it should be ignored and never be brought up in AFDs. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A big problem with SNGs is, they get watered-down to the point that all you need to bootstrap your own personal indie-band's article into Wikipedia is a myspace page, 2 spins on a campus station in Paducah, and having one had an article written about you in the Beardsley Iowa Independent. All those will satisfy WP:V, the author will happily supply the links. Paducah's college radio station chart and the Independent will also satisfy WP:RS. The problem remains that notability is not demonstrated to satisfy WP:N, but it'll satisfy the watered-down guideline at WP:MUSIC. You end up with a proliferation of useless notability guidelines, and we're back to 3 years ago with a "Notability of porn stars" guideline. Let's please not go there again! AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * 1) 500KBs long!!! Who is going to read all of this and then somehow make sense of this? Wikipedia needs a Parliament.  EconomistBR  17:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) Again I find his whole issue somewhat of a concern for the future of Wikipedia generally. This also seems to be going the way of arguing about how many angels can sit on a pin head.  There is only ONE notability guideline, the main general one, Notability.  Specific notability guidelines should not modify THE notability guideline.  What they should (only) do is explain how to apply domain specific subject matter against the general notability guideline, to help editors consistently interpret subject matter from radically different areas of knowledge.  Exceptions, sub exceptions, variations, ad infinitum, will be (is already) just a growing nightmare. Peet Ern (talk) 00:16, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) *Not everyone agrees on everything, obviously. I you want to discuss what I think you want to discuss, the talk page will work better.  Wikipedia talk:Notability is also pretty actice with discussion right now, you might try that too. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

No additional comments here
Due to scope and size concerns, do not add any further comments outside these two issues here.
 * Please add additional comments relating to this RFC at this RFC's discussion page.
 * Please add additional comments related to Notability in general at the Notability guideline's discussion page.