Wikipedia:WikiProject Science Fiction/Essay:Notability

The following essay is an interpretation of Notability (people) and Notability, relating to articles about science fiction, media, anime, and comics fandom.

This interpretation is written in the context that many Wikipedia editors are involved in fandom and may succumb to the temptation to magnify the importance of activities or people in their circle of awareness. It is important to remember that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. This essay is influenced by guidelines on royalty, academics, candidates for election, and porn stars, subsets of the guideline about people.

Summary

 * Awards are an important criterion of notability and are the foundation of this guideline interpretation. However, for an award to grant notability to a publication or individual, it must itself meet standard criteria for notability. Publications or individuals who have no noteworthy awards must demonstrate notability in some clear and verifiable way.
 * Nominations for awards are usually not notable.
 * Generally, fan publications have too small a readership to be considered notable. The exception would be publications which have won major awards.
 * Individuals who help organize or participate in the program of conventions are usually not notable, unless they have some notable award or otherwise meet standard criteria defined in WP:BIO.
 * Conventions, if they are large or recurring, are usually notable.
 * Being a convention guest of honor is not, by itself, usually noteworthy.
 * Being a Worldcon guest of honor is, by itself, usually noteworthy, as a recognition of an individual's contribution to the community of science fiction or fandom.
 * Being a convention chair for a major convention may be considered notable.
 * Other convention roles are not usually, by themselves, inherently notable.

Single versus multiple accomplishment
For a person, event, or other item to be notable, at least one aspect of the subject must itself be notable. A list of accomplishments which individually would not be considered noteworthy do not collectively make the subject worthy of note.

While a single accomplishment may itself be notable, this does not necessarily make a subject sufficiently noteworthy to merit a distinct Wikipedia article. Subjects with only a single item of note can simply be included in relevant lists. Only if the subject has three or more points of note should they be considered noteworthy enough for a Wikipedia article; one of the purposes of the encyclopedia is to show links between people, places, events, and concepts.

Awards
Awards are an important criterion used to determine the notability of works or individuals. For an award winner to be considered notable, the award itself must be notable. Major awards would be of national or international scope, and be widely (and verifiably) acknowledged as important to readers or viewers of the genre or medium.

Awards may be chosen by a vote of qualified members of an organization, by selected juries, or by other methods. Important factors in considering the notability of an award are the impartiality of the selection, the quality of the works selected, the publicity associated with an award, and the frequency by which the award is cited by recipients, academics, reviewers, publishers, and others.

Major awards
The following awards are considered notable. This should not be considered a complete or comprehensive list. However, editors are advised to explain notability of the award in the talk page or in references, before adding to this list. (Thus, if you created the Wikipedia page for a particular award, you would be the wrong person to add the award to this list.)


 * Hugo Award
 * Nebula Award
 * World Fantasy Award
 * Bram Stoker Award
 * Anthony Award
 * Edgar Award
 * BSFA Award
 * British Fantasy Award
 * Aurora Award
 * Pulitzer Prize
 * Academy Award
 * Booker Prize
 * Giller Prize
 * Governor General's Literary Award

Minor awards
While many awards are awarded at a convention, an award which is not widely known outside the convention membership would not be considered noteworthy. Also, awards which are considered secondary at the convention where they are awarded would, generally, not be considered noteworthy for the purpose of this criterion. (One might apply a "have people heard of it?" test to minor awards.)

Fan versus Pro awards
There is no inherent bias towards or against "professional" awards versus "fan" awards, but a conservative approach should be applied in the context of the general guideline on notability. Specifically, narrow commercial awards would not be notable. Fan awards may be notable if they are of national or international scope and if they meet other tests of notability (e.g. the search engine test).

Nominations
As a general rule, being nominated for an award is not noteworthy. (The Academy Award may be an exception to this rule.)

Conventions
Many conventions are notable, provided they meet some simple criteria: held once a year and organized by a specific identifiable community. Commercial events, especially those held on an ad hoc basis, are often not notable. Events held more than once a year may just be a form of club gathering, and as such are not notable.

Major conventions
A major convention would attract membership from a national, international, or at least regional (across many states) audience, i.e. where at least half the membership were not local. Generally, major conventions have been held for a number of years (at least five). Generally, a regional convention would only be considered a major convention if it had 1000 or more members each year; however, it need not meet that level every single year. Westercon, NASFiC, Dragon*Con, and DeepSouthCon would be considered major regional conventions.

Some special-interest conventions, e.g. World Fantasy Convention, World Horror Convention, etc. might be considered major conventions, if they were both the most important gathering of a particular special interest, and if the activities or results of a particular convention have impact outside the time and membership of that convention.

Convention bids
Convention bids are activities within conventions, and as such are not specifically noteworthy. However, because their activities touch a broad segment of fandom and act as agents of change within the fan community, being chair of a Worldcon bid may be considered notable. (See section on "Single or multiple accomplishments" below.) Tightly contested races may be notable, but the Candidates and elections guideline should be observed.

Fanzines and Convention Publications
Fanzines and convention publications are generally notable if they have won a major award (as defined above). They should meet the Notability (books) guideline. Broadly speaking, most fanzines and convention publications would be considered "self-published" for the purpose of the guideline; they also generally fail other tests (sales figures, ISBN numbers

Web sites
Web sites should meet the Notability (web) guideline.

Fanzine and web contributors
The editor of a notable fanzine, or the webmaster of a notable web site, may be notable if their contribution to the final result is noticeable, distinctive, and contributes significantly to the notability of the publication. Other contributors generally are not, though factors such as awards or search engine tests may in rare cases make such contributors notable.

Fans
Again, because of the preponderance of fans among the community of Wikipedia editors, a conservative approach should be applied here.

An individual fan may be notable if they have won a major award, or if they have chaired a major convention.

Being a department head, program participant, guest of honor, toastmaster, or having some other role at a convention is not noteworthy as such.

Mention in other articles
While some events, nominations, fanzines, or other fannish activities may not warrant their own Wikipedia articles, it is certainly appropriate to include such details in the biography of a person who is, by some criterion, notable.