Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes/Archive 3

Denominations
I see lots of comments about denominations (rather than local churches, of course) being notable. I happen to agree with this myself. There are, for example, handbooks of denominations, such as Religious Bodies in Australia by Rowland Ward and Robert Humphreys, and the Handbook of Denominations by Frank S. Mead and Samuel Hill. So, looking at Articles for deletion/Westminster Presbyterian Church in the United States, Articles for deletion/Southern Episcopal Church, and now Articles for deletion/Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America, can we add "denominations" to the list of things that are normally "keep" outcomes? StAnselm (talk) 20:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Why depart from the same notability criteria used for any other organization, WP:ORG? Novaseminary (talk) 20:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * We wouldn't be, I don't think. There's a good argument, however, that denominations of any significant size (weasel word alert!) will usually meet WP:GNG.  Articles for deletion/Sabbath Rest Advent Church was another recent example of that.--Milowent • hasspoken  21:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that "significant" denominations are very likely notable, but any other type of significant organization would be, too. They would be notable because of the depth of coverage they would naturally receive, not the organizational equivalent of WP:NOTINHERITED, though. As for this proposal, there are many examples of denominations without coverage being proded, among a few of them: Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals, Independent Baptist Federation, Independent Baptist Fellowship. So it seems there is no consensus that just being a denomination makes a group notable (as StAnselm has argued at AfD), and that puts aside the question of when a group of churches becomes a denomination. It seems to me that StAnselm is trying to implement a lower standard for denominations compared to other Orgs. I don't think that is consistent with WP:N. We should not focus on whether some organization qualifies as a "denomination," but whether it meets WP:ORG. Novaseminary (talk) 03:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * For purposes of including something in "Common outcomes," we are being descriptive, not prescriptive. Something about denominations should only be added if its true that they are usually kept at AFD, like high schools.  The prods you pull up suggest we don't have enough data to know what the common outcome is.--Milowent • hasspoken  06:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Surely prods are irrelevant for purposes of this page - i.e. outcome of deletion discussions. StAnselm (talk) 07:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I would also add that (1) a case can be made that denominations all satisfy WP:NONPROFIT, if they are listed in standard reference works; (2) many editors appear to believe that all denominations are notable; (3) as an empirical fact, denominations are, in my experience, pretty much always kept at AfD, so that nominating them just wastes everyone's time. It's analogous to the consensus that every species of plant and animal is notable. -- 202.124.74.195 (talk) 08:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Dubious
I've observed a consensus to keep articles on small suburbs included in the same municipal unit as larger centres, provided the suburbs had some sort of legal recognition, such as inclusion in a census. Like other inhabited places, they are often described as having inherent notability. G. C. Hood (talk) 02:50, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Heritage Listed Building
I'm going to propose a new "Buildings" section with the bullet point "Buildings that are listed in a national list of buildings notbale for their historic importnace (for example the National Register of Historic Places) are generally kept at AFD".

JASpencer (talk) 21:06, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Something like that would be good. Should it be more general than "Buildings", since other things show up on the NRHP? And should we explicitly mention that secondary sources are required to establish the listing, so whether we have them or not, they exist? -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:17, 26 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I stand corrected. Would that be "Buildings and structures"? Not sure what the point is on secondary sources.  Do NRHP buildings not listed in secondary sources significantly more likely to be deleted?  JASpencer (talk) 21:40, 26 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Of course: see WP:V and WP:GNG. However, since secondary sources are required for a property to be listed, there would be no case of an NRHP listing without verifiability, and few if any that didn't satisfy the GNG.-- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:08, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as what it should be called, that I'm less clear on. "Buildings" could well be the simplest way to get it across. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:09, 26 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I see the difference, this is about common outcomes, not guidelines. I'm trying to state what a common outcome is and not what the desired outcome is.  Most NRHP AFDs I've seen rarely have verifiability as an issue - it's usually a non notable claim, which is usually shot down.  JASpencer (talk) 22:18, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Right, because if there weren't coverage in multiple independent sources, satisfying the GNG, it never would have gotten on the NRHP in the first place. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:45, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not so sure that's true. I think it is entirely possible for an owner to fill out the paperwork themselves to list their own house for no other reason than as an example of a certain architectural item.  I would suggest either not bothering to do this AfD thing at all, or utilizing some guidance from WP:NRHP.  Considering there's a whole ArbCom case revolving around just this issue, this is likely not the best time to go about this particular course of action in any case, especially from someone involved in the case (as once one gives evidence, one is involved whether one wants to be or not). MSJapan (talk) 00:57, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Celebrities
This statement: "Most celebrities meet notability guides and are kept." is essentially meaningless without a definition for "celebrity". If the article is kept, they're notable (thus, a celebrity). If not, they aren't. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 23:39, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with that. What's the point of keeping such redundancies on the list of common outcomes? bobrayner (talk) 23:45, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Parishes and local churches
I've noticed a number of local church and parish articles being created and sent to AfD. I just nominated a bunch under WP:BRANCH, but I'm wondering if it should be listed at outcomes. Obviously the notable ones are kept because they have WP:SIGCOV. Mkdw talk 20:07, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I think that this would be useful as the same sort of arguments come up again and again, for example listed building status, famous congregants and historic notability. I think that a lot of parish churches - particularly older ones - are encyclopedic but they get in trouble because there's a paucity of recent media coverage. JASpencer (talk) 22:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Thinking about a template
I'm thinking about a template that says something like this:



What do you think? Would it actually be helpful (e.g., alerting people who don't actually know any better), or just likely to inflame disputes? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:16, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I think that this would be routinely used by people on the losing side of an argument. Essentially it would not be used to warn people that consensus may have changed but that consensus is to be ignored.  JASpencer (talk) 22:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that it's a nice idea, but there's a broader problem, because people are only human, and easily blur the boundaries between prescriptive and descriptive pages. Put up a page saying that "Articles about cheese are usually kept/deleted" (or for that matter, descriptions of style, such as "articles about cheese are often disambiguated by country") and - even though it describes past deletion discussions (or moves &c), somebody will cite that page at the next discussion about a different article, then there's a new example to add to the descriptive page, and it becomes self-reinforcing. Circular reasoning. So, I would support any initiative which discourages people from using "common outcomes" as though they were precedents. bobrayner (talk) 16:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Bishops
When was the most recent regular Roman Catholic, Anglican or Eastern Orthodox bishop who has been deleted and kept deleted? I assume that was quite a long time ago, shouldn't this be represented here? JASpencer (talk) 22:47, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Apparently the bishop situation has been discussed before without resolution, but they seem to often be considered notable, see Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)/Archive_2011 (Dec 2010 discussion); Articles for deletion/Ivan Romanov (Catholic bishop) (January 2012); Articles for deletion/Brian Farrell (Roman Catholic Bishop) (September 2007).--Milowent • hasspoken 23:23, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * On Roman Catholic bishops I'm going to change "generally found to be notable" to "are rarely if ever deleted" as that seems to reflect the outcomes of this. JASpencer (talk) 19:12, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it depends a bit on the era your are talking about. Some old bishops (pré-1600) can be quite obscure with hardly sources available. The Banner talk 20:09, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
 * But do any get deleted (or proposed for deletion)? JASpencer (talk) 21:01, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I've looked through some AFDs for "Bishop". It seems that even obscure Anglican and Syriac-Orthodox bishops get kept as they are despite concerns about obscurity.  There do seem to be deletions of Pentecostalist bishops.  So I've changed the text.  JASpencer (talk) 14:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Christian denominations
This recent AfD suggests that perhaps "Christian denominations" can go on this list. What do people think? StAnselm (talk) 21:52, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think that would be helpful. If a denomination is notable, it's because it satisfies WP:GNG. If a small/obscure denomination hasn't attracted much attention from independent sources, it fails the GNG, and it's not notable. I can't think of any sound reason why all denominations should be considered notable regardless of whether or not they actually satisfy the GNG. bobrayner (talk) 00:10, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Schools
I don't see why elementary schools and middle school articles need some kind of notability to being kept. They are part of school districts, they are feeder schools to high schools which are kept. If listed only on school district articles then they are just lists and I see people complain about lists. Is Wikipedia running out of room on their servers that they need to be concerned with space? They are government buildings. --Mjrmtg (talk) 16:10, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with the point about notability. The world is always interested in, and has need to reference, public and private sector institutions.  But sometimes (often?) "notability" is misused to mean "lack of WP:V reliable sources", and in some cases there are problems with finding reliable sources.  And I'm not sure about your point about lists&mdash;I think an entry on a list can be just as detailed as a short article on the elementary school, and a redirect for the school can  link directly into the list entry, so maybe the notability requirement is sufficient as it stands.  Unscintillating (talk) 20:02, 20 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The reason a bright line de facto rule has developed for high schools is that they generally get more coverage than lower level schools. See User:Milowent/History of High School AfDs for more on the history of high school AfDs.--Milowent • hasspoken  21:09, 20 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Everything, even high schools, has to be notable, and has to demonstrate that notability by producing third-party, independent sources (i.e., not just a school website that says it's a high school). It happens that basically all normal/non-alternative government-run high schools can do this, and that a large fraction of modern elementary schools in the largest districts are borderline.  (In small towns, the elementary schools get almost as much coverage as the high schools for everything except sports).
 * Your justification ("They are government buildings") shows one of the problems that our own biases cause. There are thousands of privately owned and operated schools that have no government connection at all.  A 200-year-old private elementary school will almost certainly be notable.  A four-student, government-supported high school in some rural village probably isn't non-notable.  And homeschools, despite being legally capable of granting a diploma in much of the United States and legally considered private schools in many states, basically never are notable.
 * But we get odd responses because of the way we word this page, with people misunderstanding "most" as meaning "all". I think if we explained the exceptions better, then we would have fewer disputes.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:16, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, AfD-tagging an American school, like Milwaukee School of Languages, results in a kind of reflex to brush out any policy or reason. See: Articles for deletion/Milwaukee School of Languages Night of the Big Wind  talk  17:07, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Added this at Articles for deletion/Common outcomes: * "School districts: "Populated, legally-recognized places" include school districts, which conveys near-inherent notability to school districts per Notability (geography)." --68.195.234.154 (talk) 15:31, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I am concerned that the current policy is biased towards fee paying schools who can game the system. I analyzed all schools in Victoria Australia and found that out of a 1000 schools, 96 % of fee paying were notable while 55 % of government and 63 % of Catholic were notable. Also the examples given of the Dallas district on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WPSCH/H has all its elementary schools existing and therefore notable Wakelamp (talk) 09:43, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * "They" consider each and every school in the United States notable due to the strange and USA-centric believe that there will be sources someday somewhere. No need to supply them now. The Banner talk 22:04, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Companies and number of employees
I have modified 's addition to the Companies section, as I felt it implied a company with only 100 employees could be deleted for that reason. E.g. it could imply the WMF, (with only ~150 employees) or many smaller radio stations (which could conceivably have a staff well under 100) could be deletion targets. Similarly it could imply some random company no-one's ever heard of is notable simply because it employs 500 people.

I changed it to the more general note that companies are not kept because they have an arbitrary number of employees or an arbitrary amount of revenue (WP:BIG.) I think this better reflects common consensus at AfD without possibly misleading. OSborn arfcontribs. 01:34, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. We don't want to have these sort of bright-line rules that don't really align with WP:N. Some of our special "always notable" rules, like for high schools, are premised on the idea that there sources almost certainly exist for high schools, especially in local newspapers, even though they may not be readily accessible to WP editors. But for companies, there is no particular reason to think that number of employees has any correlation with "is covered in sources". Qwyrxian (talk) 03:36, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

There was another editor by the same user (which I have reverted) which introduced the phrasing "... for lack of suitable sources" and "In the rare case that suitable sources exist ..." (diff) There were a few reasons I reverted: OSborn arfcontribs. 01:48, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Linking to examples on the page is not consistent with how other common outcomes are presented.
 * 2) I disagree there is any kind of consensus about number of employees and how it effects probability of sources existing.
 * 3) I also disagree with the wording "rare case" - it implies companies with fewer than 100 employees are under some kind of special burden.
 * I would argue that even though this is marked as an essay, since it is so commonly utilized in deletion discussions, and treated as if it had the weight of a guideline, people editing it should conform to WP:PGCHANGE. That is, Unintelligibleid needs to stop try to force his/her own opinion of AfD precedent into this page and instead first get consensus here on the talk page that this is, in fact, good precedent. This is especially the case since Unintelligibleid has relatively few edits to under his/her belt, so I'm not sure that she/he has the ability to accurately judge what really is AfD precedent. Now, of course, I welcome unitelligibleid to come here and start making arguments on behalf of the suggested changes; then, should a consensus exist, changes could easily be made. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:32, 16 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I see absolutely no evidence that number of employees is a common criterion, and it would be very odd if it were, since it would be completely out of line with Wikipedia practice. In an attempt to support his/her contention, Unforgettableid has linked to three AfD discussions in which number of employees is mentioned, but in none of them is there anything that looks to me like a suggestion that number of employees is a standard or common criterion. none of the AfDs involved took place within the last two years, and one of them was nearly 6 years ago. I should think that, searching through AfDs over the last 6 years, one could find three examples to support almost any case one wants to, so this is by no means evidence of "common outcomes". In any case, examples from 6 years ago are of little if any relevance, since in many ways Wikipedia practice has changed significantly in that time. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:07, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Dear all:

A company is notable if it has received significant coverage in independent reliable sources. If it has, it's notable. If it hasn't, it's not notable. As you've said, number of employees has nothing at all to do with it.

But: Most (not all) companies with 2,000 or more employees have received such coverage. Most (not all) companies with 100 or less have not. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, why?

This idea is what I would like to convey on the project page. I do not want to falsely imply the existence of any bright-line rule, since no such rule exists.

Cheers, &mdash;Unforgettableid (talk) 19:58, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) A significant problem with your proposal is that in practice people would start taking the figure quoted as a sort of "bright line rule". This has happened before many times: for example, some years ago someone wrote an observation about RfA discussions, saying that in practice RfAs with less than a particular percentage of supports usually got declined, and those with more than a certain percentage usually got accepted. There was no suggestion that this was a rule, but it very soon came to be treated as one, so that there have been cases of editors demanding at least review, if not de-bureaucratification (or whatever the word is) in cases where bureaucrats have made a judgement outside those limits.
 * 2) Certainly larger companies are, on the whole, more likely to get significant coverage than smaller ones. Theoretically someone could wade through all the thousands of AfDs over the last couple of years, check which ones resulted in "keep" and which in "delete". They could then search in company records and find the numbers of employees each company had, and compile statistics for the sizes of companies falling under "keep" and "delete". Then, and only then, it would be possible to say that it was a "common outcome" for an AfD to result in "delete" for a company with fewer than a specified number of employees. Doing it by some editor picking a figure off the top of their head is not acceptable.
 * 3) Even if someone were to do what I have just suggested, it would be totally misleading to quote it as a "common outcome", unless it could be shown that it was common for the decision to be significantly influenced by the count of the number of employees. Whatever the purpose of the editor who added the information to the page, it would be read by people coming to the page in three months, or three years, as a suggestion that the number of employees should be taken into account, which is totally at odds with policy, guidelines, and established practice. As OSborn said an edit summary, "companies are not deleted because they have too few employees", and, whatever you say, what you are trying to do is to introduce wording which would give the clear impression that they are. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:43, 16 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I think that, on the whole, Wikipedia would be better off if we had a bright-line rule on this matter. But we don't, and I don't think I want to bother trying to get such a rule created.


 * I sometimes nominate spammy POV COI articles about companies for deletion. Others do too. It would be helpful if these nominators had some outcomes information. That way, they could know what types of articles are probably not worth nominating. They could also know what types of articles are probably worth nominating.


 * The procedure you suggested in "2." would be a lot of work. Instead, it might be enough to view a sampling of kept and deleted company articles, and to look for an "Employees" infobox field. I'm not an admin, though, and can't view deleted articles. Or, we could just poll some Wikipedians and try to reach a consensus.


 * Does this sound OK? "Most companies with under N employees don't have suitable sources available, but many do. We always keep or delete companies based on sources, never based on size. See WP:BIG."


 * We could later think more about what number to write for N.


 * Cheers, &mdash;Unforgettableid (talk) 23:33, 16 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The whole idea of trying to link notability to number of employees is totally misconceived. There are two-person businesses and one-person businesses that amply satisfy Wikipedia's notability criteria. How much correlation there may be between number of employees and likelihood of surviving an AfD I don't know. I would guess very little, but even if there is a significant correlation, encouraging people to think in terms of number of employees being even a factor to consider is misguided, let alone the absurd notion of making it a "bright line rule". A company with a particular amount of coverage in reliable sources is equally notable whether it has 200 employees or 1 employee, so the number of employees is irrelevant. The number of employees should not even be considered in assessing notability. You suggest, in effect, that number of employees is strongly correlated with the amount of coverage in reliable sources. Even if that is true (which it may or may not be) why look at a variable which is merely correlated with the relevant one, when you can instead look directly at the relevant one? JamesBWatson (talk) 10:58, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree 100% with JamesBWatson. I think that, underneath it all, Unforgettableid is trying to solve a legitimate problem here: articles on companies that are really just spam and supported by press-releases or psuedo-press releases. I understand that she/he's trying to find a way to make it easier to show that said articles are non-notable. However, and I will admit that this is a view that I came to over a long period of time, I don't think we actually want to make it easier. I think that if an article on a company is obviously spammy, it can be nominated under WP:CSD. If it's not obvious, then it's the responsibility of all discussants (at an AfD or otherwise) to carefully evaluate the sources that are available. We shouldn't be looking to provide shortcuts that will certainly have significant number of exceptions. One day Wikipedia will be overrun with spam, people promoting their own political views, and the like, but making simple rules like this won't actually stop that problem. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:31, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:12, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Fair. Qwyrxian, I think I shall defer to your experience. I thank you all for your time. &mdash;Unforgettableid (talk) 05:32, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree as well: I don't think we should begin considering the number of employees in AfD discussions. OSborn arfcontribs. 15:26, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree too. Qwyrxian and JamesBWatson both make persuasive points.
 * On a vaguely related point, what would people think of lowering the notability bar for B2C (or raising it for B2B)? I'm concerned that such arguments have been presented in some AfDs and I think it's unhelpful, and unfounded in policy. bobrayner (talk) 17:50, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Elementary and Middle Schools
There's something that's been bugging me. Why do elementary and middle school articles get redirected to their corresponding school district articles? Is it because they don't usually meet the General Notability Guideline like high schools and colleges do?

Americanfreedom (talk) 09:07, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * That seems like the best answer. However, each subject should be judged against the GNG, it's not always helpful to use a precedent like "We decided other things were notable in the past therefore this thing gets a free pass on our notability requirements"... bobrayner (talk) 04:35, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, but that is exactly what happens when a school is nominated for deletion... The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 00:44, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Not many elementary schools have much written about them in reliable secondary sources other than the local paper. Articles thus tend to be little more than yellow pages entries or school prospectuses of no encyclopedic interest to the wider world. The same probably goes for a lot of secondary schools.--Charles (talk) 09:22, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep, but for secondary schools you have to battle with the "School Article Protection Front" who think every secondary school (especially in the USA) is notable because there might be non-found sources out there to prove notability. They suppose a school is notable, they don't prove it... <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 13:26, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Transportation - Ships
I propose the Transportation section be expanded with a subsection for ships as follow.

Ships and boats

 * Named military vessels have gained a de-facto presumption of notability provided there are sources verifying their existence.
 * Ocean liners and large oceanic cruise ships almost always survive AfD.
 * Large merchant ships such as tankers and freighters along with intermediate size water craft such as ferries and riverboats often do not survive unless they are closely tied to some notable event (such as a major shipwreck) or organization. Ships that served in a military capacity during wartime usually are accepted as notable provided there are WP:RS sources.
 * Small craft and boats are almost always deleted unless closely tied to a notable event or person in which case they are usually merged into the person/event's article.

In my experience the above is pretty accurate but perhaps someone has a different view. In any case there is a rather glaring gap in the transportation section that needs to be filled. Feedback is appreciated. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:03, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I oppose this. The net outcome of adding this text is that people will use it to bypass actual notability requirements at future discussions (like AfD). bobrayner (talk) 10:47, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That argument would seem to apply to the entire page. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:33, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, it would, and perhaps it would be helpful to remove some other things from the page. But, for now, we're talking about ships. bobrayner (talk) 18:36, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * OK fair enough. So what is it about ships that merits their being singled out for an argument that has already been addressed more broadly on this page, and rejected? -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:34, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You're proposing to add new entries to the page. I don't doubt you have the best of intentions, but I expect that other people would use the new entries in a way that makes them a net negative. I've removed other entries in the past and may well remove more in the future, so the ships aren't being "singled out", and even if they were that would look like an OTHERSTUFF argument. bobrayner (talk) 23:34, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

non-notable schools, ambiguous names
I wonder if it would be useful to add, under "Schools", a new point: "Where two or more non-notable schools share a name (so that a redirect cannot be used), a disambiguation page can be created to link them to their respective school districts or other appropriate articles." There's been a recent example at Articles for deletion/Auburn Middle School. Pam D  13:48, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Primary & elementary schools
An editor at ongoing AfDs of primary and elementary schools has continually posted a lone Keep !vote, in part on the basis of his assertion that Outcomes is an essay "which has no particular force at AFD. It purports to track the outcomes and so, by definition, it follows the debate rather than leading it."

See ongoing AfDs --
 * AfD William Stukeley Church of England Primary School ("My position is supported by both policy and evidence. Your position seems to rest upon nothing so substantial.... Policies such as WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD.  And evidence of WP:SIGCOV such as the BBC and Ofsted.  And you've got what?   wp:outlines !?  That doesn't make any sense.... WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is an essay which has no particular force at AFD. It purports to track the outcomes and so, by definition, it follows the debate rather than leading it...."),
 * AfD Derryhale Primary School ("Notable school which should be retained per our editing policy and customary practise"),
 * AfD Clementi Primary School (2nd nomination) ("The topic is notable."), and
 * AfD Windermere Elementary School ("Notable school...").

Thoughts?
 * The editor in question seems to have an extremely liberal interpretation of the notability guidelines. So much so that he is consistently in the minority in the AfDs linked above. But that's what AfD is for, to establish consensus. He is, at least on this topic, clearly a retentionist. I don't happen to agree with him, but it's not a sin, and while clearly in the minority my guess is there are other editors who hold similarly expansive views of N. As for his observation about OUTCOMES, he is absolutely right. If in doubt, I often look here before nominating something for deletion. But GNG and the other applicable guidelines are the standard. OUTCOMES should not generally be cited in AfD discussions. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:19, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I have seen this editor for a long time recycle this very poor argument and mispresent the view that primary schools are inherently notable. WP also relies on consensus, and I see established consensus as a form of OUTCOMES. You should also note that this editor confusedly tries to say WP:PRESERVE trumps notability. AfDs test notability not an editing policy like WP:PRESERVE. LibStar (talk) 14:53, 17 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, we have a lone dissenter against the established consensus (viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy, i.e. WP:ORG) that primary schools are redirected, but so far all the affected AfDs have turned out to be snow decisions to follow the established route. What we need is more weight attached to WP:NSCHOOL per the discussion at the Village Pump. Philg88 ♦talk 15:25, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Related query -- this is an essay. But it's not our common variety of essay, it would appear.  Specifically,  the essay notes at the top of the page: "While this essay is not a Wikipedia policy or guideline itself, it is intended to supplement the Wikipedia:Deletion policy page, to which editors should defer in case of inconsistency between that page and this one." That differs from the lead-in to typical essays, though admittedly I'm not clear on how this came to deserve a different intro, and if it means the force of this essay is greater than is usual. Epeefleche (talk) 10:00, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Reality show contestants
I've cited the general rule that Reality show contestants, unless they win/place/show, or have some other notability per WP:CREATIVE, don't get their an article. Can we word-smith a line about that? (Cross-listed at Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion). Bearian (talk) 22:50, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Malls
As to malls, what was communicated to me by one sysop was that the dividing line was 1 million sf, and a second sysop said he believed it was 500,000 sf, with malls below those sizes generally not being considered inherently notable absent unusual RS coverage. I now have an editor saying that a mall that is far below both those cut-offs, at 333,615 sq ft, is notable.

Discussion is at Articles for deletion/Promenades Drummondville.

As to my allusion to other editors indicating the 500,000 square foot (or higher) cut-off at mall AFDs, consider:


 * Sumter Mall deletion review (see comment by DGG; "There is no fixed rule about malls, but the usual practice is for there to be a cutoff at around 1 million square feet--less in some regions where there are still rare. This is compatible with the definition of super-regional in most lists. In the US have sometimes kept with less, but rarely in recent years with less than 500,000. (this has 345,000) Sometimes there is some special distinction ... The applicability of the GNG to malls is useless--the events reported are usually trivial or in local sources which report anything regardless of significance. (When there is something of significance that's another matter.)"),


 * AfD Cottonwood Mall (Albuquerque, New Mexico) (see comment by Edison, "It has a gross leasable area of over 1 million sqaure feet. Anything over 800,000 is considered a superregional mall per the industry definition. Notable on that basis..."),


 * AfD The Shops at Kildeer (see comment by Vegaswikian; "500,000 sqft or so ... is generally accepted as being notable"),
 * AfD Westwood Mall (Jackson, Michigan) (see comment by Nenyedi; "regional mall under 500,000 sq. feet"),


 * AfD The Shops at Biddeford Crossing (see comment by Edison), and


 * AfD Golden East Crossing (see comments by TenPoundHammer).

Thoughts? Thanks. --Epeefleche (talk) 19:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
 * From WP:GEOFEAT... Buildings, including private residences and commercial developments can be notable as a result of their historic, social, economic, or architectural importance. They require significant coverage by reliable, third-party sources to establish notability. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:36, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, GEOFEAT works, but I think there is also a strong consensus that less than 500k sq feet is too small. Whether the dividing line is 600k or 1 million is not settled yet. Bearian (talk) 21:39, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note that both Sumter Mall and Westwood Mall in Jackson, Michigan still have articles anyway, as the presence of multiple third party sources supercedes size or lack thereof. Brighton Mall was less than 300,000, yet it's been kept twice because of sources. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 23:29, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Sumpter Mall was   deleted earlier this month at Articles for deletion/Sumter Mall and the deletion upheld at Deletion review/Log/2014 May 19. It was recreated on 28 May, with additional sources---but the sources were brought up for discussion at the AfD and the consensus was that they were too local to be significant.  I have listed it as speedy G4; if the speedy is declined, I will take it to AfD once more.  Westwood was deleted at an AfD in 2007 Articles for deletion/Westwood Mall (Jackson, Michigan), and a later creation speedy deleted as copyvio. That's too old for me to be comfortable using G4, so I will consider what to do with it.   Brighton was kept in a 2008 AfD. I consider that also too old to be reliable as an indication of current views, and I  will consider whether I want to renominate it. The way the GNG is applied depends on how we consider the sources. (Or, as I have sometimes said, what we decide to do at AfD depends on our global evaluation of notability , and we then interpret the sufficiency of the sources to give the conclusion we want.) Myself,  I would prefer a firm cutoff in any but exceptional cases, but I have observed the current practice is rather to manipulate the details of the criteria for sourcing.  DGG ( talk ) 00:55, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The Sumter Mall article has new sourcing, are you checking your facts? At the DRV and AfD there was consensus that Sumter Mall met WP:GNG.  The argument that the sources were only local did not stand.  The argument that the sources were not independent was shown to not be consistent with the essay WP:INDY.  I think you could have and could going forward help a lot here by following WP:BEFORE.  Respectfully, Unscintillating (talk) 02:15, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * When the GNG is in conflict with NOT DIRECTORY, which do you think is more important? We'll discuss it at the AfD, if I don't decide the whole topic is not worth the trouble. I am even open to the possibility of abandoning both  NOT DIRECTORY and its attempted implementation as WP:N, and concentrate on removing promotionalism.   DGG ( talk ) 03:41, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Right, WP:NOT is a policy and supersedes the WP:N guideline. But I don't see that the definitions that include the word "regional" open us up to indiscriminate coverage.  We know from icsc.org that as of Jan 2014, the U.S. has 680 super-regional malls, and 831 regional malls.  Malls also factor into the gazetteer as venues and regional landmarks.  What do you have in mind to reduce promotionalism?  Unscintillating (talk) 05:48, 30 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I just wanted to drop a link to Notability (shopping centers), a failed proposal to come up with a standard in this area in 2007, which used an 800,000 sq. ft. (74,000 sq. meters) rough threshold for when you'd expect a keep.--Milowent • <sup style="position:relative">has<span style="position:relative;bottom:-2.0ex;left:-3.2ex;*left:-5.5ex;">spoken 03:10, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Interesting -- per discussion there, as of 15 years ago there were already 2,093 malls in the US with over 350,000 square feet of gross leasable area. A current listing by Directory of Major Malls reflects 921 US malls of 500,000 sf - 1 million sf, and 460 US malls of over 1 million sf. Epeefleche (talk) 04:50, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that link. Unscintillating (talk) 05:48, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * There is also info on the related talk page at WT:Notability_(shopping_centers), including a list of mall AfDs from 2007. Unscintillating (talk) 05:48, 30 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm unclear why square footage would be considered more important than if the topic meets the WP:GNG. I just don't see how it's relevant. Hobit (talk) 01:55, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It seems to be the same sort of shortcut as the one used vis-a-vis schools, where primary schools for example are generally deleted, but in extraordinary circumstances (such as unusual (for primary schools) GNG non-local coverage) GNG can lead to the article being kept. But the approach seems to have been adopted by consensus in both schools and malls before I become involved with the two. Epeefleche (talk) 07:49, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I thought that the size issue was to justify keeping larger malls even if notability was an issue. I disagree that size overrides notability for smaller malls. VMS Mosaic (talk) 02:24, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see how anything can or should override the GNG. Trivial or local coverage of something means just that –it's not notable and shouldn't have it's own article. It can go in a "Shopping malls in X location" article in this case and be redirected. Having a size "rule" allows circumvention of the GNG, which should not be possible. Being arbitarily "big" does not confer notability on any entity. Philg88 ♦talk 05:13, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * That's a compelling argument which is provoking some reconsideration on my part. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:28, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Notability is not conferred, so saying that "x does not confer notability" is a truism. Unscintillating (talk) 01:27, 5 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Here we go again. Just afded Articles for deletion/Columbia Mall (Missouri) (2nd nomination) and wp:outcome keeps are returning... Is wp:outcomes a reason for keeping or not? Me5000 (talk) 14:27, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * No it is not. It is not a guideline or a policy. It is just a helpful tool to give people an idea of what often happens in AfDs, according to the experiences of some editors (in other words it is anecdotal). The standard is GNG and maybe one can throw in a hat tip towards GEOFEAT, although that has not yet been formally adopted. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:57, 10 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I object to this- to defining something's notability based on an arbitrary quantitative value without considering qualitative aspects of why a mall may be notable. In small towns, the 500k (or gasp 800k!) square footage belies the reality that such a mall may be a civic anchor or major landmark, as in the case of the just-deleted Royal City Centre which is the main edifice in Uptown New Westminster in British Columbia, Canada.  I haven't looked yet at the notability for shopping centres guideline (not a rule...anyone here remember the Fifth Pillar, "there are no rules"?) but if the same quantitative arguments are made/asserted there, based on urban-scale conceptions of physical size, rather than role in a community or architectural notability of local-landmark status, it's a systemic bias and should be trashed.  WP:Hotels has, as stated at the top of List of hotels, notability parameters which include being a landmark, as the RCC definitely is and has been for decades; the "bias for bigger" thing that's around Wikipedia just a bit too much does a disservice to smaller cities and towns.  I know of another major landmark in Nelson, British Columbia, whose article was also deleted (name escapes me just now, it's early here) and the Yaohan Centre is a major mall in its area, one of several that form anchors in Golden Village, the modernist "Chinatown" in Richmond, British Columbia; also notable for various news-y reason; Capri Centre was also just deleted.  One thing I've noted in looking over other major mall articles in Greater Vancouver is that they nearly all have only the mall's own website as a reference; but they are major civic anchors and landmarks; making them wiki-invisible by deleting them makes their presence in local geography invisible.  Some, like the Yaohan, are "four or five star" in quality; if the same standard as on WP:Hotels were applied, it would qualify.  Not approaching the local WikiProject directly and doing 7-day deletions, voted on by two, maybe three people, is not, to me, acceptable and is not genuine consensus, as no effort to ask locally was made.  That these all come in a row constitute bulk deletions; why is it that people spend more time looking for things to delete instead of looking for ways to improve or expand or reference the article, other than cursory google searches, is quite beyond me. "Improving the encyclopedia" should not mean deleting everything in the path of "rule enforcers" ("there are no rules", remember?).Skookum1 (talk) 07:08, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Dubious "schools"
Recently there have been a flood of new articles concerning non-governmental schools and "institutions of higher learning", particularly in northwestern India and Pakistan.

What is the policy on "private" schools and colleges, as well as religious madrassas (which many of these may be fronts for)?

If there is no policy at present, I think we need one.<b style="font-family:georgia; font-size:11pt; color:#BFA3A3"> Pax</b> 03:31, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Broadcast media
I need to raise an issue where this document's section on broadcast media is in conflict with WP:NMEDIA. Specifically, this document asserts a blanket statement that "Satellite radio channels on XM, Sirius or WorldSpace are kept" — but the actual consensus, more correctly documented at NMEDIA, is that satellite radio stations are kept if, and only if, reliable sourcing that's specifically about the station itself can be provided. If the only sourcing you can provide to support an article is a poorly sourced (e.g. a primary source directory listing on the satellite service's own website, a passing acknowledgement of its existence in an article about some other topic, etc.) confirmation that the individual channel exists, however, then the channel does not qualify for a separate standalone article of its own.

Accordingly, I propose the following wording change here: Satellite radio channels on XM, Sirius or WorldSpace are kept if reliable source coverage about the station itself can be provided, but are redirected to a list of stations on the parent service if they can be referenced only to cursory coverage or primary sources which merely confirm the station's existence.

For the record, I've commented the point in question out of the broadcast media section for the time being, given that it's under dispute. It should be uncommented again once there's a consensus for an appropriate new wording (be it my proposal or a revised version.)

- Bearcat (talk) 20:29, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Concur -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:05, 29 January 2015 (UTC)


 * As this discussion has been open for three weeks now, with no further discussion taking place and no objections having been raised, I'm going to add the proposed text back into the document. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 01:20, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion on whether speedy A7 should apply to senior high schools/sixth form, 6-12 schools, K-12 schools, etc. (schools with upper secondary components)
Please see Village_pump_(policy) WhisperToMe (talk) 18:59, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Section blanking
I apologize for the section blanking seen in the edit history. On Articles for deletion/Merle Gordon something went wrong and placed the entire AfD guidelines on the Merle Gordon AfD page. Mr.Bob.298 (talk) 00:06, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

High Schools
Somethings been bugging me, every high school gets an article, some editors such as Jacona and VMS_Mosaic have gone so far as to say that if a high school is proven to exist then it gets an article (here). What I'm wondering is, are high schools exempt from WP:ENN? If so, why? Is it some sort of WP:IHN thing?

Americanfreedom (talk) 01:11, 14 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I didn't say anything that is not in line with: "Most independently accredited degree-awarding institutions and high schools are usually kept except when zero independent sources can be found to prove that the institution actually exists." This is long standing consensus. I wasn't involved in reaching that consensus, but I suspect it was done at least partly to prevent long drawn out arguments over every high school (i.e., it is better to work on improving articles instead of constantly arguing about them). Of course consensus can change over time. But this is only one of a number of areas where only proof of existence is required (see WP:GEOLAND and see primary highways [beyond proof of existence, the article should assert individual notability]). Primary highways only need an assertion of notability as opposed to proof of notability. See any mineral article where only proof (mentioned in one book) of existence is required. Etc. VMS Mosaic (talk) 02:12, 14 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Ah, OK thanks for the clarification! Americanfreedom (talk) 18:50, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Railway stations
Currently, the section on "Rail Transport" doesn't mention railway stations, but points to Notability (Railway lines and stations) which basically says to use WP:GNG. However, it was made pretty clear to me here that despite GNG, that "the only time verifiably real rail transport stations end as anything other than "keep" is when articles about a group of stations are merged and redirected to an article about the line or system they're on. For heavy rail stations on a main system (i.e. not a heritage railway) the latter almost always happens only if the stations are simply proposed/planned, or existed only briefly many years ago." Therefore, I am proposing that under rail transport we add a line that says: --Ahecht (<span style="color:#FFF;background:#00f;display:inline-block;padding:1px 1px 0;vertical-align:-0.3em;line-height:1;font-size:62.5%;text-align:center;">TALK PAGE ) 16:20, 15 September 2015 (UTC) PAGE''' ]]) 15:23, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Existing heavy rail stations on a main system (i.e. not a heritage railway) are generally kept at AfD.
 * Well, it's clear that there are no objections, so I'm going to go ahead and add this. --Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|<span style="color:#FFF;background:#00f;display:inline-block;padding:1px 1px 0;vertical-align:-0.3em;line-height:1;font-size:50%;text-align:center;">'''TALK

Interchanges (i.e. road junctions)
Hi. As a result of over 50 AfD discussions over the past 3 months, the consensus was that unless an interchange established that it had met WP:GNG, it would not pass AfD. Only 2 of those discussions ended in Keep results. About 4 were No consensus (although I feel at least one of those was simply a !vote count, and not based on policy), and the other 45 were Delete results. (There are still several open). But even in the keep and no consensus votes, the over-riding rationale was based on notability. In an effort to alleviate some of these problematic discussions in the future, I've added the results of those AfD's to the Road section of the essay.  Onel 5969  <i style="color:blue">TT me</i> 19:47, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:BRD is not Bold revert revert discuss. You already know that there is no consensus for your version, but you require on having it your way to begin the discussion?  Why is that?  Unscintillating (talk) 20:27, 17 January 2016 (UTC)


 * What you posted is, "Interchanges, while parts of roadways which may be notable, have no inherited, nor inherent, notability. Simply existing does not qualify them as notable. They must pass WP:GNG." Which part of "duplicative, truisms, not statements, and GNG-centrism" was not clear?  Unscintillating (talk) 20:27, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * What part of 47 out of 50 discussions pointing to a consensus is difficult for you to understand? I've seen more consensus on issues, but rarely. Regarding your above edit summary: pretty much the fact that your opinion has been thoroughly thought of as invalid during AfD discussions. Your failure to understand how consensus works, and your reluctance to drop the stick is a bit unsettling. But let's wait and see what other editors have to say. I'll ask other editors to AGF my above statement about the # of AfD discussions. But if asked, I will provide links to all 50+ of them. But as I said at the last AfD, there's no point at this stage with discussing this with you. I'll respond to questions/comments/requests from other editors. Take care.  Onel 5969  <i style="color:blue">TT me</i> 21:12, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I treat you with respect and I have no stick. Unscintillating (talk) 21:26, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Unscintillating's opinion has not been thoroughly thought of as invalid during AfD discussions. (Nor is such an accusation on topic). Nor has he failed to understand how consensus works. James500 (talk) 07:46, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose. 47 deletions over a short space of time are not a common outcome. That looks more like a spree. James500 (talk) 07:03, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
 * -It's not just the deletions, even in the 2 keeps, and the several no-consensus, the over-riding guideline was notability. In not a single one of the discussions was any other rationale used. That would pretty much invalidate those other rationales.  Onel 5969  <i style="color:blue">TT me</i> 12:11, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I do not accept that your sample of fifty AfDs over 3 months is large enough. At this stage, your outcome is not common enough and could be a flash in the pan. It might also consist of outliers (it might be that the vast majority of interchanges satisfy GNG, in which case they should be presumed notable to save time, and that the sample consists of 'low hanging fruit'). I would like to see one thousand results evenly spread out over a five year period. Would I also be correct in imagining that these AfDs, which were so well attended that I was not even present at any of them, are mostly the work of the same small group of editors !voting over and over again in all or most of the AfDs? Because that would be a spree, not a trend. James500 (talk) 16:04, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Looking at one of these AfDs, I find that there are only two !votes for deletion. I would call that 'no quorum', and I would probably have closed it as no consensus or relisted it, looking at the arguments as well. I do not think a topic should normally be deleted because two people agree. For crowd-decision-making to work, there has to actually be a crowd. Do the rest have a similar lack of participation? James500 (talk) 16:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Nope. Participation, as would be expected, varies. Just guessing, but probably at least 20 or so editors participated in the various discussions, although there were about 5 who were pretty consistent in participating. I wasn't questioning your rationale for opposing, I actually understand that. I was speaking to your comment about the other editor's rationale. Which there was, as I've said, a universal consensus (in the AfD decision-making process), that the overriding principle should have been GNG. That's the only point I was trying to make. Take it easy.  Onel 5969  <i style="color:blue">TT me</i> 18:11, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I feel like this page is for common outcomes which are not basically "follow WP:GNG", and as such probably isn't worth adding. ansh 666 02:47, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. "most topics should meet GNG" is already inferred advice for topics not mentioned on this list. Saying that "interchanges are usually not notable" will just reduce the amount of research AfD participants do on interchange articles, and we may have a gap in our coverage because of it. <span style="color: #33BBFF; font-family:Lato, monospace'">Esquivalience  t 14:45, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Political parties
Articles for deletion/Danig Party of Australia is a rare case of a registered political party in Austrailia that had practicall zero press coverage as of the time of the AFD.

It is interesting because at least one AFD participant indicated that registered political parties in Austrailia almost always meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines: As a general rule, we've always held that notability goes with registration, and that registered parties have articles when their preferences matter very significantly is a pretty fundamental reason why our coverage of Australian politics is good.

Even if this is true in Austrailia, it's not true everywhere. If "political parties" is ever added to this list, it will have to be on a country-by-country basis or based on whether it or is members have won elections and at what level (e.g. "Political parties in the United States may be presumed notable if their candidates for Congress have won an election, their candidate fot President has received electoral votes, their candidate for governor has won, or enough of their candidates for any house of any state legislate has won enough votes to give them a majority. They may also be presumed notable if ....").

If political parties are added to this list, this AFD can be cited as an example of when the presumption breaks down and the article should not be created or it should be merged or redirected or sent to AFD if it already exists davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  00:08, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This definitely does not apply to UK political parties, which are registered in their hundreds and often inactive or vanity/marketing projects. People have tried to argue for having representation as an indication of notability, but getting a town/parish councillor is like falling off a log. They need in depth coverage from multiple sources. Fences  &amp;  Windows  11:03, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I disagree. There are other tests we can apply for United Kingdom parties: a single MP certainly guarantees notability, and we can count the number of councillors they have (one might not suffice, but a large number will), and the number of votes they have received (eg you could infer the Referendum Party was notable from the 812,000 votes they received in 1997), and we can look at whether they actually have had control of any county or district council or unitary authority (ie a majority of councillors on the council). I am under the impression that the United Kingdom has significantly fewer elected representatives per capita than many other countries, as I recall reading that somewhere. Multiple sources are certainly not needed for any purpose, and references to them in notability guidelines can be safely blamed on WP:RANDY. References to "depth coverage" are completely unhelpful because they are subjective and certain sections of the community keep insisting on an unreasonably large quantity of coverage. Minor and "joke" parties do get coverage, and are certainly collectively notable: see for example the article "Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?" by Matthew Parris. James500 (talk) 02:12, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * This is the talk page for "Common outcomes", not the place to establish what should be the notability criteria for political parties. Minor UK political parties have often been deleted or merged, so the suggestion above that registration=notability=kept doesn't apply. Any party with an MP will inevitably pick up ample coverage in reliable sources, but I don't know of any practice of using representation at local level to indicate notability. I didn't say that minor parties or joke parties cannot be notable (and there may be a suitable merge target if they are not), but rather that they are not automatically notable. "Multiple sources are certainly not needed for any purpose": I was restating WP:GNG, which expects significant coverage from sources. Fences  &amp;  Windows  13:39, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * p.s. Do you have a link/reference to that Parris article? I couldn't find what you meant. Fences  &amp;  Windows  13:43, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * GNG does not require multiple sources in absolute terms. It is a common misconception that it does. The article is in The Times Guide to the House of Commons May 1997 at page 49. James500 (talk) 18:33, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

The relevant policies on schools should be WP:GNG and WP:ORG, not WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES
Using WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES as a deletion argument, is in essence, an appeal to the majority, a logical fallacy. We should instead insert language that schools are usually kept because they almost always are notable, and that one has to show that news coverage satisfying WP:GNG does not exist or WP:ORG is not satisfied. I'd like to cite Notability (high schools) (an essay stating my opinion) in saying that, even though high schools are commonly presumed to be notable, they must also be able to meet the relevant guidelines for notability. Basically, a discussion in 2009 where 3 people participated (see here) has created something that has taken on the level of a policy in AfD discussions. I'm not proposing any sort of notability guideline for schools, but this summary of AfD debates intended to be used as a guideline has somehow been transmuted into a pseudo-policy, which we need to rectify by stating that the primary policies covering schools are WP:GNG and WP:ORG. WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is persuasive, but should not be the "be all and end all" when it comes to schools. Grognard Extraordinaire Chess (talk) Ping when replying 04:53, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment I have long opposed the more or less presumptive notability for schools. Far too many articles have been created with few or no RS sources and they are being treated as presumptively notable. As of right now the de-facto (if not yet de-jure) reality is that most editors believe that any High School or secondary school that can be proven to exist is presumptively notable. I think this is wrong and and contrary to both the letter and spirit of the guidelines. I also believe it has allowed way too many articles to get on Wikipedia that do not meet GNG. It's time for the blank check to be torn up.-Ad Orientem (talk) 05:17, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * PS Could the OP shorten the rather long thread title please? Thanks... -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:17, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Support WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is often misused as an argument, mainly when USA-schools are in play. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 10:31, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Being bold and adding it. Grognard Extraordinaire Chess (talk) Ping when replying 14:52, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Can we also talk about the sentence: Most independently accredited degree-awarding institutions and high schools are usually kept except when zero independent sources can be found to prove that the institution actually exists. That is of course a massive failure of WP:GNG. And to make it worse, I have seen this sentence being used in combination with a statement that sounded like when you failed to find sources, you did not search hard enough. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 21:28, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose We should have an SNG saying that (real) universities are notable, and ORG does appear to say that. GNG, and the exclusionary parts of ORG, are too vague to be helpful inclusion criteria; and some parts of ORG advocate a particularly rabid form of deletionism (they go on and on and on about how evil organisations are, and how, because a few non-notable nonentity organisations have spammed us, we must totally delete all important notable organisations in order to punish and punish and punish a completely different group of people, and similar bizarre nonsense). So I don't think we want to rely on them. James500 (talk) 18:25, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I removed the addition, because it's redundant. ansh 666 00:02, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Question regarding United Methodist Church bishops
Would it be reasonable to specifically include in this page indications that United Methodist Church bishops will in general be notable as well? John Carter (talk) 19:37, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The standard is GNG. Therefore the real question is, based on experience, do most UMC bishops pass GNG? I have some doubts, but I am am not sufficiently familiar with the polity and doings of the Methodist Church to know if their leadership routinely garners in depth coverage from multiple reliable sources. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:40, 10 March 2015 (UTC)


 * User:John Carter, It seems to me that they would have the same as Lutheran and Episcopal. They are elected for life by Presbyters at a General Conference.E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:53, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Unclear politician guidelines.
There are a few things on the current WP:POLOUTCOMES rules that only become clear after analysis, I think it could be worth reformulating this a bit. This has for example caused confusion on Articles for deletion/Rod Silva (businessman).

1. The sentence "losing candidates for office below the national level are generally deleted unless previous notability can be demonstrated" has been used to argue that losing candidates on the national level should be kept and are notable. Of course, it also says "Candidates who ran but never were elected for a national legislature or other national office are not viewed as having inherent notability", but you have to read through everything carefully to realize this.

2. WP:POLOUTCOMES never mentions ongoing campaigns, only losing candidates. Now we clearly can't have a Wikipedia page for every non-notable politician just because they are currently standing for an election somewhere, and we can't have articles for people because they may become notable once they win, so this should perhaps be made clearer.

I suggest changing the third point of WP:POLOUTCOMES to:


 * Candidates who are have never been elected are not viewed as having inherent notability. For elections to a national legislature or other national office there is often lists of campaign hopefuls, such as Ontario New Democratic Party candidates, 1995 Ontario provincial election, or into articles detailing the specific race in question, such as United States Senate election in Nevada, 2010. Note that such articles are still subject to the same content policies as any other article, and may not contain any unsourced biographical information that would not be acceptable in a separate article.

This would make it clearer that notability comes only with being elected to the national level. --OpenFuture (talk) 06:38, 19 February 2016 (UTC) Opinions? --OpenFuture (talk) 06:38, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * This sentence doesn't make any sense: "For elections to a national legislature or other national office there is often lists of campaign hopefuls, such as Ontario New Democratic Party candidates, 1995 Ontario provincial election, or into articles detailing the specific race in question, such as United States Senate election in Nevada, 2010." From your use of the word "into" perhaps you meant to say something about merger into those articles.  But you didn't actually say it?--Jahaza (talk) 14:54, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


 * You are right, it was a rest of what was there before I missed when I rewrote it. Something like this, rather?
 * For elections to a national legislature or other national office there is often lists of campaign hopefuls, such as Ontario New Democratic Party candidates, 1995 Ontario provincial election, or lists of candidates in the articles detailing the specific race in question, such as United States Senate election in Nevada, 2010.
 * --OpenFuture (talk) 15:57, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Proposing this: It is usual to delete articles about otherwise non-notable candidates rather than moving them to user space for fear of establishing a precedent that any premature article about an as-yet-unelected candidate for office can be kept in draftspace pending election returns, effectively  making draftspace the kind of repository of campaign brochures for political candidates that we're trying to prevent mainspace from becoming (see Articles for deletion/Siân Gwenllian.)E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:38, 25 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I have long thought our policy here incorrect, and we should make basic articles for anyone  in a  countries with a 2 party system who has received a major party nomination for national office (in the US, H of Rep or Senator, or State Governor, which has a national influence) . Equivalently elsewhere also --but I do not know how we'd handle multi-party systems.  There is always sufficient material to be found in local press sources,which always cover everyone running for this office. (Much of the coverage is likely to resemble a campaign PR, but that's even more true of the winner). The way we do it now gives a bias for the incumbent.
 * As a more immediately attainable measure, I see no reason not to move to draft space. Even in draft space, they shouldn't resemble campaign ads to the extent it can be avoided. I'd apply this only to those actually winning the nomination.  DGG ( talk ) 03:54, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Bible and other religious schools that fail WP:GNG and WP:ORG
Anyone have a good sense of school outcomes for relatively-unknown (that is, they would fail WP:GNG and WP:CORP) "Bible" and other religious post-secondary schools that grant degrees, but where the accrediting agency is so closely tied to the school that it can't really be called independent, or where the accrediting agency and related institutions recognize the degree but the government and the "rest of the world" doesn't recognize the credentials the same as they would a typical college degree (that is, the government might recognize a graduate as being qualified to preach and perform marriages, but would not recognize the school as a degree-granting school for financial aide or other purposes).

I'm asking because this recent AFD about a religious college/university was opened with the comment "non notable school of [a religious group]. If we started giving article space to every [school run by/for that religous group] there will be almost 1 thousand articles created every day for the next ten years FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 09:05, 28 August 2015 (UTC) [edited by davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs) at 22:30, 29 August 2015 (UTC) to remove the particular religious group, which is not related to THIS discussion]"

Nevermind the merits of this particular school (which probably will pass based on WP:GNG or WP:CORP), the issue remains: How have past AFDs for otherwise-non-notable religious schools whose only credential is one recognized by a particular church or religion been resolved? Have there been enough of them in the last few years to even declare that a precedent has been set?

If the answer is "they have NOT been uniformly KEPT" or "there haven't been enough to declare a precedent" then I recommend we explicitly note that otherwise-non-notable religious schools whose accreditation to grant degrees is not recognized outside of the related religious community are not "presumed notable" under WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  22:30, 29 August 2015 (UTC)


 * there has been considerable difficulty in judging institutions not part of the modern US-Western Europe pattern. The basic crition for colleges is that they award a degree, and there is not necessarily any equivalent of this in many traditional systems (including some in the US). Such articles have indeed often been delated unless the usual sort of GNG notability could be shown. The article mentioned was kept as nonconsensus; had I noticed the AfD I would have given a very strong keep. To a certain extent, the nomination of such a school shows an unawareness of other cultures, one which we call Systematic Bias.  DGG ( talk ) 05:51, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Dear Sir thanks for your help
Now it's clear enough for me to think about putting my school on Wikipedia or not. As it is in their rules. I kept on trying to put my article on Wikipedia because I didn't know the reason for deletion of my school article.

Thank you so much again for your help.

May God bless you.

Darbar Ali Soomro D Grammar School Larkano Darbar ali (talk) 04:57, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Consensus about ambassadors
Regarding, what "consensus" was this? The last discussion I saw was here. Chris Troutman ( talk ) 13:00, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * the fact that several perhaps over 30 ambassador Articles have been deleted. If they had inherent notability they would have been all kept.  There has been no consensus in AfD or that discussion to grant ambassadors inherent notability. LibStar (talk) 16:48, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * It seems like to be included on the list there should be some nuance to the subject. Maybe I just haven't been involved in enough ambassador AfDs to know, but there should be something there explaining why it needs to be noted here (i.e. by default, topics are not inherently notable, by default notability is not inherited, and by default additional roles can help a person become notable. What am I missing? &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 17:23, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note that the vast majority of AfD discussions in which ambassadors have been deleted have had no more than two or three contributors. Not much of a consensus that they're not notable either! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:19, 18 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment WP:N states, "No subject is automatically or inherently notable merely because it exists".  So it is a truism to say that "(x) is not inherently notable".  It is like saying that "(x) does not confer notability", but notability is not bestowed.  The statements are always true, and carry no additional information.  Unscintillating (talk) 17:31, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Then there is no consensus for that wording to be added. I have removed the offending text per WP:BRD. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 18:41, 17 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree that there is no 'common outcome' that ambassadors are not generally notable. Thirty counter examples prove nothing because the number is too small, and could consist of outliers. In any event many of those examples should have been closed as no consensus due to there having been no quorum. There is also a problem that editors who !vote against deletion of bilateral relations articles are so regularly subjected to such intense trolling that some editors altogether refuse to participate in any AfD on a diplomat. James500 (talk) 06:45, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
 * If consensus really has changed back to Ambassadors being generally notable, I would find it very satisfying. We shall see what future AfDs bring. I have argued against deletion of almost all such articles for many years, but even whenI was new here, I can't say I received any trolling. One very inclusionist editor (and a good wikifriend of mine) I know did come under considerable attack, but it was not primarily for this topic. If anyone would like to reintroduce any of the bilateral relations articles, I think I have a list somewhere.  DGG ( talk ) 05:48, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
 * nice try... there is definitely no consensus to grant ambassadors inherent notability otherwise they would all pass through AfDs as keep which is clearly not the case. LibStar (talk) 15:09, 30 March 2016 (UTC)