Wikipedia talk:Notability (New Zealand people)

Notability (New Zealand people)
Whether people with an entry in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography are inherently notable or not comes up with some regularity ever since Stuartyeates mass-produced stub entries for most of the missing DNZB articles. Before he did so, he extensively consulted on the proposal. We spend too much time discussing DNZB notability on a case-by-case basis, and when this last came up earlier this month, I thought it is about time that we resolve this issue once and for all. I have started work on a notability guideline for New Zealand people, and this needs to be a communal project. The draft sits in my userspace, but feel free to chip in at any time. Discussion is welcome; in fact it is essential that we have a discussion.  Schwede 66  20:45, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Excellent work! I've added some university lists and some tweaks. It's probably worth aligning some of this with WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles, which is where the DNZB stuff actually originated. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:16, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * If it helps inform the discussion, there's a long-standing consensus that anyone with an entry in the similar Australian Dictionary of Biography can be assumed to be notable given that the ADB entry alone comprises significant, high quality and in-depth coverage. Nick-D (talk) 10:35, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for starting this project Schwede. I will contribute when I return to NZ NealeFamily (talk) 09:54, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I've moved this into project space now: Notability (New Zealand people) That means that the draft is ready. What it doesn't mean is that what's there is the final version; please regard everything as a starting point for further discussions. Edit as you see fit; say what you think on the talk page.  Schwede 66  10:06, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Who's Who
The Who's Who volumes continued to at least 1995 - I have in front of me the 1995 edition of "New Zealand Who's Who Aotearoa", edited by Alister Taylor and Deborah Coddington. It's published by "New Zealand Who's Who Aotearoa Limited" with copyright dates 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995. I wouldn't consider that listing in it conferred any degree of notability - many of the entries seem to have been imported from lists of members of professional organisations. I'd place its content at about the same level as the volumes of the Cyclopaedia of 1897-1908. Daveosaurus (talk) 10:40, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. I seem to recall my grandfather getting to proofread his entry in the late 1980s. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:17, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Good feedback. I for one have never held a single copy of these books in my hand. Older versions are available as snippet view only on Google Books, which isn't enough to assess the situation. I can imagine that older editions may well infer notability, as Scholefield was the initial editor, and he would have initially focussed on the very notable people, and then worked towards the less notable. He did that for a good 30 years and then published the 1940 version of the DNZB. Hence, I'm guessing that at least the first five editions infer notability. But we better check this by getting these books out of the library.  Schwede 66  03:52, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I have access to pretty much a complete series of these if you need me to look at comparisons. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:20, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Current DNZB
Stuartyeates, I suggest that it's useful to compile a list of exclusions, as there aren't that many. I'm only aware of one of them. Anybody can/should contribute to the list:  Schwede 66  01:26, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) Margaret Lynch (servant)
 * 2) Anne Swift (prostitute)

I've googled DNZB prostitutes and found one without an article (A. Swift), one with an article who is certainly not notable (Jessie Finnie), and one that is at best borderline (Barbara Weldon). Stuartyeates, would you want to put Finnie up for speedy deletion? Same with Weldon, or shall we have a formal discussion at AfD?  Schwede 66  01:52, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I've moved the first to Draft:Jessie_Finnie. That means it gets deleted automatically in six months if not rescued. I've not had time to look at the second yet, but it I don't someone else is welcome to move it similarly. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:04, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The more I think about this, the more I think that what we need is a new section in Dictionary of New Zealand Biography called 'Representative Entries' which is basically these biographies collated together. We can make the links from their names work using the magic or redirects and I believe that we can even add persondata (see this example). How does that sound? Stuartyeates (talk) 07:30, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to me. I reckon a case could be made that WP:BIO1E could apply to such entries - otherwise non-notable people notable for only one thing, i.e. being included as a representative entry in the DNZB. Daveosaurus (talk) 08:46, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion, Stuartyeates! That's what we should do.  Schwede 66  09:10, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I've done this now, feel free to take a look and let me know what you think. I'm happy for other nominations for the same treatment. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Are you saying that if someone is listed in the DNZB, but is not notable enough to warrant their own Wikipedia entry, they are considered a "representative entry" ... and therefore their entire DNZB biography will be copied into the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography page on Wikipedia? Also, why is it that the only people who meet those criteria so far are prostitutes? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 07:11, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Can you please expand on what you mean by "their entire DNZB biography"? I'm asking because I don't really understand what you are trying to say.  Schwede 66  09:05, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected. The entire DNZB biographies of such persons (like http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1w11/weldon-barbara) have not been copied into Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on Wikipedia; only a couple of sentences about them have been copied into the Wikipedia article. So to rephrase my prior question, is it the case that if someone is listed in the DNZB, but is not notable enough to warrant their own Wikipedia entry, they are considered a "representative entry" ... and therefore a brief summary of their biography will be copied into the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography page on Wikipedia? Also, why is it that the only people who meet those criteria so far are prostitutes? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:24, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, when the problem of non-notability arose for DNZB entries, we thought that listing those representative entries somewhere is a good way of managing this. So somebody with a DNZB entry either has a Wikipedia article, or is mentioned in the list of representative entries. Once that was sorted, we scratched our heads what those bios were that should probably be deleted, and all we could collectively come up with were the ones that are listed there. And they all happen to be prostitutes. There are other representative entries, but Stuart didn't create stubs for them in the first instance. We could list them, and over time, I'm sure we will.  Schwede 66  08:12, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Status as a draft
We have a draft status for this policy. Have we given everybody enough time to comment on this? Can this be turned into a policy accepted by the community? Or is more discussion required?  Schwede 66  13:56, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I would like to see it put forward as a policy. It seems reasonably comprehensive. NealeFamily (talk) 22:59, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I've thus removed the proposal tag.  Schwede 66  05:24, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Um, as this needed to be reviewed by the global wikipedia community (as a notability guideline) it's really not appropriate to add it to notability guidelines like this directly. I also believe this is far too narrow a scope for a notability guideline, and considering what it's scope is to do, specifically aiming to help identify what sourcing is appropriate for people of NZ, this is much better served as a guideline within the NZ Wikiproject, and not as as a global notability guideline. --M ASEM (t) 06:49, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Honestly. This is not how business is done. Start an RfC per WP:PROPOSAL. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 06:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thirded. This would be better as a wikiproject guide and will not qualify as a guideline. Plus I'm really not seeing the rigor around the defintions that would make this policy worthy. Spartaz Humbug! 06:58, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * RFC's can be very critical, I suggest at least one more round of review and tightening before going there. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)