Wikipedia talk:Utility

I'll say this to start - I love the idea. My original idea of what Wikipedia was when I started editing here is similar to this proposal.

With that said, utility is incredibly, insanely, maddeneningly(sp?) subjective, and can never really be, ironically enough, useful to us. Getting everyone to agree that, say, the MBTA Riverside Green Line D Train would be a "useful" article would be a massive mess every time it came up.

I mean, I love the idea, but I don't know how to make it work. That's the struggle thus far. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * With notability you are forced to be subjective when you ask "Worthy of note why?" I consider pondering a topic's notability to be a much more subjective than its usefulness, akin to questioning if it is "great" or "of distinction". The question can hardly be answered except through a subjective lens.


 * On the other hand, with utility, while still having a subjective element, you can at least ask the question: "Useful to whom?"&mdash;A much more addressable question, in my opinion. Of course both criteria can complement each other also.—Pengo 13:11, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * At least with notability, we can reach some sort of basic line in the sand regarding what makes something notable via consensus. How does one do that for utility?  I mean, theoretically, anything can be useful to someone else. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The line is drawn by deciding how useful the article or topic is to how large or diverse a group of people. These are some parameters to work with that can be discussed in a largely objective way.


 * On the other hand, nothing is inherently notable of and by itself, and so "notability" forces us to rely on outside sources (such as journalists or pop charts) do the subjective decision making for us by deciding what to note, and then we merely copy that. Some people may think this system is fair and gives Wikipedia the right balance of articles. However, "notability" is still as objective as a Category:Beautiful people. Sure, we could find the people who have been written about and said to be beautiful. This does not make beauty objective. Fortunately we don't restrict Wikipedia articles to being those that fit in Category:Beautiful people, but we do sometimes attempt to restrict it to Category:Notable topics. Fortunately notability is not a policy, and quirky articles like Missingno. remain.


 * Utility gives us our own critieria for making decisions about articles which have not been "note worthy" to anyone else. We can make it an objective criteria, or at least as objective as we feel it should be. How large/diverse a group uses the information? In what way can or do they use the information? Is there a disadvantage to linking to existing web pages instead? These are largely objective questions, and we will certainly be able to draw a line in the sand as the criteria are fleshed out in VfD. —Pengo 01:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Basing this on paper
Who cares what you would find in a "paper" enyclopedia (as the proposal states)? The advantage of wikipedia is that it is not paper. So why use the contstraints of one medium to form another? Non-sensical. Ie the idea that "not every movie" would be found in an encyclopedia. The only reason for that is paper constraints. We don't have that in Wikipedia, so why not take advantage of that?Michael Dorosh 01:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think you're misunderstanding the proposal. The intention is precisely that Wikipedia can incorporate things which are not (notable enough to be) found in a paper encyclopædia.  Falcon 03:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I see where Dorosh was going with his comment. Many people see guidelines and policies as constraints, and that they can be used to hinder an article from developing. I think a good idea might be to label this (and other similar proposals/guidelines) as an inclusionist guideline. In this way, this article can be used to keep articles, but not to base a delete on (other policies can be used for that). Fresheneesz 05:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Subjective and redundant
We don't need this. I am never going to change my mind about whether an article should be kept on the basis of something I can interpret any way I choose. It is instruction creep and we don't need ever more policies and guidelines. ReeseM 02:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Any proposal that opens up the floodgates to people arguing over a subjective judgment is not helpful. I think it is inevitable to have this proposal be a hammer to exclude content that would otherwise be included in the Wikipedia. patsw 01:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Oui!
I feel that, while subjective, this policy is extremely workable for Wikipedia. I think that it is possible that the current policy of notability, in not incorporating utility as a kind of override criterion, allows information which is of relatively limited interest but still useful (of utility) to be removed on the basis that it is not overly significant in the grand scheme of things. The examples given are particularly useful. I would like to see this policy clarified, though: it should act in the following matter. The subjectivity of such a policy is quite irrelevant, as the utility of an article (much like its nobility) could be resolved on AfD in the event of a dispute. We should work to make Wikipedia a better resource before we sahould work on implementing rigid rules to streamline our decisions, much like programmers should program code which works well before they program code which is easier to write. The concept of subjectivity falls to the concept of the general priority of Wikipedia: to be a comprehensive free encyclopædia not constrained by the cost-based limits of a paper work. Falcon 03:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * If the article is of utility, it should be immune to deletion under WP:NN.
 * The article is of utility if it incorporates a decent quantity useful or unique information. E.g.:
 * An article which lists the generic specifications of a computer system, the ingredients of a foodstuff, etc. as the main article content is not of utility. Such information is simply not encyclopædic.
 * An article which details the success or failure of a product (preferably with citations) is of utility.
 * An article which illustrates unique ideas or features available on a product is of utility.
 * An article which lists train routes as the primary content is not of utility; that content can be found elsewhere.
 * An article which provides detail regarding something not widely implemented or used only for a fleeting amount of time is of utility, as it prevents the loss of such information from common knowledge and illuminates subjects which would be otherwise prohibitively obscure.


 * It should be noted that subjectivity *is* a problem, and it comes up again and again. While AfD's and consensus polling can lead to agreeable results for everyone, it can also lead to a polarizing debate. Subjectivity in many cases causes consensus to be a popularity contest - as people can skew a subjective guideline to whatever their feelings are about an article. However, I agree that allowing articles of utility is a good idea, I just hope that this policy doesn't turn against its core idea and allow users to delete articles based on its non-utility. Fresheneesz 05:50, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Essay
I'd support this as an essay, but Jeff pretty much summed up my thoughts on this. As long as articles are in keeping with the three key content policies I don't see that deletion is warranted, and I think having this as an essay would counterbalance the notability essay. Hiding Talk 15:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Please note that WP:NN is not a criteria for deleation as per WP:CSD. Most any deleations by WP:NN must be done through CSD A1 or other alternatives...Eagle talk 05:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Bye the way I support this policy as a inclusionist policy... useable for keeping an article, but not for deleating an article. This can be used to great effect to counterbalence the percieved state of WP:NN as policy, (of which it is not). Eagle talk 05:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Conceivable problems
While I agree somewhat with this policy, I can already tell it's going to generate a LOT of controversy over some articles.

For example, imagine an article that is a List of plants found in California. Pretty big article, right? It's also fairly useful to the millions of people living in California.

Now imagine, further, a List of plants found in Los Angeles, California. Also fairly useful and still useful to millions of people.

So now that there is this Wikipedia utility policy, what Wikipedia policy would prevent both articles from existing simultaneously? --Stellis 00:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, I don't think an article called List of plants found in California would be useful at all, which I think is the point. What exactly would someone use such a list for? On the other hand, to take an example the essay/proposal uses, an article about a non-notable cell phone model could be useful (for a comparison shopper, say), and therefore may have a place on Wikipidia. Let me give another example: Comparison of BitTorrent software. It is a very useful page, but in terms of notability, it is pretty far down the list. zafiroblue05 | Talk 03:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * A list of plants found in California would be useful if you were trying to identify a plant known to grow in California. Do you want other examples? I don't think it would take too much imagination to think of some uses. Range maps are generally useful, and such a list can be thought of as a "reverse range map". Your other examples are good though, cheers. —Pengo talk · contribs 14:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Language used during discussion.
One hopes that the tone of the discourse is not a harbinger of what is yet to come; using terms like "inclusionist" and "deletionist" seem to suggest that this proposal may be in jeopardy already. --Folajimi 02:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Objections
Here is a list of the reasons I object to this policy/guideline. I hope this is the appropriate place to discuss this. If not, someone please correct me.

"Utility":
 * Justifies listcruft
 * Is very subjective
 * Does not specify how many people the article must be useful to
 * Includes, as it now appears to me, to include every conceivable topic: usually if someone creates an article, it would have been useful to them

I think this policy needs a lot of clarification. Agreements/disagreements? --Stellis 08:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I largely agree with Stellis here, but think that the proposal needs a plot and a shovel instead. --Improv 18:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, I brought up the idea of utility because I believe it is already applied, although not codified. Objecting to it is objecting to how many people already conduct their arguments on VfD.

The objections raised above apply equally to "notability": Any topic can be considered notable to someone, and how notable a topic is is highly subjective. The notability guidelines did not come fully formed from above. Dispite these flaws, "notability" has proven to be workable.

Rather than justifying "listcruft", utility can be built into a framework for deciding which lists to include&mdash;Using notability guidelines makes little sense (how many lists are notable? should lists include only notable topics or should they be complete?). To address the "Conceivable problems" item above, this question could instead be raised:
 * Is it generally useful to have both "List of plants found in Los Angeles, California" and "List of plants found in California"?

If the "LA plant list" is not found to be useful when an existing Californian list exists then the LA list should not be created. This is already how Wikipedia works. "Notability of Los Angelen plants" would not enter into the AfD debate. It isn't rocket science to think about topics or lists in this way. The alternative questions of "How notable are the plants of LA" or "How notable is a list of plants of California" are rediculous questions. So, unlike notability (where one notable event seems to make everything it touches also notable), one useful list may make another list less useful. Again, this is how you would intuitively approach the problem anyway.

Yes, as mentioned in discussion above, there needs to be clarification of how useful to how large or diverse a group. It's a new proposal. However these sorts of questions would be best addressed on a case-by-case basis until some sort of general consenses is formed, but it would be stupid to discard the idea only because it does not specify all the details —Pengo 05:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

How does this Utility proposal not conflict with WP:NOT, specifically the section "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information"? A time table is useful, but shouldn't be here. A manual is useful, but shouldn't be here. Tips and tricks, FAQs, cheats, travel information, ... are all useful, but don't belong in Wikipedia. The argument that there are already articles (probably many articles) in Wikipedia that can only be included because they are useful is no argument. If you try to delete these articles, and a majority votes "keep" because of their usefullness (and not for some other reaason, like notability or some such), then you have a precedent and then you have an argument. As for now, I'm fully against this proposal and don't think any article should be included becaues the topic is useful. Please do make the difference with lists and categories though: these are pages to guide you through WIkipedia, to give the information contained in Wikipedia in a different, comprehensive manner. These articles are useful for Wikipedia, not useful for some external cause. Using them as precedents is IMO invalid. Fram 14:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

POV drafting problems
I don't want to be negative, but. If this essay's going anywhere useful then I suggest someone needs to take a stab at drafting sets of criteria for discussion, and be bold enough to put them in the article. Falcon has usefully sketched some bullet points, though I'm not rushing to agree with those. I see POV problems with criteria that are mainly about quantity of users (because bigness isn't NPOV: it would favour some countries/majorities); and distribution of users is even harder. I'm then struggling a bit to imagine minimum threshold tests of utility that avoid inherent bias, but do effectively signal yes/no at a threshold. To pick a non-random example, if we imagine articles within Category:Women's rights in Asia, how might "utility" make a difference to "notability"??? --Mereda 16:08, 20 June 2006 (UTC):

Three levels of utility
I've made an update to the text in order to address the WP:NOT issue more pointfully. It addresses two different aspects of utility, instead of one:


 * Is the information useful?
 * Is it useful for Wikipedia to present it?

Based on the WP:NOT policies, the answer to the latter is "not always". And there seems to be a meta-principle that Wikipedia shouldn't simply duplicate or copy certain other types of reference works (e.g. dictionaries, phone directories, collections of source materials). I ken that one reason for this is that works dedicated to those specialities should be preferred for those purposes, and should not be subsumed into Wikipedia solely to make it more comprehensive. But I also believe that there is some principle of clutter avoidance involved. More data isn't necessarily more information.

There's a related utility issue, in that a lot of articles seem to be more cataloguing of specialist (or fannish) data which may not be very accessible to outsiders. And it may not be that the information is abstruse, but because the reader isn't getting much help. Mangoe 18:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Utility vs. notability
Notability can be defined in a single sentence: "The subject has or has the potential to be discussed in sufficient reliable sources such that an article can be written from those reliable sources." (Granted, there's a lot of argument about what's sufficient, and what consistutes potential, but some variation of that standard is very common.)

Can someone similarly define utility? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 13:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That's a definition of documentability, not notability. There is plenty of information out there about things that nobody wants to know about. Mangoe 13:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Generally, a documentable subject that nobody wants to know about never gets an article, and as such isn't an issue. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 13:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think this is believed to be true, but I don't think it's true. I think a lot of articles get entered out of some urge to catalog or other otherwise collect every name and number in this or that field. And it isn't just articles per se (though that seems to be the biggest problem, because it's the one thing that does take up space that isn't limitless here). A lot of stubbish articles seem to pick up a lot of trivial, not to say obvious detail that's essentially padding.   Mangoe 16:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Can you offer an example of a stub with the potential to be expanded in an article that is verifiable but not notable? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * How about army.ca? It is an article about a website in which notability is being debated. Basically, the proponents of keeping the article are saying that the site is read by the media and is sometimes given passing mention in newspaper articles or news items on the radio. WP:WEB says that is not enough to meet the notability requirements. A look at the article shows that the majority of info on the website comes from the website itself - which I think fits the "trivial...obvious detail that's essentially padding" argument put forth by Mangoe. The other citations in the article are to trivial passing references to the site made by the media. Now, the army.ca website is obviously of utility to people - there are 10,000 registered users there, and it has been proved the media does at least read the site. But is there a need for an encyclopedia article at wikipedia about the site based on this? Under notability requirements, the answer appears to be no. So what about the proposed utility requirements would make the site any more encyclopedic?Michael Dorosh 16:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Nyerg. This is mostly a tangent, and comes of me forgetting to mention "non-trivial" above. Can anyone similarly sum up utility? - A Man In Bl♟ck  (conspire | past ops) 16:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The entire conversation to date has been very vague. How exactly would utility differ from notability, and what standards would a subject have to meet before being considered of utility? If the argument is to include instruction manuals for household appliances based on utility, I am against it. The example of movies not being notable is poor; since most movies are listed at imdb, they qualify for notability and properly exclude home-made and limited release or unreleased private films. A little discrimination goes a long way. But in order to have any kind of meaningful discussion, there need to be criteria proposed so we all know what we're discussing and seeking to include.Michael Dorosh 14:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

We are not re-creating the web
The main issue I have this proposal is that it will lead the way into creating everything that is already on the internet in wikipedia. As an example, the timetable of the local bus (501 Bay) that runs by my appartment is extreamly useful to me and those in my neigbourhood, but I can not see how it should ever be included here. The schedule is already on the TTC.ca web page and I can look it up there. --Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 17:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Useless
This guideline doesn't actually offer anything useful. It doesn't define utility, doesn't explain why we need to consider utility other than vaguely asserting that utility is useful, and nearly half of it is devoted to explaining that no, it doesn't conflict with or override WP:NOT.

What purpose does this guideline serve? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)