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Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 64

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Latest comment: 5 years ago by ThatMontrealIP in topic Categories with the most company articles tagged for failing NCORP and lacking references
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Local sources, again

Latest comment: 6 years ago65 comments29 people in discussion

This comes back every few years, but to summarize, Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies) has a short and useful section WP:AUD. How about we move it here? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:20, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that does have general applicability. - Donald Albury 14:38, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
To me that looks like a significant shift in emphasis of this guideline, from verification-based notability (a topic is notable if it has enough trustworthy sources that can be used to verify its content) to significance-based notability (a topic is notable if it is famous enough). It also works only for starlets, footballers, and politicians: topics likely to be covered in newspapers. It is so far from applicable as to be "not even wrong" for other topics that we would want to cover in Wikipedia: species, small but populated places, astronomical objects, etc. I am opposed unless we can build consensus more generally to shift to a fame-based notability system; e.g. measuring notability by numbers of Google hits or YouTube followers instead of by the existence of in-depth sources. (I suspect that consensus for making that more general shift would be hard to obtain.) —David Eppstein (talk) 17:47, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose for exactly the reasons David Eppstein states. Notability is not the equivalent of fame. For many, many women and minorities, the bulk of the historic sourcing one finds for them are local sources, even after they become national or international figures. While one might not find information about a Canadian woman running an international organization in say Geneva, it is very probable that her home town paper will publish about events of her life even decades after she has left the area. Since gender, cultural and ethnic minorities are often omitted from textbooks and mainstream national newspapers (or only covered in snippets), local sources are often the best source for finding detailed information. The weight of the content, should be sufficient to evaluate whether the person is a local celebrity or is indeed a person with broader notability. SusunW (talk) 17:56, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
    • While I can accept that this can be an issue with historical sources, I don't think this is true for modern. If someone receives an in-depth, detailed coverage in a super obscure, niche source, this doesn't make him encyclopedic. A while ago we deleted a bio of an architect who received an in-depth write up in their local church/parish magazine. I am sorry, but I can't see how that person should've been in an encyclopedia. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:28, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I’d very happily support for BLPs in addition to CORPs (same reason as there, promotion is rampant.) I don’t really care if the coverage from someone 300 years old is local or not, and I’d likely be fine keeping those. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:02, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose: Eppstein nails it. We must not confuse popularity or fame with notability. Persons subject to BLPs can be notable without having international notability, or even national. I recall one AFD discussion dismissing coverage in the Atlanta Journal Constitution as "merely regional." (** headdesk **) The notability guidelines of GNG clearly seek "significant" coverage by respected sources, which have to be considered within the context of time, place and culture. Montanabw(talk) 18:30, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
    • I think that is a fair critique of the AJC, and I've made it (and will continue to make it if it is appropriate). Discussion of someone surviving a car wreck in the AJC has been used to bludgeon an AfD into no consensus before. The AJC can be used to establish notability but substantial coverage int he AJC does not in itself establish it. We have to do a reality check here: if the GNG is read hyperliterally, every single person on this talk page meets it. Besides David, who already clears PROF, I'm pretty confident none of us should have an article on Wikipedia. Context matters. We should not exclude all local sources, but we should exclude the car wrecks. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:34, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
    • We have to be aware that most of the respected newspapers cover world events, but also have sections dedicated to very local events, and we have to determine how a topic is being presented in the work to tell if its from a global or local perspective. If AJC was covering a car crash that happened within Atlanta, even if the coverage is in the first section of the paper, that's still local coverage, and unless its also covered by other regional sources, probably not sufficient for notability by itself. --Masem (t) 19:11, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Provided an organisation meets the criteria for inclusion and can be written about by anyone, it does not matter if it only serves a small subset of the world. Looking down the list of articles I've worked on, I can see The Minories, Colchester, Dublin Castle, Camden, Nobo Ice Cream and Kelly's of Cornwall, all of which are business or organisation related and serving a restricted market, but yet all of which have sufficient coverage in reliable sources to be listed. I've worked on numerous London-related articles, isn't that fairly local compared to the UK, let alone anywhere else? Similarly, we have countless articles dealing with businesses in India that are acceptable, why should I want to delete them because they're on the other side of the planet? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:07, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
    • This is already the established consensus for business notability (purely local sources don't count under NCORP, but they can help establish it if there is coverage in larger more respected publications.) The question here is if people want to expand this beyond WP:NCORP and to WP:N. I don't think we should, largely per David, but I do think tightening it up around BLPs would be ideal. I also think in practice at AfDs we tend to hold BLPs to similar standards as CORPs because of the promo bit. Regardless, WT:N can never come to a consensus on anything other than that everyone agrees that WP:N should not be changed because [insert 24 different reasons by 17 people], so I'm not holding my breath. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:21, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Without wishing to canvass, I've recently participated in an AfD for something that has a relatively limited geographical scope, but is heading for a slam-dunk keep with unquestionable notability. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:39, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
It's always a balancing act. The question is the type of coverage, not the scope of the organization (Cheerwine, for example, has a very limited scope, but there's certainly enough coverage to be found somewhere about it as a regional soft drink company in the United States to pass NCORP.) What doesn't generally count is the local feature piece in the local magazine about how your guitar shop sponsored the local easter egg hunt and has been doing so for 30 years. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per @David Eppstein and SusunW. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:32, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Ever been to a new city and wondered why a building was named after so-and-so or what is that weird corporation that sponsors everyone in town? When you go to Wikipedia, often you can find out about that notable local person or company. The standards for multiple RS means that we don't have to allow every car crash or guitar store to have an article. I don't think that most people ever argue that. The car crash, for example, even if reported in the New York Times, would be an example of BLP1E anyway and a guitar store is likely to only have received ROUTINE coverage. Local people and companies (and organizations) are notable when they are covered significantly in several RS, full stop. There's no need to change any of this. Wherever there's issues (such as promotionalism), deal with them in AfD. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:48, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose WP:AUD excludes "media of limited interest and circulation". Just about everything is of limited interest and circulation, especially scholarly publications like academic journals and so we'd only be left with tabloids and mass media like Gangnam Style. See WP:NOTBIGENOUGH. Andrew D. (talk) 21:03, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • support User:David Eppstein that was some powerful rhetoric, framing this is an "oh that means we will only be covering famous people" thing, and of course nobody wants to agree to be some kind of fame whore. But boy, that is a mis-framing. This is about "notable, or "worthy of notice". Worthy. As in "important". Not "famous". This is about helping people aim at the mission of WP to summarize accepted knowledge about topics and not to be "an indiscriminate collection". This is part of the effort to raise source quality to help keep out the torrent of promotional shit that the many, many people who view WP a means to gain visibility keep pouring in here. It is a good thing and helps us sort out what is truly "notable" better - to pay mind to what of enduring importance. The "fame" thing is the wrong angle. Worthiness is the correct notion. Jytdog (talk) 21:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
    • So my framing of significance-based notability vs verifiability-based notability is exactly on-target, but you want to change to significance-based notability? If so, I have a lot of sympathy for that position (it's more or less how WP:PROF works, and I think that's a good thing), but I think that using fame (inclusion in major media) as a stand-in for significance is a mistake. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:20, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
      • You are persistent! No. Getting coverage outside of local papers and at the regional or national level is a decent concrete measure of significance. The heart of notability was never just "there are some sources"; this is the same terrible reasoning that leads people to vote !keep when there is a media circus and we have no idea if the event has lasting significance (ignoring WP:LASTING and WP:SUSTAINED). Describing N as only based on V is exactly the assumption about N that drives people to ignore most of WP:NOT and just repeat the misguided and shallow meme "there are lots of sources about this". Please reflect on that. "Fame" is just well-poisoning rhetoric and unfortunate. Please stop using it. Jytdog (talk) 03:32, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
        • If you want to avoid media-circus-based articles, the way to do so is to use a notability standard that is not based on media coverage. The current proposal would instead continue to use media coverage but with a higher bar, giving more of an advantage to the media circus topics (because they can more easily meet that bar than other topics can) rather than doing anything constructive towards filtering them out. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:53, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Supportish in principle, although I'm not sure about the exact wording. notability isn't just what we can verify. I don't think [m]any people would argue that we should have articles about anything that is verifiable. So there's something else -- it's about what's worthy of note. That's not "fame," but rather a slipperier concept that connects back to WP:NOT.
At what point is it indiscriminate to include something? I'm sure nobody disagrees a line must be drawn somewhere. Are the students covered by a school newspaper notable for inclusion on the English Wikipedia? Or the goings-on of a retirement community, or around the block via some hyperlocal newsletter? What about a housing development's neighborhood magazine? A paper from a village in one part of one town? Collector of the Month from a toy train hobbyist's zine? Each step from micro to macro indicates greater significance because there are more topics that one must select from. I've spent too much time watching local tv news, reading local papers, perusing local magazines to think they're reliably selective in what they choose to cover as opposed to filling pages with trivial happenings relevant only to some hundreds or thousands of local residents. They're also often shoddier when it comes to fact-checking and accuracy given their much smaller size.
Here's an example. When I was little my local paper (from a city, not a town, mind you) ran a front-page story about yours truly as a local "chess prodigy". My rating was probably about 1200 at the time. For anyone who knows chess, they know that for 1200 to be considered a "prodigy" you have to be in a place where nobody really knows anything about chess or what's considered good (or, relevantly, you have to get noticed by a local paper with nothing else to write about). As much as I would be amused if local sources became considered sufficient and I became considered notable because of stories like that, it's really, really trivial (and it's not the only one -- I won't even get into the ~"Local Kid Likes Video Games" fluff in another paper and the subsequent column they gave me to write about games when I was ~10 -- I imagine many people have these kinds of anecdotes about local media). Even just one step up to a state or regional level and that sort of coverage becomes meaningless. These days I live in New York. There are a whole lot of local papers (fewer and fewer, but still quite a few), many high-profile news websites, etc. Every street corner, business, localest local politician and/or candidate, bodega cat, street performer, street preacher, real estate office, landlord, building, road median, corner garden, etc. gets some coverage. That's not much of an exaggeration. If you limit it to the regional sources like NYT, you can see them become more selective in what they cover.
None of this is to say that if a person/subject seems to be notable, but the only available sources are local, that they should be deleted (i.e. when it seems likely they've received coverage in >=regional sources). Anyway, I've written too much here. I'm sympathetic when it comes to historical subjects and, as above, when local sources are a good indicator of broader notability, but I generally find the idea of handing Wikipedia's notability to local news media troubling. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:39, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
I find this a troubling standard. Local sources are not necessarily less reliable than non-local source. This kind of argument doesn't hold water. In addition, we as editors can all understand the difference between significant coverage and a "local kid likes video games" story. I too, have been in the El Paso Times. I haven't received significant coverage, however. There's a big difference between the way subjects are treated, even if they are "local" subjects. A local person may have a significant impact on their town or region. That's important and passes notability standards. We don't want an encyclopedia that only reflects the mainstream viewpoints: we need to have greater diversity and that includes a diversity of places and the people who live there. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:49, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
"I too, have been in the El Paso Times. I haven't received significant coverage, however." And "Did you know .... that Megalibrarygirl is a mover and a shaker?" [1] isn't a very good DYK hook, though it does sounds like a line from a '50s rockabilly song. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:27, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
I shouldn't have brought reliability into it, as that's something separate, so I'll skip over that for now. A local person may have a significant impact on their town or region Regional coverage is already included in the proposed text, but presuming we're focusing on the "on their town" part, I'm not going to disagree, necessarily. This sounds similar to what I refer to as "historically significant", but I'm not sure how to articulate that in a way that isn't "I know it when I see it". — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:19, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Someone who is significant locally will normally be covered in local histories and other non-news media sources. If all you have on a BLP is are two feel good pieces from the local paper from a few months ago and a few years ago, the person really has no business having a Wikipedia article. Like I said: I think everyone on this talk page passes a literal reading of the GNG (which is one of the many reasons why we need to move away from it to a significance based system, but that’s years away.) TonyBallioni (talk) 06:21, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment Years ago I've tried to describe a concept of "local" sources, but that was not just geographically local but also topic to a topic. For example, for the 1000 ppl in the world that are avid in underwater basketweaving, they may have a couple regularly published works that cover their craft in depth, but if no one else outside that circle mentions it, that's too "local" for it to be notable on WP. (I would say this was proven out through the problems with MMA/wrestling articles of the last few years) Same principle with the NORG advise - strictly local coverage is not generally sufficient for notability. This doesn't mean local sourcing cannot be used at all, but simply that you need to show there's a larger interest in this. For example, above someone gave the example of a single ice cream store but which sells nationally. I would thus assume that one can find some national pages that discuss the store's product, and while the bulk of the article would likely be the store's history from local sources, it would clear have more than local influence or attention. If there's not sufficient local interest, that doesn't mean we can't cover it but it shouldn't get a standalone, assuming all other policies are met. For example, let's say with that ice cream store that is only sells locally, but locally I can find lots of papers saying it is a historical part of the town it is in, and clearly recognized as an important or influential business to the town. Then it can be covered in the article about the town. However, if it is Yet Another Store in the town, then we can't really cover it.
At the end of the day, we simply don't want an article where all or nearly all of the secondary sources are only local. (And see above about the cavaet on recognizing what is a local vs international source when local sources are things like the New York Times or the AJC.) --Masem (t) 01:33, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose no benefit apparent, some detriment. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:19, 6 September 2018 (UTC).
  • Another view I raised the same issue when NCORP was being revised. I supported that modification in general even though there was, in my opinion, a major unresolved issue. Here it is: we currently have no tool or metric or standard for determining which reliable sources are "local" and which are "regional". The Atlanta Journal Constitution has been mentioned and I have previously mentioned the San Francisco Chronicle in the same context. I consider both to be regional newspapers but I have heard comments from experienced editors calling both local. But, as other editors have pointed out, such a publication can contain both "local" and "regional" content. If the Chronicle publishes a lengthy, well researched article about a 19th century historic topic pertaining to a town 250 miles from San Francisco, I will give greater weight to such a story than another article about a 14 year old in San Francisco who excels in both contract bridge and shot put. So, in the end, it comes down to solid editorial judgment, which is difficult to replicate. But at the very least, we ought to have some sort of standard for determining which sources are local and which are regional, if we are mentioning such distinctions in our guidelines. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 04:56, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I read it as a clumsy too for making it harder for using covert advertising as evidence of notability. Covert advertising is much easier to publish in local sources. I think it is appropriate for WP:CORP, and probably for BLPs especially business people, but it is not appropriate for scientific or historical topics. If the section connected the test with the topic having a connection to promotion, it might be OK, but I think it would be better to keep it in SNGs associated with promotion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:49, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Support I don't think this would have the sweeping changes that it seems it might if it were enacted, and I think most of the situations where it'd be relevant are exactly the borderline situations we struggle with as a community - that being said, a reliable local source is not a problem. My way of making this adjustment would be an expansion of WP:ROUTINE out of the event realm - many local stories simply are routine as @Rhododendrites: states, and I remember a recent AfD (on a person) which ended up "passing WP:GNG" because of a couple routine local stories. This way, we don't discount local stories, but we do continue to discount coverage that doesn't distinguish the topic as important. SportingFlyer talk 06:09, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Supportish Very much in two minds (but leaning slightly towards support). I can see merits form both sides, but at the end of the day I am not sure that winning the Much Stonking in the Marsh Greengrocer of the year 15 years running is really all that notable. Notabilty has to be more then just a few people in your town or village thinking you are interesting.Slatersteven (talk) 09:16, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
I think the problem is that we're thinking of different examples. You might be talking about Arkwright and Granville's corner shop, while I might be talking about something like Fremlin's Brewery which had major regional significance in its time, but whose notability lies primarily in the pre-internet age. Essentially, I don't think a hard and fast rule is the right solution here. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:27, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Fremlin's Brewery already comes under WP:NCORP. In any case, looking at the article, I don't think anyone would attempt to AfD it. It's a page on a historic brewery, reasonably well sourced, neutral in tone, etc. K.e.coffman (talk) 11:44, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Yep looks like a poor example, it looks well sourced. This is why I lean towards support. I cannot think of a single instance where this would cause of obviously notable subjected to not be wikinotable. Can anyone supply an example of such a subject?Slatersteven (talk) 11:48, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Somebody earlier mentioned guitar stores. I can think of Macari's, Rose Morris and Hank's in Central London, all of which are on, near, or have been on Denmark Street. Is that a good example of "a local shop for local people", simply because we don't even have redirects? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:51, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
So what makes them notable? That is the key here, Wikipedia is not a business directory. So what are they notable for, being guitar shops on Denmark Street? Why does this make then any more notable then say The Little Rutting Ferrari showroom?Slatersteven (talk) 12:56, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Ohhh this [[2]], non local coverage. Again I am not seeing how disallowing local coverage for notability would have prevented articles on this.Slatersteven (talk) 12:58, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Massive oppose. AUD is bizarre nonsense that has nothing whatsoever to do with real scholarship. The very idea is simply wrong in principle per se. Circulation is simply not relevant. If the sources are reliable and independent, or the topic is objectively important and reliably sourced, there is nothing to discuss. Real historians use local newspapers: I really should not have to say anything else. ORG as a whole contains so much nonsense now that it is probably broken beyond repair and should probably be demoted to an essay. James500 (talk) 19:02, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose instruction creep and why can't some local subjects with sustained coverage be included? Also in the UK local sources are often much more reliable than some national sources that are reliable sources but have very strong political bias which includes giving unwarranted deep coverage of political subjects for example such as political activists, thinktanks and organisations that support the political editorial and reporting policy of the publication. There is quite often better balanced and less partisan coverage in some of the local publications, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 20:29, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. GNG works fine as is. WP:AUD was adopted as a narrow exception to address unique promotional concerns with companies and should not be extended to biographies. While it may be appropriate to give discounted weight to small town newspapers (or to "car wrecks" as posited by Tony B above), significant coverage in major metropolitan newspapers is entirely valid.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cbl62 (talk • contribs)
  • Oppose Might be useful in the context of that particular SNG, but would represent a radical and harmful change if included here. North8000 (talk) 12:20, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. I often find myself citing WP:AUD in all sorts of AfDs. Sometimes people come back with, But, that only applies to WP:NCORP. I think it has much wider applicability (as do many of the points in the current WP:NCORP). -- RoySmith (talk) 13:52, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose – This would set a poor precedent, particularly regarding topics based in third-world, less developed and rural areas of the world, where a lesser degree of new coverage and a lesser amount of news agencies and publishers exist. Seems that this could also lead to a greater degree of WP:SYSTEMIC bias on Wikipedia as well, whereby topics covered in first world countries would receive favoritism for inclusion in the encyclopedia per a greater amount of overall said coverage, news agencies and publishers existent in first world countries.
Furthermore, this could have a detrimental effect upon geographical articles, such as those about small villages, hamlets, unincorporated communities, rural areas, etc., and would immediately deem many of these locations to be non-notable, against the grain of WP:NGEOG. Oftentimes, only local sources will be available for such less-populated areas. North America1000 04:18, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
  • As someone who bears some responsibility for AUD's existence, I'm not going to !vote either way. I'd have to think long and hard about how it could apply to other subject areas first. That said, I think that it's important for the "oppose" voters to remember that AUD explicitly requires only one source that isn't from your neighborhood newspaper. It's also not saying that anything's unreliable. It's only saying that if absolutely nobody outside of your local newspaper (or equivalent) has ever taken notice of your organization or product, then you don't qualify for an article on Wikipedia.
    I think that's fair: WP:N defines "notable topics" as meaning "those that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time". Your local newspaper is not "attention by the world at large", no matter how many big articles they run. And the way AUD works is that if you get any attention from the actual world-at-large, then your company can have an article and editors can still cite those local newspapers all they want. But there must be that world-at-large component; your local newspaper is not enough by itself.
    Having spent a few minutes thinking about this, I think I'd be pretty confident with applying AUD to BLPs and WP:BANDs. I think adopting AUD would help NPROF considerably (although, since that guideline is still at the stage of thinking a professor's webpage on his employer's website is sufficient proof of notability, I would expect an effort to require a single non-local independent source to be opposed even more strenuously than the previous efforts to require any single Wikipedia:Independent source were). I don't know how we would adapt it to abstract concepts or universal subjects (e.g., mathematics). I'm uncertain whether it's a good idea for culture (e.g., books, songs, films). But I end where I started: this might be a good idea, but we should think long and hard about all the subjects first. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:02, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
    • Even the most cursory search for sources should dispel the idea that local newspapers are not evidence of notability, because real historians use them: [3] [4]. The theory behind AUD is not accepted by real scholars as far as I can see. James500 (talk) 00:48, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
      • "The theory behind AUD" is that attention from your local newspaper is not attention from "the world at large".  Your cursory search shows books that say things like "Before the nineteenth century local newspapers are often disappointing for local news", which doesn't really even show that historians are always finding strictly local newspapers to be useful sources.  More pointfully, these sources do not show any researchers claiming that an article in a small-town newspaper, by itself, was ever evidence that "the world at large" paid attention to the subject of a local newspaper article.
        Again:  AUD does not say that local newspapers are unreliable.  AUD does not say that local newspapers shouldn't be cited.  AUD only says that stories in your local newspaper are not evidence that the subject qualifies for a separate page in a worldwide encyclopedia.  
        James500, I feel like you and I have personally been over this point several times now. Can you explain to me what's confusing you? I keep telling you that an article in a small-town newspaper indicates attention from a small town, rather than attention from the world at large, and you seem to keep insisting the opposite. Do you genuinely believe that the whole world pays attention to what's written in The Mulberry Advance? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
        • Your single source, which you have not identified, says nothing about the period after 1800. And you have certainly completely misunderstood it. The reason that eighteenth century 'local' newspapers are often 'disappointing' for local news is because they do not contain much local news until towards the end of the century. Before the end of the century they mainly contain national and world news instead: [5]. In other words, they were not strictly 'local' in the modern sense: [6]. They become more useful for local history from the end of the eighteenth century because that is when the amount of local news they contain increases in quantity. Many other books say local newspapers are amongst the most important sources for local history (eg [7]), that they must never be ignored by local historians (eg [8]) etc etc etc. My problem with your theory is that it was invented by Wikipedians and not by real historians. Can you show me a reliable source that says "never write history based only on local sources" or anything like that? I have yet to see even a single one. James500 (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
          • No one has said you can't use local sources to build out a history, only that for purposes of notability, if the only sources available are local ones, then the topic isnt sufficiently notable for WP. If you can show some coverage externally at a regional level, then we will gladly accept local sources to flesh it out. --Masem (t) 22:59, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
          • Of course a local newspaper could be useful for verifying individual facts. But James, I didn't ask you whether a local newspaper could be cited in an article. I asked you whether you think that a small, local newspaper, writing about a resident of its own small town, should be considered evidence "attention from the world at large" towards that resident, rather than merely "attention from the small town"? So here is my question again:
            A little local newspaper (circulation ~100) in a small town (population 500) writes something about a local resident. Do you think that newspaper article constitutes "attention from the world at large"?
            Relevant answers could include, but are not necessarily limited to, "Yes, attention from any tiny local newspaper counts as attention from the world at large" and "No, of course not, stop being so foolish. No small town is the world at large".
            In case that's not perfectly clear, please note that it is extremely unlikely that a relevant answer to my question will include words such as "historians" or "local history". Can you answer my question? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
          • Your question is completely irrelevant. There is no value in playing pointless semantic word games based on non-scholarly neologism, impossibly vague and ambiguous, meaningless gibberish blather expressions like "world at large". If the gibberish expression "world at large" is causing this nonsense, the solution is to remove that gibberish expression from the guideline so that no further pointless semantic word games can be played. The point is that, as far as I can see, "world at large" doesn't have any support from real historians either (who are perfectly happy to write local history), nor does AUD's interpretation of that expression, which appears to be a neologism invented by whoever wrote AUD. I have never seen a reliable source that says "do not write history using only sources that have not received attention from the world at large". If such a source exists, please produce it. I can't even find a single history book that defines "world at large" as a term of art for any purpose, no doubt because it is not a term of art in the study of history. It is certainly nonsense to require attention from the whole world. The whole world does not pay attention to any source. There is not a single source that is read by everyone. Requiring attention from non-local sources is just drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, and, since real historians appear to be perfectly happy to use local sources alone (I have certainly seen no evidence that they are not), you are obviously drawing that arbitrary line in the wrong place. James500 (talk) 04:55, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
            • We are not expecting the "whole world" to care about a source, but at least some portion of it that is well beyond the local area. We need this because of WP:NOT#IINFO - we are not a collection of indiscriminate information. Showing some type of coverage outside of a local area shows a good chance that the topic is not indiscriminate. --Masem (t) 05:42, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
            • Local sources are not indiscriminate. There is nothing in the policy INDISCRIMINATE that could justify AUD. James500 (talk) 06:45, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
              • IINFO is not referring to sources but to how much information and detail we cover. WP cannot reasonably cover all persons, businesses, and other points of interest that have coverage at only the local level, and when that coverage is only local, demonstration of WP:V becomes more and more difficult. We have purposely chosen to use AUD as a line, fully within our abilities as editors, to require more than just local coverage to avoid these problems. --Masem (t) 13:39, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
              • Wikipedia can reasonably cover all topics that satisfy GNG with coverage only in local sources. Any topic that satisfies GNG ipso facto satisfies WP:V, regardless of whether all the coverage is local or not. "We" have not done anything. AUD was, like many guidelines, produced by a vocal minority. AUD does not avoid any problems, but it is likely to cause serious and (since AUD is not based on the published reliable opinions of real historians) wholly unnecessary damage to our coverage of nineteenth century history. AUD needs to be deleted ASAP. James500 (talk) 01:40, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
                • WP could cover those topics, but one of the core policies developed at the start of the project was WP:NOT, and within it , WP:NOT#IINFO. The project has voluntarily recognized that we can't cover everything that can be met with WP:V. More recently, we have found that even with this in place, people and businesses have been trying to skirt by with local and primary source for self-promotion, so AUD was developed to address that issue, which fits within WP:IINFO and existing concepts of WP:N. It had consensus and was established on founding policy and the like. So AUD is not going anywhere. Now, if "real historians" write sources about a historical person where they only use local sources, that's fine, as the real historian is no longer a local source. --Masem (t) 14:55, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
                  • My problem with using “real historians use local sources” as our guide is the fact that we are not “real historians”. If anything, we chronicle what “real historians” write. If a “real historian” is interested enough to write independently about a purely local phenomenon for a larger audience, it’s at that point WP should take notice and have an article. But in my opinion we shouldn’t jump the gun and chronicle every local phenomenon prior to a “real historian” taking notice of it, just because it happens to exist. CThomas3 (talk) 12:04, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • I have to take issue with the idea that Notability means “worthy of notice”.... it is not our job to decide whether a topic is “worthy” or not. When we use the word “Notability” we really mean: “has been noticed”. That’s why we rely on coverage in independent sources... that coverage demonstrates that the topic has been noticed. Blueboar (talk) 12:59, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose for the same reasons already stated here: It's not a neutral policy. It is based on the unevidenced, illogical assumption that "local" coverage is necessarily less reliable. There is no policy reason to suppose Wiki 'only covers topics of world-level significance'. It relies on arbitrary political borders to determine what is "local" coverage, which results in bizarre things like the national newspapers of a small state (e.g., Grenada, population ~100,000) being more useful for indicating notability than "local" newspapers for cities of millions of people (e.g., the London Evening Standard). It is unnecessary for preventing promotional material since WP:PROMO already bans this. It is a bad policy even in the WP:NORG area, let alone for notability as a whole. FOARP (talk) 18:37, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Interviews are not independent sources, and cannot be used to satisfy the WP:GNG

Latest comment: 5 years ago159 comments32 people in discussion

A small number of editors pushing for inclusion of a borderline notable topic like to argue that an interview counts as a source for the GNG. An example is currently active at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2018_November_11#Ryan_Worsley.

It is very simple. The interviewer is a central participant in creating the interview. The interviewer, could be replaced, not the interviewee. The interviewee prepares, creates and presents the information of the interview. If the interviewee is not already notable (if notable, there will be better notability attesting sources), the interviewee will surely have applied, lobbied, used connections, or even paid to be interviewed.

Third party commentary on the interview is evidence of notability, but the commenter must not be either the interviewee or the interviewer, or a colleague of either.

To clarify this recurring confusion, I have added "interviews" to the list of examples of exclusions under the "Independent of the subject" clause. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:58, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this has been the standard interpretation at AfD for some time. WP:NCORP explicitly excludes them in that subject guideline because of issues surrounding them involving both the lack of independence and the primary nature. BLPs typically have similarly strict standards for sourcing for a variety of reasons, and since living people and corps are basically the only thing that current interviews would be used for, adding this to the guideline makes sense. Thank you, SmokeyJoe. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:04, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I have to disagree a bit on interviews, or at least the rush to call all interviews primary. Fully accept the potential for COI, or the interview being driven by a business decision, etc., so its a line to be very careful about. And fully agree that the interviewer is not at all going to be notable just for being the interviewer.
But, there's cases that notability comes from interviews, in association with other sources. Rarely this is where the interviewee's notability is in question, but some creative product that they were a part of, and their interview is giving for all purposes secondary information about the development of the product (how it was made, ideas behind it, etc.) And if there interviewer went out of their way (or at least as part of their job) to be interested in those elements and ask about them, that's a great source to show that the product (not the interviewer) is noteworthy and possibly notable. Such interviews fall into something I coined way back, Wikipedia:1.5 sources, that fall somewhere between primary and secondary when considering notability factors.
I have no problem stressing that if one is trying to show a topic meets the GNG and only interviews are given as "secondary" sources, then we should consider any potential COI that might have happened. That said, in legitimate cases where interviews are used and contribute to a GNG evaluation, there is nearly always some other type of secondary sourcing available. --Masem (t) 01:18, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I too disagree that all interview information used in all ways is necessarily primary source information.
Being interviewed is a consequence of being notable, but being interviewed doesn't make you notable. Many interviews are promotional, and some interviews are random street person interviews.
Source typing, primary versus secondary, is a big red herring. The clause is "Independent". Interviews are not, cannot be, independent of the interviewee. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:26, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
It is an independence issue more than a primary issue, and I wouldn't say COI. Interviews are not independent of the subject. If you had a write-up in the NYT surrounding the interview or commenting on it that would be a source, but getting interviewed by NPR about the book you wrote doesn't. If NPR subsequently ran a story on the book and gave a book review of it, then that would count, but the initial interview wouldn't. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:31, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
To both SJ and TB, I fully agree on the point when the subject we are testing notability on is is a BLP. My issue is where this applies to interviews that are not about a singular person that is interviewer or interviewee, but some product the interviewee was involved with: a band, a song, a film, a TV show, a book, a building, a car design, etc. This could also be about a 3rd person not involved with the interview. Those still have the potential for COI (QVC ads are effectively these problematic interviews) but most of the ones I'm talking about are clearly not COI-driven, despite the interviewee likely want to make sure the interview goes well. Those interviews should be fine as a piece of evidence towards GNG. (As a short way to point to what I'm trying to say, a lot of television episodes get useful secondary info through interviews by Ent. Weekly, THR, and other RSes with producers, actors, etc. These supplement reviews towards GNG notability)--Masem (t) 01:39, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
"works produced by the article's subject". If the interview is the product of the subject, it is not independent. In your examples, the subject is not the interviewee. I think you need to be very creative to make this misreading to concludes that the text means that all interviews are excluded for all subjects. If the interviewer and interviewee are independent of the subject, then of course that is OK. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:46, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I think you need to be very creative to make this misreading to concludes that the text means that all interviews are excluded for all subjects. this is one of the most gamed guidelines on WP in both directions. There's why actually don't have hard numbers for how many sources are required, for example - your statement below saying the GNG requires two sources is incorrect. We have to be very careful what we include to make sure it is not taken as a catchall towards inclusion or deletionism. --Masem (t) 02:52, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Your nitpicking is correct, and I wish you would use it to help in correcting the word choice. Two sources are enough, subject to the several caveats. Both must be independent, of the subject and of each other. Both must be published reputably ("reputable" is the right word, over "reliable"). Both are secondary sources, commenting directly on the subject and in depth. The most debatable lines are on whether the two sources are independent of each other (eg discussing the same event can see them fail), and how deep is that depth. Independence from the subject can be tricky to decide, but once it is decided that the source is not independent of the subject, that source is unusable for notability purposes. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:06, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
People have gamed "Two sources" in the past that basically allows two mentions-in-passing in the external article to justify the WP article. We are looking for "significant coverage". That doesn't mean the external articles needs to be solely about the topic, but it has to be more than a mention in passing. Significant coverage could come about from a single work fully about the topic (though it would likely need to be a peer-reviewed, large-publisher book to show the weight of the source material), it could take 5 sources, it could take 10 if the coverage gets diffuse. It is entirely a judgement call, that's why WP:N is a guideline - as soon as we set a quantified goal, that will be abused. (I have talked before about needed to better establish that the GNG is still a rebuttal presumption until the article is fully fleshed out to leave no question of notability). --Masem (t) 03:45, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
You wrote "significant coverage", I wrote "commenting directly on the subject and in depth", these mean the same thing. "mentions-in-passing" are not enough, no matter how many. Rebuttable presumption, yes; the GNG is a predictor of what will happen at AfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:54, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Excellent edit by SmokeyJoe. Full support from me. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:33, 11 December 2018 (UTC).
SmokeyJoe, I disagree with your statement "If the interviewee is not already notable (if notable, there will be better notability attesting sources), the interviewee will surely have applied, lobbied, used connections, or even paid to be interviewed", and especially your use of the word "surely". I have been interviewed three times by media outlets about my Wikipedia editing, and I have links to those three interviews on my user page. Two were daily newspapers in Northern California where I live and one was a radio show in Toronto. In all three cases, the reporters contacted me out of the blue, and I did not apply, lobby, use connections, or pay to be interviewed. So, you are completely wrong when you make that assertion. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:44, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
User:Cullen328, your point, your example, is entirely invalid because you are notable. But you are right, "surely" is a bit strong. The street interview for random comments, for example. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:48, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I doubt that I am notable, SmokeyJoe, and Ritchie333 agrees. He deleted an article about me in September, which I had nothing to do with writing. That incident was slightly embarrassing. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:08, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Oh, what a meanie. I read that article and took it as evidence of your Wikipedia-notability. You certainly seem to be a very nice person, very interesting, and definitively real-world-notable, apologies for the unfortunate jargon associate with this guideline's name. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:11, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
What I meant was that in cases of highly contested AfDs, where it comes down to trusting the independence of a feature article that embodies an interview, I believe that it is very unlikely that the CEO was just randomly called by the magazine staff and invited to be interviewed, about themself, and their product that they are co-incidentally promoting at that time. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:15, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I disagree with this, in part, and have reverted pending discussion. There's use of a source for inclusion and verification of material in an article and then there's sourcing necessary to show notability. The words of a subject should be treated as a primary source, of course, and we handle statements by the subject differently than we do statements by others when it comes to writing an article. However, an interview is not a press release. The source of the interview, rather than the words therein, is independent of the subject. That's what we're looking for when evaluating notability. I've never understood this claim that interviews should just be dismissed from consideration of notability, as though having a cover story in Time Magazine gets you nowhere if it's an interview. We want to defer evaluations of significance to sources we consider reliable. We're not deferring that judgment to the subject as though we're citing their website; we're deferring to the editors of the publication that conducted the interview. In short, if a publication with editorial oversight and a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy chooses to cover a subject and uses an interview to do so, we have no reason to believe the source itself is connected to the subject (i.e. it's independent, even if the words of the subject it contains are primary). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:36, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I completely agree with Rhododendrites: Whether an interview is an independent source or evidence of notability depends on the context particularly the publisher and the circumstances under which an interview is published or aired. Some interviews are indeed just public relations vehicles of little value as an independent source or one that argues for notability. But other interviews are the result of journalistic or academic selection and curation that are independent and de facto evidence of notability. If this is a particularly problematic area then perhaps some words of caution and suggestions for evaluating interviews are in order but a blanket prohibition is beyond the pale. ElKevbo (talk) 01:51, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Whether an interview is independent does not depend on context. The interviewee provided the information, and therefore is not independent. Source typing and reliabily is irrelevant.
Time magazine may include an interview, is is that all they did? Was there any coverage of the subject that was not interview?
Blanket prohibition? That is overboard. The GNG notability attesting test is very selective, not blanket-like. The GNG requires two sources that are independent, reliable, and cover the subject directly. Once you have got two such sources, you are free to use material from the interview.
This is important because the clever advertorial is prevalent. That the main source is actually an interview is the easiest sign that the source is not demonstraing notability, and this is consistent with AfD results. The edit is needed to clue non-expert Wikipedians in to what is happening. An interview is a product of the interviewee, and if that product is the basis of a claim of notability, then it will fail. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:07, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I still disagree with the blanket judgement. Interviews by qualified journalists and academics can demonstrate independence from the subject. In fact, I would wager that demonstrating independence of the interviewee (e.g., not allowing the subject editorial oversight, not allowing an interviewee to dodge relevant but uncomfortable topics) is one of the hallmarks of interviews conducted by qualified and experienced professionals.
I think there may be disagree or misunderstanding about exactly what you mean by "interview." Are you only referring to verbatim transcripts of interviews? Do you consider documents that include significant and lengthy quotations collected in one sitting but additional contextual material "interviews?" ElKevbo (talk) 02:30, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm not SmokeyJoe, but I'll define it: anything that is someone asking another person questions without critical commentary on what they say. That is my quick and easy definition here. He may have another one, but that is what I am talking about. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:35, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
ElKevbo. An interview is a published record of an interviewer (eg a journalist, but more typically not a news journalist but a magazine editor) asking questions of or conversing with the interviewee. The interviewer may write an editorial introduction and conclusion, but the purpose of the interview is to present the answers of the interviewee as the bulk of the work. An interview is easily distinguished from a commentary featuring lengthy quotations: In an interview, the interviewer / writer does not make critical commentary about the interviewee's statements in the third person, the quotations are allowed to pass directly to the reader; in a commentary featuring quotations, the purpose of the quotation is to set a context for the writer to make creative comment of their own, and the bulk of the article presents the opinions of the writer.
If the "additional contextual material" is separate to the interview, then the publication of the separate contextual material is the evidence for notability. If you strip out all of the interviewee supplied material, is there anything left about the interviewee?
In the subtle business magazine style promotional interview, the interviewer may pad the interview with comment, but you can notice that the information in the comment is information that would have come directly from the interviewee. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:52, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I hate to play the cynic, but regardless of the outcome of this discussion, at the overwhelming number of AfDs, an interview or parts of an article that are quotes from the subject will not count towards GNG. This talk page gets into heated debates that go nowhere because we like to discuss the theoretical aspects of notability and think of all the edge cases rather than look at what the majority of cases will be. Someone who is interviewed by the NYT for a full-length sit down interview will already be notable. Someone who is interview by NPR likely won't be either before or after the interview because of independence issues
    All that to say, but keeping this addition out, all we are doing is letting people on the fringes argue for the inclusion of their pet topic saying that its not in the policy and that this talk page doesn't have a consensus on it, when all of us here seem to agree on the principles (coverage around the interview matters, not the interview itself.) and all we are doing is splitting hairs over words. Put me down as supporting whatever will get the idea that being interviewed by an NPR affiliate, local paper, BuzzFeed, a a travel blog, or podcast doesn't count. Not explaining that isn't helpful to anyone, and especially not to new readers who often think that the company planted interview counts. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:21, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I agree with TonyBallioni's reasoning. Some of the detailed interviews where the interviewer has done a large amount of research into the person would have more value than the one where the article merely rehashes what the subject has said. When the interviewer asks the person "how did you audition for role X in Y", it's safe to say that the interviewer is presenting the subject played role X in Y as secondary sourced information, but if the interviewer says "What other roles do you have coming up?" and the subject says "I played X in Y", then that would be a primary source claim. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 02:45, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I am definitely on the same page at Tony, and it has all been said before. One thing different I want to emphasize is that "primary", "secondary" and "reliable" are not the point and distract from conveying a much simpler message: interviews are not independent of the interviewee. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:57, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Let me give an example of the concern. I have just recently created the article SonicFox (an esports player). Now, push come to show, there's plenty of non-interview sources out there that can support it, but I was in a rush and wanted to key biographical information in place (no need for draft space), and the key pieces I found are clearly interview-style pieces (not necessary back-and-forth q/a but one built around the writerr clearly have spoken to this guy). These are clearly secondary, GNG-meeting sources about this player, because they tell us enough about how he got into esports, etc. It's not a fully-fleshed out article, but I put those sources in to clearly pass the GNG bar (so that it passes CSD and any preliminary AFD attempts). The interviewee sources clearly have no connection to this person, and he's a 20-yr old student, no way he's doing it for marketing. But the arguments be presented here are complete against how those sources are being used.
There is a right time and place to look critically at interviews, but the language presented and arguments given seem to give no wiggle room that editors need to have. That's why including "interviews" without clarification/footnotes is going to be problematic. --Masem (t) 03:03, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
A lot of articles have this structure where the person writes most of the article on the person or organization, but then includes a few quotes from the actual person. Would those then be classified as primary as an "interview"? AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 03:08, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I think Angus is talking about the external , non-WP article such as this one [9]. I have seen people call that type of article an "interview" despite lacking the back-and-forth Q&A normally associated with interviews. --Masem (t) 03:48, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • https://www.bet.com/news/sports/2017/09/15/meet-the-guy-who-has-your-dream-job-sonicfox.html is not independent of the subject and does not contribute to satisfying the GNG. It is based on an interview, as the bulk of the information in the article came directly from the subject. It may have been based on email exchanges, or a telephone call, or conveyed by an intermediary, but the writer has received the information from the subject, and so it is not an independent source. Some attempt to argue that because bet.com chose to feature this person, that is evidence of notability. I am not a fan of that argument, but I may let it pass, as there are ways to demonstrate notability that do not involve meeting the GNG. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:03, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • That's a major departure from how we'd consider independent sources. BET has does its own research and added commentary from the person, even if it was interview statements. You're basically saying if BET omitted any statement that they talked to the guy, it would become "independent"? That's pretty much a BS argument. The "independence" related the source publication, not the material in question, and in this specific case, there is no way BET is a dependent source for this guy. Per WP:N ""Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it." Now, I can understand that if the only sources one has for an article are Q&A style interviews where the bulk of the content is about the person interviewed, with little original work provided by the interviewer, that's a problem, but this BET is definitely not an example of this. --Masem (t) 05:22, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • User:Masem, your out for SonicFox is that Wikipedia-notability depends on sources that *exist*, not sources currently listed, let along the sources actually used to build the article. You assert "there's plenty of non-interview sources out there that can support it", and I will believe you, but this is a very very bad example for the newcomer. You have written an article based on unsuitable sources. This is typical of WP:ATHLETE, and that weak standard is being carried across to games ("esports"). It also occurs for performers, musicians, and their songs. These Category:Furry fandom people all have dubious Wikipedia-notability. I note a lot of WP:Reference bombing, which makes AfD-ing them an awful lot of work. The navigation template Template:Furry_fandom makes it very hard to use special:whatlinkshere to tell if the topics are relevant to any other article. At AfD, I would likely !vote "redirect" to Furry fandom. Sorry, SonicFox is promotion of an individual, is a subtopic of fanfiction, and is at the very dubious end of Wikipedia-notability. It is my wish that new article writers should be obliged to save the two GNG-meeting sources in the first save. I don't think the players deserve their own article if they do not warrant even one full sentence at the parent article, Furry fandom. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:25, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • There is no "two GNG-meeting sources" requirement in WP:N. And this statement: I don't think the players deserve their own article if they do not warrant even one full sentence at the parent article, Furry fandom has so many problems. It suggests, for example, that we should not have articles on individual actors if they are not mentioned in the article film. (And fwiw, the reason SonicFox is notable is not from being a furry, but from being a highly-successful esports player. But the same logic applies, just because he's not mentioned in esports doesn't mean we shouldn't have an article on him). --Masem (t) 03:36, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • WP:N is not explicit about "two", but in practice, in my experience, two good sources (meeting all the GNG clarification points) are sufficient for a clear non-delete result.
"I don't think the players deserve their own article if they do not warrant even one full sentence in some other article. This is the WP:Orphan issue. Notable topics tend not to be WP:orphans, and it is frustrating how navigation templates hide WP:orphans. Maybe "one full sentence" is too strong, and "mention" would be better. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:12, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Ummmm an interview is not a source, a source is the media that publishes the interview (i.e. The New York Times). And probably most of the time, news media are independent from interviewees. --Thinker78 (talk) 03:45, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Interviews are not independent of the subject. If an article's notability entirely hinges upon whether or not an article is an interview or not, the article will certainly be non-notable at AfD, assuming no other sources which pass GNG exist. SportingFlyer talk 04:14, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Notability is a guideline not a hard policy and each case has to be judged on its merits, not according to arbitrary rules. An interview might be good evidence of notability – it depends on the details. For example, Desert Island Discs has an interview format but is good evidence of notability because appearance on the show is a significant achievement and mark of status. I started the article David Nott after hearing his story on that show, which contained significant personal details. Andrew D. (talk) 08:35, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • An interview by itself cannot contribute to notability. However, there is some grey area where an extensive article about a person is accompanied by an interview included in the same article. In this case, it might be argued that the interview is separate from the researched prose section of the article and while the interview doesn't contribute, the prose does. I'd be careful of this distinction though, and only apply it to very reliable sources. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 10:43, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • It depends - generally an interview is PRIMARY and not independent (there are exceptions - the hostile/surprise interview genre, but they are rare and still PRIMARY), and doesn't count for notability. However, some journalistic in-depth pieces integrate an interview into SECONDARY analysis - in which case the piece may count for notability. In addition, in the case of normal PRIMAY interviews - while not counting for notability, a large number of these may be an indication that the subject is probably notable (e.g. if he's been interviewed for decades in dozens of media outlets - maybe we're missing the independent coverage of him in the sea of interviews?) - e.g. this is the same as asserting in WP:SOLDIER that a general officer is presumed notable. Icewhiz (talk) 10:49, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Interviews do contribute to notability. Now, it is obviously a bad idea to base an article only on interviews, just as we wouldn't want an article to rely on any other single type of source. But as I explained at the mentioned DRV: once a reliable source chooses to conduct and publish an interview, even one with the subject of said interview, that source is asserting the standard of reliability that is generally associated with it. In other words, it is entirely different from "just a conversation someone might have had", which is what we often think of when we think about interviews.
Contrary to some assertions on this, an interview is not made by the interviewee. They are merely a participant. They do not normally have any editorial control or even influence over it – and in those cases where they somehow do, then the interview is certainly affiliated and not independent. Modernponderer (talk) 14:05, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • It depends Whilst an interview in and of its self would not establish notability, an interview by a major media organisation would (but is very nature) means the media organisational thinks the person may notable (after all they do not interview everyone). It all depends on context, but interviews alone would not, to my mind, be enough.Slatersteven (talk) 14:13, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • WP:CONTEXTMATTERS - Obviously a paid puff piece in a puff publication is garbage and probably shouldn't be used at all as a source, much less as a source supporting an argument for notability. But if someone wants to argue that a full page spread by an investigative journalist at the Guardian or the LA Times for some reason don't count because we can label it an interview, then I'd say that person is probably more concerned about rules and "importance" than they are about what sources actually help us to write a policy compliant article. If that's the case, then I don't much care about that person's opinion anyway. GMGtalk 14:25, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I might support more refined language, but just inserting "interviews" is too vague and a bad idea, particularly from the context matters standpoint, as others have said. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:36, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • IMO interviews should not be categorically excluded Some are truly independent and count towards notability, some aren't. The "independent" requirement takes care of that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:09, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Interviews, themselves, are not independent, as they are literally verbatim recitations of what the subject says about themself. That's the very definition of a self-published source. However, some interviews might also include reliable and independent material, such as a biography of the subject in addition to the interview, or further notes or investigations into what was stated during the interview. That material would indeed be reliable and independent (if the source publishing it otherwise would be of course), but the interview itself is still the subject talking about themself, which in no way contributes to notability. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:30, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, but in the text in question, "interview" actually refers to the source containing the interview rather than the interview itself . North8000 (talk) 18:35, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
User:Seraphimblade, interviews are not inherently self-published, because they are not normally published by the subject of the interview. Please don't use WP:SPS as a synonym for "non-independent source". Modernponderer (talk) 18:50, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
It is just plain false that interviews are generally self-published. Moreover, a good interview is independent, deeply and independently researched, and conducted as an independent source of notably relevant issues on the subject. See, eg.[10] -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:57, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
^^ Lots of conflation of concepts throughout this thread. Secondary/primary ←→ independent/connected, and now independent/connected ←→ third party-published/self-published. A source being an interview has absolutely nothing to do with whether it was self-published. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:32, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Red herrings:
Central issue:
  • Independence. Is the interview independent of the subject? The GNG requires the secondary source to be independent.
Complicating question:
  • What if an article is includes an independent story about the subject, but also includes an interview.
    • I think it depends on how much secondary source information does not come from the interviewee/subject (do we all understand the assumption here that the interviewee is the subject). That would have to be considered case by case.
--SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:04, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Seems more accurate to ask whether a source that takes the form of an interview is independent of the subject. The distinction is that asking "is the interview independent" has an obvious answer: no. But we're not citing an [unpublished] interview itself, we're citing an interview that has been e.g. conducted by paid staff, submitted to one or more editors, subject to various editorial standards, and published in a newspaper/magazine/journal with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (assuming we're not talking about a source that would fail on other grounds). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:19, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
When being really carefully critical of a difficult source, for demonstrating notability, I look to the source of the secondary source information that discusses the topic directly and in depth. Did that information come from the subject. If the source of the information is the subject, the information is not independent. This approach can mean pulling an article apart, into its different sections. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:37, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
But the GNG and WP:IS both base independence on the nature of the published source (the person/work doing the interview), not who is the source of information (the interviewee). Yes, IS does state that "without undue attention to the subject's own views", but a good interview is going to frame questions around questions that (to the interviewer) the work's readers are interested in, and that person is going to have the best answers to those, thus establishing what views will be discussed in the interview. As long as there are no clear professional, personal, or financial ties between the work and the interviewee, that should be good for the independence check. I will still agree on a general statement that if a person is the subject of a good interview, there are likely others to explain why they were interviewed to build more notability atop of. --Masem (t) 04:08, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
There is a difference between an article by an author who interviewed the subject, and a publication of the interview itself. The critical difference is who created the secondary source material. I don't agree that it is an issue of a "good interview", as in a knowledgeable interviewer who asks good questions, but on whether what is published has been independently transformed. If the interviewer/author used the interview material to create a story, that is independent and demonstrates notability. If the publication passes the interviewee's statements, the interviewee's information, direct to the reader without transformation, i.e. lengthy quotes without comment, criticism or contextualization, i.e. it is the publication of an interview, then it is not independent.
I disagree with attempting to separate independence of the publishing with independence of creation of the content, if the publisher faithfully publishes whatever was supplied. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:29, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Independence of who publishes the information is a different factor from whether the information is primary or secondary. Your example of the interviewer using the interviewee's material to craft a story shows secondary nature, but we still need to consider how the interviewer is connected (if at all) to the interviewee to determine independence, while your second case is likely being primary, but again, there's degrees and levels to that (going back to the 1.5 sources comment above). Eg: an interview that just passes responses back from the interviewee but they are about events from 40-50years in his past, in retrospective, could still be secondary. You can't combine independence and primary/secondary. --Masem (t) 05:36, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
While the GNG-satisfying information involved has to be secondary source information, discussing that is a red herring to this discussion. Let's just assume every quote is secondary source comment by the subject about the subject. The question is: is the information independent. My example is not meant to illustrate information transformation, but is meant to distinguish who is the author of the information. The subject is the author of every quote of the subject. The question is, is there enough information from the interviewer/writer that is not subject-quotes or mere repetition of what the subject said. Forget "primary/secondary", ask instead "who is the author of the information being published". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:02, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
And again, I point out that both WP:N and IS attribute independence on looking at the publisher of the interview, not where the material of the interview originated from. I am in full agreement we have to watch for self-promotional content of "pay to publish" (if someone pays a publisher to publish an interview, that no longer is independent) and other fishy sources from NCORP's angle. But to take a concrete example this EW interview with George RR Martin is independent of Martin and the Game of Thrones series - EW has no financial connection between either Martin or the series' publisher. That's how we nearly always look at independence in determining notability. --Masem (t) 06:34, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
This EW interview with George RR Martin is not independent George R. R. Martin, are you seriously arguing it is? At AfD, some people argue silly things, like that, and that is the problem needing fixing. Your example squarely fits my point that notable people get interviewed, and does not speak against my point that lots of non-notable people get interviewed. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:34, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
WP:IS and it’s talk page and archive contain only three occurrences of the word “interview”, and none of them are significant. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:31, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
User:SmokeyJoe, I don't think citing existing policy – let alone an "explanatory supplement" with scarcely more status than an essay – in a discussion about making new policy on the same issue is very useful. (And for the record, I agree with User:Masem that an interview of that quality can indeed be considered independent.) Modernponderer (talk) 13:07, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Regarding the Martin interview, that would be one where only the opening paragraph could be considered secondary, and the actual interview transcript is primary. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 19:01, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Interviews can be independent GNG sources. Context matters. Puff piece interviews are not independent. However, to discount interviews completely ignores the role of an interview in journalism. An interview by a well-prepared, professional journalist brings context and focus and forces the interviewee to answer in a format and sequence selected by the journalist. Such interviews are not primary and are independent. Any absolute rule declaring all interviews (and, worse, even articles based in substantial part on interviews) should be rejected. Cbl62 (talk) 12:17, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Have a look at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 December 11#Imaginery Forces for a case of a well meaning newcomer trying hard to do things right, but they think their topic is notable on the basis of a few sources that are articles written entirely from interview information from representatives of the topic. We can tell that the sources are all promotion, but this is not obvious to the Wikipedia unencultured. What is obvious is the the sources spinning information (quotations) from the representive are not independent. Clarifying that interview-derived information, unprocessed, is not independent with respect to the GNG will be very helpful to newcomers like this. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:23, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
    • I fully disagree the sources are promotional. There is no evidence of any financial or professional connection between the studio and the publishers of those articles. I do agree that not all 5 sources are good to support notability due to other factors, and the Radio Times one is more about one specific project the studio did than the studio itself, not because its an interview. That said, this is a multi-Emmy winning studio. I am sure someone can do more legwork to search through 17-odd years to find more information about them and justify an article due to the recognition they got, but that's not a point for here. So this case is not an issue for the question of the revelancy of interviews. --Masem (t) 14:50, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
    • However, to use that Radio Times article as a point [11], they interview the studio's lead Michelle Dougherty. In no way does that suggest Doughterty herself is notable (your point above about lots of non-notable people get interviewed, but clearly she's speaking towards the background and process of the studio. We have to understand that an interview is not always about the interviewee, but more often about the company they are with, a project they have done, or other aspect that they have unique insight on. As long as we're not talking a pay-for-publish situation, we have to assume that the Radio Times independently sought out to speak with the studio at large - indicating that there was something noteworthy about the studio, hence why this factor alone makes the interview one contributing source to meeting the GNG. (It's certainly not sufficient for the GNG here , but I'm pretty confident that leg work would reveal more sourcing in addition to their Emmy wins). --Masem (t) 15:24, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I would agree that the existence of an interview on its own is not enough to demonstrate that the interviewee is notable ... however, the existence of an interview does add to the likelihood that the interviewee is notable. Interviews rarely exist in a vacuum. If someone has been interviewed by a reputable outlet, it is very likely that other sources exist that discuss the interviewee. Those other sources should be used to demonstrate notability, and the interview can be used to fill out the details. Blueboar (talk) 12:44, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
    • Interviews correlate with notability. Interviews correlate with promotion. Correlation does not imply causation, but it does increase likelihood. Likelihood is not the question of the GNG. The GNG only requires two good sources, when push comes to shove, for the topic to be deletion proof on notability grounds, and interviews alone are never good enough to be one of the two. Once the GNG is satisfied, or otherwise notability is accepted, use the interviews for building content for sure. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:57, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
      • Something to consider: what about sources that do exist but cannot be found or accessed by Wikipedians unless they happen to stumble across them eventually? This is far from a hypothetical – I have personally read articles that I recall verified certain facts quite clearly years ago, but have now seemingly disappeared behind paywalled archives. Now, sure, I could ask for help at WP:REX or something, but here's the real kicker: these archives are not indexed by regular search engines. So unless you happen to know an article exists and happen to know exactly which keywords to search for, you will almost surely never find it.
Recalling that notability is a property of the sourcing and has nothing to do with the usage of said sourcing on Wikipedia, this means that articles that should be kept are in fact being deleted. Obviously, if there are simply no known reliable sources at all then we have no choice but to delete such pages – but by allowing sources that indicate significant likelihood that other ones exist, we lessen this problem tremendously. Modernponderer (talk) 13:21, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Sorry for the extra ping – I should probably have pinged User:Blueboar this time actually. Modernponderer (talk) 13:28, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Plus ""Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee". Staszek Lem (talk) 19:49, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
In other words, GNG != any of cherry-picked phrases; it is the totality of the WP:GNG section. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:49, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
  • No, interviews are not independent sources. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:07, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
    • Yes, basing on the discussion (and my opinion), we have to consider interviews as another type of sources worth consideration for GNG:
      • (A) in cases when the "real-life" well-being of the subject depends on hype, interviews are kinda WP:COI stuff, hence excluded from GNG
      • (B), on the other hand, in the cases where probability of advertorialism is low, we may count the towards GNG, since an interview taken indicated "real-life" notability of the subject. The most prominent example is scientists: most of the time they give shit for publicity, and if some mathematician is interviewed, this means he did something of real note . Of course we have notability for academics, but, as I see, WP:NACADEMIC is focused on importance, which is proper, and adding something to GNG would make life a bit easier. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:07, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
This still has the problem that we can't classify all interviews as "not independent". As others have said, context is everything. But only key relationship that needs to be evaluated for independence of the source is the relation between the publisher of the interview, and the person being interviewer. --Masem (t) 21:40, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, that's why I suggest treat an interview as a separate type of source. relation between the publisher of the interview, and the person being interviewer - that's hardly possible unless we are talking a major outlet. Therefore I am suggesting the evaluate the potential of independence, the criterion being qui bono, so to say. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:55, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
  • No, absolutely an interview of the subject is not independent of the subject. To the extent that the source contains elements of independence, those elements are not the interview per se. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:31, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Incorrect, and anyone who has ever conducted a real or professional interview knows this. The interview is independent of the subject in structure of the interview, the premises of the questions, the posing of the open questions, the closed questions, the narrative questions, the conversational questions, the recall questions, the convergent questions, the divergent questions, the leading questions, the assumptional questions, and on and on. All which dictate, independently of the subject, what is notable and to be noted. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:57, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Alanscottwalker, you appear to be confusing "not independent" with "solely responsible". Much of an interview depends on others, but the end result, specifically the information that came directly from the interviewed subject, that is not independent of the interviewee. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:21, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
SmokeyJoe taken to a logical extreme, nothing about any person is independent of that person, because it can all be traced back to something the person said or did. We wouldn't be able to write about Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, or the Emancipation Proclamation, for instance, because those are both things that Lincoln himself said or signed. The point is not to remain pure of contamination from things the subject may have said (that way lies madness) but to see who is taking responsibility for the claims made in a source. If it is a puff piece that allows the subject to make dubious claims without any pushback, that's very different from an adversarial interview with some level of editorial checking and verification of the claims made by the subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:29, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
The dividing line, User:David_Eppstein, is whether the information has been creatively transformed. A listing of quotes, in the chronological order given, is not a creative transformation. It's like a question of authorship. When using the interview to write an article, would you have to list the interviewee as an author? If yes, it is not independent. If no, it is. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:40, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
I disagree. For purposes of notability rather than authorship, the question is not one of creative transformation, but of how in-depth the information provided is and of how prominent and non-local the publication is. It's the choice of the interviewer and the publication editors to publish an interview that's independent of the subject (or not, depending on whether the publication is connected to the subject). What the interviewee said and how they're credited are not relevant for that calculation. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:45, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
So, David Eppstein, we disagree, if you are saying that if a transcript of what the subject says about himself can be independent of himself, just because the transcript was published by a prominent global publisher. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:53, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Now you're shifting the goalposts. Properly edited interviews and transcripts are not the same thing. And why the default-masculine grammar? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:57, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
David Eppstein, when all the information comes directly from the interviewee, including the comments on her life, her ambitions, and her products for sale, and this information is edited into prose for flow and readability but still retains explicit quotations of the subjects statements about things, would this edited interview be independent? Would it become independent if republished by forbes.com? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:16, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Again, incorrect, an interview is not a monologue, it is a independent interviewer eliciting notable and to be noted information, that that independent interviewer wants. Often doing so by giving tells to the interviewee in their questioning on what that information is. Because the interviewer, who is independent, wants that information for their own purposes. And in publishing in particular because the interviewer and the publisher independently want it noted by the world. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:06, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

IMO, what it boils down to is with the old wording it could be decided on a case-by-case basis, with the new wording they are categorically excluded. North8000 (talk) 22:11, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree. Context does and should matter, and I think having the wiggle room to make a case-by-case judgment is important to keep. While it may result in some spirited discussion about the interview at AfD, I think it’s more the exception than the rule. CThomas3 (talk) 22:20, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

(Edit conflict, written before Cthomas post)Another thing that we need to look at is the context of that "independent" sentence and it's usage. The context is establishing notability, not how wp:rs it is. And in the context of the sentence, "independent" is intended to exclude whether the "coverer" is the person who is the subject of the article, or controlled by them. In short, the "decision to cover" itself is meaningful for wp:notability, but not when that decision was made by he subject of the article. For example, if NBC news decided to broadcast an interview, THEY made the decision to cover, and that itself reflects on notability, even if the content is from the person being interviewed. North8000 (talk) 22:25, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Still shaky. NBC is OK. But what about lesser sources whose goal is to fill the content, and they may be interviewing aspiring pornstarlets just for kicks for readership, say, trade magazines may be interviewing a bunch of noisy startups for nothig better to do. The independence is formally OK here, sure, but does this contribute to notability? Staszek Lem (talk) 00:03, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, agree. That's where discretion comes in. Under the old wording, they can be discarded and the NBC interview included. Under the new / proposed wording, the NBC interview would be categorically excluded. North8000 (talk) 13:24, 16 December 2018 (UTC) (signed later)
  • The new wording is correct in categorical excluding an "interview" from being a source that satisfies the GNG. Comments on the interview are not the interview. The decision by the independent publisher deciding to publish the interview may well be argued to be an indicator of notability, but that evidence is that decision, that decision is NOT independent secondary source coverage of the subject in depth, aka the GNG test.
If NBC shows a major feature segment on an interview of the borderline-notable subject, yes that is an indicator of notability, but it is not proof, proof of the indicator comes when others comment on the interview. Consider not NBC, but some niche target low rating cable TV program, it does an hour long interview on Joe Bloggs, talking about Joe Bloggs's life and adventures. Does the decision to send to air make Joe Bloggs pass the Wikipedia-notability test? Nothing so far says that anyone watched or cared about the interview. The GNG can't specify which TV channels make interviews independent.
The GNG is just a predictor of whether an article will pass AfD. Where the sourcing of a topic relies on interviews, the topic is routinely deleted. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:01, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
I really think you're making this too complex by conflating the "independence" of a source and whether the information in the source is "primary/secondary/tertiary". Whether NBC or the small cable station ran the interview, both are independent sources. That leaves us to ask many other questions:
  • Are there multiple sources involved? If the only source on Joe is the small cable interview, that fails the multiple source test and Joe is not GNG notable.
  • Is the source reliable? I'm not going to question an NBC interview, but I would ask if the cable system is so small to beg if it is a reliable source or not, barring that from supporting notability.
  • This is where you'd ask if the source was independent of Joe - did Joe pay to get on the cable interview or not.
  • Is the interview primary or secondary, in terms of Joe's biography? If the interview is just Joe answering questions with little other insight, that's primary. But the interview has wrapper coverage, or has Joe go into recalling someting he did 40 years ago in a historical context, that might start becoming more secondary than just primary.
So yes, there would be a good reason to delete the article if it was only sourced to the small cable interview, primarily due to the singleton source and the lack of reliability of the small cable station. I'd be more on the fence if only the NBC interview could be sourced (NBC does not have a reputation for grabbing a random person to make them famous by a single interview) and expect to be able to find more sources. Neither reason has to do with independence. --Masem (t) 01:34, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Interviews are not independent sources, regardless of who publishes them. If the New York Times republishes a verbatim press release, it's still a press release, and so is non-independent. If NBC runs an interview, it's the subject's own words about themself, and so is still not independent. That being said, sometimes interviews also include independent material, such as analysis or followup on what the interview subject said. But the interview itself, the question-and-answer portion, still isn't. That doesn't mean it can't be used in the article when appropriate, but it does mean it shows nothing toward notability. For notability, we need material said by someone independent of the subject, not by subjects themselves. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:31, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
No, that's again not how it works. For press releases, the group sends those out to press to print, and if the publisher happens to decide to print it, that's definitely not independent. In a reasonably good interview, the publisher decides they want to talk more to a person and make the necessary arrangements to talk to that person, then decide what to ask, and proceed to conduct the interview. The fact the publisher took these steps without influence of the person interviewed makes it independent. The fact that the bulk of the information may be statements about the person said by the person would make it a primary source in that case. --Masem (t) 05:02, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, Masem, that is how it works. If, for whatever reason, the news organization approached the subject and asked them to write a press release for them to run, that wouldn't change the central point—the subject is speaking about themself. Who approached who isn't important; who the speaker is matters. If NBC interviews Jack Crack, it is Jack, not NBC, doing the talking. If NBC writes a news story about Jack independent of his input (aside the standard "Would you like to comment on this?"), then, and only then, is NBC actually the independent source. If Jack's doing the talking, the source is Jack, regardless of who's holding the camera or the pen and regardless of who approached who about it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:33, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
This is nuts. Reliable sources don't become reliable through the magic of the game of telephone: reporters talking to the subject and re-writing the same claims in their own words makes the claims more likely to become distorted, not more likely to become true. The part that makes our sources reliable is the editorial control and fact-checking that happens after the stuff gets written down. As long as that part happens, it doesn't matter who first wrote it down. Conversely, when it becomes clear that a source is just parroting a subject's claims without any critical thought or fact-checking, it should be treated as unreliable regardless of who actually wrote the words. This sort of churnalism is, in my opinion, a much more serious problem than most interviews, where at least it's clear who's making the claims. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:51, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
Nope, that's not right. If NBC editorially chose to interview Jack about a topic, that shows that NBC found Jack or that topic to be worthy of notice without influence. It doesn't matter if 99% of the published interview is Jack's own words, he was still sought out and asked. I know that raises questions related to the concerns of like non-notable people that are only interviewed due to being eyewitnesses to the event (that doesn't make the eyewitness notable), and there is the very valid concern about people using their influence to get people to interview them.
Basically at the end of the day, we have to recognize there are 5 mutually exclusive metrics as to how to evaluate a given source to determine if it helps towards GNG: (the goal to make sure that something was worthy of note without undue influence and enough detail to write a reasonably detailed article about the topic)
  1. Is the publisher directly connected to the topic, making them a first-party, or not, being a third-party. Per WP:V, we absolutely want third-party to avoid direct self promotion.
  2. Is the publisher of the work completely independent of the topic, or is there a financial/professional/personal connection that makes the publisher dependent (and thus unusable). This is different from first/third party. For example, a Pixar artist talking about a Marvel film is third-party, but possibly dependent due to both being Disney properties. We want to make sure that sources find a topic of interest without having any other underlying connection to talk about the topic otherwise.
  3. Is the work simply reiterating details (making it primary), transforming those into something novel (Secondary), or summarizing a number of sources without transformation (tertiary). GNG requires the secondary to avoid rote repetition and to show what is not indiscriminate information
  4. Does the work cover the topic to enough depth? A mere passing line is not sufficient for notability.
  5. Is the work reliable or not? A dozen blog articles will not cut it for notability.
So take the NBC-interviews-Jack example and let's assume they're asking Jack about himself, with the question if this interview contributes to the GNG evaluation for Jack's article. Assuming that NBC sought Jack on their own, then the interview is a third-party, it is independent, it is in depth coverage, and it is reliable. The only place where it might fail is on being primary or secondary. If the interview was just asking Jack questions about what he has done in the last year or so, that's very much likely going to be primary and not sufficient for notability. On the other hand, if the questions have Jack consider a 40 -yr career and reflect upon that, that's going to be secondary and likely to be usable for notability claims. --Masem (t) 01:24, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Quite a number of respected Wikipedians on both sides of this. I advertised at WP:CENT. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:48, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
  • It depends. There are a wide variety of different types of interviews. Some are just puff pieces or man-on-the-street. But some include lots of secondary material about the subject and are semi-independent. It's not black and white. Kaldari (talk) 05:59, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
  • It depends. Interviews can be indicators of notability, because (depending on where they are published) they can indicate the wider world taking notice of the subject. Also, interviews can be "independent" in a meaningful sense, when they are published by organizations that exercise fact-checking and editorial oversight. The words come from the subject, but the decision-making does not, and that's what matters. We can discard paid promotions, puff pieces and uncritical stenography without throwing out an entire legitimate category of publication. XOR'easter (talk) 16:13, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose added wording Per Kaldari, XOR, etc and per WP:CREEP. In some cases (interviews in major media with full editorial control) interviews can contribute to notability; in many other cases they don't. We should leave this to the discretion of AfD participants rather than imposing another artificial and poorly motivated rule. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:14, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Variable - oppose wording - while most interviews are obviously not independent, as well as potential normal exceptions, there is the fairly common case where the interviews starts with a significant chunk of non-interview detail. Without adding yet more phrasing it isn't clear, and the last thing the notability rules really need is more instructions. It's so rare for an reasonably experienced editor to claim an interview as a suitable source when most would disagree that it's actually worth specifically considering those cases as they arise. As such, leaving it to the AfD norms seems fine here. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:31, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
  • It depends. Please see Wikipedia:Interviews. Please also consider the critical difference between "interviews shouldn't count towards notability at all" and "interviews shouldn't count towards the notability of the person being interviewed". Surely you don't think that having Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air interview someone about Corporate musicals contributes nothing towards the notability of that performance art sub-genre. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:14, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks WhatamIdoing. The point is obvious from a specific angle. The discussion shows that reasonable people can have different ways of looking at things.
Definitely, it is mean to be: An interview of the subject is not an independent source of information about the subject. Or the subject’s company.
The statement is not that an interview can’t count towards “notability”, it is that it can’t count toward the GNG test for notability. Some people are articulating things such as independent editorial decisions as evidence of notability, but that is not an argument via the GNG.
[[12]] is a bit thin. It also doesn’t speak to the GNG as opposed to “notability”, which is broader than the GNG. We could there flesh out stuff mentioned here. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:43, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure that there really is a meaningful difference. Sources that don't "count towards GNG" shouldn't "count towards notability" either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, that last sentence is not correct. There are many SNG style criteria that in practice count towards a decision to call a topic Wikipedia-notable. Sources that meet the GNG are just the best, most notability-attesting, and actually provide information good for starting an article. SNG indicators, such as awards won, even if devoid of depth of coverage, count, in practice. If someone wants certain types of interviews to count, they are can make argument onlong those lines, but when it comes to the GNG, interviews fail. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:07, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
We do have one SNG that essentially says editors' personal perception of importance is sufficient to declare a BLP to be notable or non-notable. However, I remain convinced that it shouldn't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:44, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

  • It depends. Per David Eppstein and others above. This isn't an area where we can have a strict rule either way. Calidum 07:24, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I oppose a blanket ban on interviews as non-independent sources. Interviews do vary wildly. I've seen interviews which are basically just the subject talking with occasional prompting from the interviewer and interviews which are really articles about the subject with occasional quotes from them. Content in the interview which comes from the interviewer and not the interviewee is independent coverage of the interviewee. I do also agree with the views above that it's only interviews with the subject that may be non-independent and that the existence of an interview is a sign that the subject is significant in their field and other sources may exist. Hut 8.5 12:03, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
    • Occassional quotes in an article. That does not sound like an interview. Signs of likelihood that other sources exists is sub-notability-guideline language, it does not feed the GNG criteria. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:31, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
      • If you want a concrete example, here is a recently published interview with the actors Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet. It's labelled as an interview and is consists of a writeup by a journalist of an interview he conducted with them. Nevertheless most of it was not written by the subjects and it would constitute independent coverage. Not all interviews are alike and we should not be tarring them all with the same brush. Sure, signs that other sources may exist do not prove that someone doesn't meet the GNG, but they should not be ignored for that reason. Bear in mind that we can't prove absolutely that someone doesn't meet the GNG, we can only say we've looked for qualifying source coverage and not found any. If what we find strongly suggests that sources would be found if we looked harder then we'd be idiots to ignore that. Hut 8.5 22:41, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
        • Red herring. The edit is about what types of sources are good for satisfying the GNG, which is almost completely unrelated to what is a good source for content. Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet and Beautiful Boy (2018 film) are already known to be notable through other independent sources. This is just a case of “notable people get interviewed”. Interviews correlate either with the subject being notable already, or the subject being promoted or promoting their product. In the 1st case, the interview is not used as one of the 2 or 3 sources demonstrating that the GNG has been met. The is no need to get creative about some interviews demonstrating notability, because if they are notable other sources will already exist. A very simple in the face reading of words, an interview of the subject or someone connected to the subject is not independent of the subject. Refusing to allow this front line newcomer’s guideline mean what it’s words mean is not doing anyone a service. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:31, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
          • I don't think it's a red herring at all. The question is whether an interview like the one I posted is enough to demonstrate that the subject passes the GNG. Is that interview in itself enough to show that Carell and/or Chalamet pass the GNG? The fact that both people are notable from other sources and other achievements isn't relevant to answering this. Or consider a hypothetical situation where the only source anyone can find that might show the subject meets the GNG is an interview which was written up like that one. You can hardly tell me that's impossible. Does that subject meet the GNG? If it does then we can hardly claim that interviews never demonstrate notability, because that simply isn't true. Hut 8.5 12:45, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
            • The article is substantially based on an interview, explicitly. It is not independent of the two actors interviewed, and therefore is not independent of the film. It does not satisfy the GNG. It is a red herring to pull interview sources about easily notable subjects. A source not meeting the GNG does not imply non-notability. How about a borderline notable case, like the DRV case I linked? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:06, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
              • Your central argument here is that interviews do not provide content which is independent of the subject. If there are interviews which do provide substantial content which is independent of the subject then this argument fails. The exact notability of the subject of the interview does not affect this. I don't agree that the fact the article is largely based on an interview makes the source non-independent. Being independent means a source "produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it". Here the content is being produced by a journalist who has no connection to the subject. That journalist writes from their own perspective, bringing their own analysis and views, not those of the subject. Journalists write articles based on statements made by the subject all the time. Assuming that by the DRV case you mean something like [13] then yes, that counts for very little towards meeting the GNG because the only independent content is somebody asking a few brief (and mostly obvious) questions, but that doesn't mean all interviews are like that. Hut 8.5 08:05, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
                • Yes.
                  I would have said that “interviews which do provide substantial content which is independent of the subject“ are not properly called “interviews”. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:23, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
                  • That's a pretty blatant example of circular reasoning. Interviews do not count towards meeting the GNG because any interview which does count is not an interview. Even sources which are explicitly labelled as interviews and look very much like interviews. Hut 8.5 22:34, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
                    • That is not the reasoning. The reasoning is that an interview is the subject talking about himself or his interests, eg company or its products, it is not independent. The reasoning is very simple and direct. If the source is not independent, the source cannot satisfy the GNG. The steve-carell-and-timothee-chalamet-on-drugs-disillusionment-and-playing-father-and-son is not independent. Can you point to another example? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:40, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
                      • But this interview isn't "the subject talking about himself or his interests". It's a journalist writing about the subject in the context of an interview given by the subject. The fact that the journalist is basing much of the article on content written by the subject is not relevant to independence. If a politician gives a speech and a journalist writes about it, that is an independent source, even though it's based on the speech. Independence involves the relationship between the author of the content and the subject. The author here is a journalist with no connection to the subject. I can come up with other similar interviews to that one but I don't see much point in posting those. Hut 8.5 07:58, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
                    • No true Scotsman, I would think. But fallacious either way. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:44, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
                      • Interviews are not independent of the subject being interviewed. Do you have a counter example? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:40, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
                        • Stating this as an axiom over and over doesn't do anything useful for those of us who think it should be justified by reasoning and examining the particulars of each case rather than taken as a hard rule. And I can't give you an example until you give me a clear definition of what you mean by "independent" that doesn't make everything in the world dependent on everything else and isn't just "the subject said it so it's not independent" circular reasoning. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:35, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
                          • You, David Eppstein, seem prone to disagree with everything to oppose any forward movement. For definitions, let's refer to the article interview, and if that is wrong, fix it. I get that there is subtlety in some words, but it is not so complicated. Compare and contrast the sections Research and Journalism and other media, where I note the wording "In ... research, interviews are used". If someone uses an interview, that doesn't mean the product is an interview. I do find some of the objections obtuse, but OK, we can have a footnote clarifying that "in an interview, the information from the subject is reported faithfully, without significant challenge, comment or analysis", or something like that. I have in mind interviews that are disguised promotion, the subject has surely paid although there will be no proof, but the subject is talking about something that will make them money, their fancy new fantastic underpants or their esport that you can follow on their YouTube channel that will make them money. The better professional interviewer-article writers will prosify the interview, but on a paragraph by paragraph analysis, all they do is add adjectives and superlatives to pad the subject's supplied facts and opinions. I'm not sure what sort of interviews you have in mind, where if they get rejected as GNG-satisfying it will lead to good articles being deleted. I could try guessing, but you could help by saying. I've resorted to looking for the most basic common ground: "an interview of the subject is not independent of the subject", and you still won't agree?
                            Why does this need doing? Because the newcomer article writers are broadly not being served by the WP:GNG not being strong enough about non-independent sources. Too many are attempting new articles where the only substantial sources are non-independent, with the most unclear being interviews. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:36, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
                            • I definitely agree that what you describe, "interviews that are disguised promotion, the subject has surely paid although there will be no proof, but the subject is talking about something that will make them money", etc., are not reliable and that many (maybe even most) of the interviews one might find and think of using as sources are of that type. Where I disagree is that we must tar all interviews with the same brush. Since you asked, here is an interview where I am pretty sure that the subject did not request it (he has plenty of fame already, is in a field where personal celebrity or wealth are not the main currencies, and is probably doing the interview out of a sense of commitment to an award committee rather than because he wants to), and where the interview fills in details of the subject's upbringing etc. that would be difficult to source elsewhere. It is not an example of an interview that brings notability mostly because the subject-specific criterion for the subject's notability (WP:PROF) is not source-based, but it is an example of the sort of interview that I think we should treat and use as a proper source rather than screaming mindlessly "primary! unusable!". — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Eppstein (talk • contribs) 06:07, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

The root of the problem is our definition of reliable source, which is a Trinity-like confusion: it it the unity of publisher, author, and text. In the case of the interview the mess increases, "author" and "text" must be further split into "interviewer's text" and "interviewee's text". It is quite often a thing called "interview" often has a preface written by the interviewer, which is clearly secondary, if the interviewer is reputable and did their homework. Whereas the answers are clearly primary. Of course there is a question where the interviewer got info for their preface: was it rumors, blog posts, or oh dear, the recent fad "as one reader commented to my video"? If the interviewer is decent, then secondary sources exist, may be found, and used in Wikipedia. But the interviewer hardly ever lists his sources for verification. So my conclusion is that neither interview per se nor its preface suit for our notability criteria, this way or another. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:45, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, I think you're running into problems with people talking about different things when they say "the subject of the interview". So here's a suggestion for terminology:
  • The interviewer: Usually a journalist, e.g., the host of a television interview show.
  • The interviewee: The person the interviewer is asking questions of, e.g., Joe Film.
  • The subject: The content of the questions, e.g., Joe Film's latest film.
I think you're saying "Joe Film can't be independent of himself", and they're saying "Yeah, but a researcher can be independent of an academic fact". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Depends on composition of interview. It depends on the amount of text that is written in the interviewer's voice and the interviewee's voice. Content in the interviewee's voice is a primary source, and consists of the interviewee's responses, whether directly quoted or paraphrased. Everything else is in the interviewer's voice, and is a secondary source. For any particular interview, if all of the content in the interviewer's voice constitutes significant coverage, and the publication is a reliable source, then the interview is an eligible source that counts toward the interviewee's notability. If all of the content in the interviewer's voice fails to constitute significant coverage, then the interview does not count. — Newslinger talk 17:34, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - An interview may be an indicator that the interviewee is notable if the interviewer is independent of the interviewee (and if the interviewer is reliable, etc.), since it is the interviewer who chooses the subject to be interviewed and so is indicating that that subject is worthy of attention. Rlendog (talk) 01:02, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
    • While everything you just said is true, not of it is relevant to the question of meeting the GNG. Are people running with the fallacy that the GNG is the only indicator of notability? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:30, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Interviews about other topics

So far, we have been focused on whether an interview can be used to demonstrate that the interviewee is notable. What we have not discussed is whether an interview can indicate that something else is notable. Let’s say that a historian is interviewed about his/her research into the life of a historical figure. Can the interview be an indication that the historical figure is notable? Blueboar (talk) 12:57, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

  • "Independent of the subject". This excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it. For example, advertising, press releases, interviews, autobiographies, and the subject's website are not considered independent.
Works by the articles subject. Interview by the article’s subject. The idea that this language would exclude an expert talking about a topic of their expertise is just silly.
The subject talking about themself is not independent. The company’s owner, founder or CEO talking about the company and its products is not independent. An historian talking about their grandfather (this comes up in Morman historical bios) is not independent. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:25, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
I think we have a clear mixup of what "independent" means for purposes of notability (to avoid self-promotion) and who the information is tied to. Notability's asking us to judge how worthy of note a topic is. If a reliable source, without any connection to the product, spends effort to seek out and gain answers from a group associated with the product and publishes that, that's the type of publishing independence we want to show a topic is worthy of note. Now, the fact that it is presented in an interview form raises the question if the material is primary or secondary. If the interview does not get into questions about how and why, but just lets the group iterate features/etc. (eg no transformation of thought) that's primary. If the interview delves into history of the product, etc. that could make it secondary. But outside or whether a work is primary or secondary, notability does not care about the independence of the thought, only the independence of the publisher. --Masem (t) 16:03, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
I don’t. Independence is a very simple question. Is the source independent. The source of the information. Transformation means that new information is created. Questioning the primary source nature of the subject’s information goes to excluding the source from the GNG test as primary, which is a separate way to fail in addition to being non-independent. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:10, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
So information can only be used here if the source of the information made it up out of their pure imagination without learning anything from, by, or about the subject? Anything else would be too primary to use? Your position is absurd. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:18, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
Goalposts? Can be used? All the words are needed. Only independent sources can be used to satisfy the GNG.
The premise of Wikipedia-notability is that *others* have already written about the subject. An interview is not others writing about the subject. Third party even. The interviewer is second party.
Primary? Primary source? That is a different question to independent. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:43, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
The choice of an RS deciding to devote pagespace to an interview, is the sign that others felt a topic was note-worthy enough by an RS to devote space too. We can beg case-by-case- questions if that decision had any influence from the topic, but the bulk of interviews people in question lack the financial/profession conflict of interest. --Masem (t) 01:12, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
The choice of an RS deciding to devote pagespace to an interview, is the sign that others felt a topic was note-worthy enough by an RS to devote space too. I agree with that. It is a good “keep” argument for AfD. It is not GNG, but it is evidence of notability. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:27, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
What needs to be remembered is that the GNG is not assured protection from AFD, it is just as much a rebuttable presumption as any of the SNG. You might be able to show 2 or 3 sources that seem secondary, have some decent coverage, and thus get to the GNG metric, but barely gives enough information for a decent article, and thus following a proper WP:BEFORE challenge to show there is no other sourcing available, it can be deleted. Thus, by this process, an interview that is clearly not a pay-to-print should be considered a tick towards evaluating the GNG, but if there's only a couple interviews which are basically just Q&As, then that's not going to work for long-term notability. --Masem (t) 01:44, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that is. It is very unfortunate that Wikipedia-notability experts “have to remember” these things instead of having a simple text that means what it says. It would be better for the project if WP:N was more easily read at face value than what it is.
2 sources that meet the GNG, every clause in unison, effectively make an article AfD-proof unless there is a WP:NOT problem. In practice, borderline notable topics don’t have two perfectly GNG-meeting sources, and it is a bit of a scrounge involving more than 2 sources. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:54, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
The GNG still says "presumed notable", meaning it can be challenged. WP:BEFORE makes that a hard challenge, because you have to do legwork to reasonably prove a negative (that no sources exist beyond what's already identified). But if that legwork is done, then AFD is perfectly appropriate and the GNG cannot protect an article without additional sources. It's why the GNG is looking for evidence that a topic has been determined noteworthy by reliable sources. A major interview, even if just a Q&A, in a highly reliable source, is such a sign. There's a bunch of cavaets on that, of course, but broadly, in general, interviews cannot be excluded from the GNG. --Masem (t) 15:15, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
  • So Blueboar's specific question is easy: Yes, an interview with a historian about some historical person is evidence that the historical person is notable. In particular, an interview with an academic talking about a dead person shows evidence of "attention from the world at large" for the dead person, and it may even provide enough information to make it possible to write a decent article. Figuring out those two things is the whole point of this guideline: Let's have articles about whatever subjects the world pays attention to, whenever we have enough information to write a decent, neutral, verifiable article about it, and let's not have bad pages on subjects that nobody cares about unless they're profiting from it.
    So you'd think that the rule would be "Yes, interviews are good if the interviewee doesn't benefit from promoting the subject, and interviews are useless if the interviewee is selling something". But that simple "rule" breaks down quickly, because what we actually do (in practice, not in theory) take certain kinds of interviews as strong evidence of notability even though the interviewee is present only to make himself rich and famous. These "exceptions", which defy rather than proving the rule, include (but are not limited to) high-profile radio and television interviews about books and films. You're just not going to be able to convince editors that a long interview with an author, actor, or director about their latest film on high-profile, popular cultural radio and television programs is completely meaningless in GNG terms. Yes, there might be enough other stuff anyway, so that a rule-bound person could come to the same conclusion as the more WP:UCS-inclined ones without "counting" that source, but editors fundamentally don't agree that these sources are useless in GNG terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Editors won’t believe that interviews are not independent, so don’t write into the guideline that an interview if the subject is not independent of the subject?
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mohamad Fakih for a case that I think falls precisely in the middle of the line. Four sources are proffered, all are a writer’s write up of information obtained directly from interviewing the subject. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:02, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Those interview there are fully acceptable sources. The information in several of those add in other details not obtained from Fakih, which helps significantly. But the fact that major national newspapers opted to interview this person on the eve of major expansion shows that the papers believe this person to be notable. --Masem (t) 02:09, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
How can you be sure that he didn’t pay the newspaper, or place paid advertisements in the newspaper? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:16, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
These are top level newspapers in Canada. That's an extremely poor assumption of bad faith that papers of that quality will not disclose paid adverts. (In the US, the FTC can take action when such disclosures are not made, per [14]). If you were asking the same question of a trade maagazine or the like, that might have weight to consider, but not for general audience national newspapers. --Masem (t) 04:24, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

WP:NSTEM

Latest comment: 5 years ago31 comments10 people in discussion

A long while ago I wrote a biostub on a VP Engineering of the top company in major industry. In 30 seconds it was nominated for deletion. Recently I came across the same: a notable engineer was up to deletion. I tried to browse our wp:n , but failed to find anything useful. May be I did not try hard, but that nom was obviously without merit, so I dispursued the issue. Now my slow brain tells me if it is not in policy why not add it? Therefore I am proposing WP:NSTEM as an expansion of WpNacademics. I remember it was a painful work with the latter: unlike pornstars most academics are not in the limelight. With most non-stevejobsy engineers the problem is even worse: compared to them academcs have citation index and stuff.

STEM was grouped into a buzzword for reasons. Most of them may be cited in favor of wp:nstem. Since most n-criteria for s, t, e, m people overlap, it should be a no- brainer to write up the expansion:

  • invented a notable better mousetrap
  • respectable industry award
  • VIP
    • in an industry leader company
    • in several successful (well... hmm...) startups, preferably with wikipedia articles (or redirects after mergers/acquisitions with nontrivial descriptions)

This is basicaly it out of my achy breaky head. - Altenmann >talk 05:11, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

I would consider NACADEMICS already problematic since is purposely lowers the bar for biographical articles, but I understand why we need it as academics are significant contributors to world knowledge but rarely get direct coverage themselves.
That said, for scientists and engineers in commercial venues rather than academics, this cannot be used as a basis, given the problems we already have with self-promotion and other issues that NORG has to deal with. Just being an executive position of a top company does not make a person notable. --Masem (t) 05:36, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Ok vip one can be negotiated (eg vip credited with major success), what about the rest? - Altenmann >talk 05:55, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I think that the "invented a notable better mousetrap" criterion is not useful: if a hypothetical engineer truly single-handedly created an important new invention, there will be coverage of it and they will meet GNG, NACADEMIC, or some other guideline. If there isn't such coverage, then it probably wasn't that notable; if the coverage phrases it as a company's project or otherwise a team effort, then the individual engineer is probably not notable (or at least not notable due to inventing that thing); would you really support having an article for every engineer that's worked on Siri, for instance? Similarly, industry-leading companies can have tens of thousands of engineers: I don't think anyone would argue that say, Google, is not an industry leading company, but having an article for every engineer that works there is absurd. Jumping to the other points, a respectable industry award is already covered by WP:ANYBIO, and startup coverage that I've seen has always been written in a manner such that the main members will always get enough coverage––I really doubt that someone could be a critical member of multiple startups and not meet GNG. A further concern is, what are you planning on putting in these articles if there isn't sufficient coverage to meet GNG? For academics, there's always university faculty profiles that while not independent, can generally be trusted to be accurate. The same cannot be said about private industry. signed, Rosguill talk 06:26, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
:::"coverage of mousetraps" - absolutely not covered other than in primary sources and obscure technical sources you cannot lay your hands onto with the exception of things like time travel and quantum entanglement.  This criterion is presumption such sources exist but they may be difficult to find. By your logic all criteria are worthless: everyting noteworthy is surely described somewhere, otherwise how we would have known about it. GNG is for bullshit like socialites. At afds people seriosly and zealouly insist that development of tunnel communucation is not notable at all. Your mom could have invented  it. - Altenmann >talk 16:47, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
"hzving an article about every engineer is absurd" - is that what I want? Careful with straw man, colleague. By the way, having an article about every footballer is even more absurd.- Altenmann >talk 16:47, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
"that cannot be said about private industry" in othre words, if a profile of a Principal Technology Engineer says he is behind all major success, this must be for duping the competition and general public, right? - Altenmann >talk 16:47, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Re strawman accusations, what exactly do you hope to be the outcome of having a guideline saying someone is notable if they're in an industry leader company? I apologize for misinterpreting your intent, but if that isn't your intent, I don't see what that specific criterion will accomplish and would appreciate an explanation. signed, Rosguill talk 18:36, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Sad. Bye. - Altenmann >talk 16:47, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

  • The fundamental underpinning of notability is not whether a subject's contributions are "worthy," or that they are well-regarded within their own sphere, but whether the world has heard of them. Yes, this does mean that pornstars, footballers, and yes, academics have a leg up over engineers in management. That the world cares more about such people than about the types you yourself consider worthy is a lament shared in hundreds of such proposals over the years. (That being said, if I was going to complain about straw-man arguments, I wouldn't myself toss out airy "By your logic all criteria are worthless" accusations.) Ravenswing 18:37, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I agree with the above, it is sad that a nurse is (in effect) less notable then some bloke who kicks a dead pig around a field. But that is the nature of our culture (and always has been, in truth). But we have to have some kind of guidelines to avoid articles on every middle management wallah who (maybe) once won employee of the month.Slatersteven (talk) 18:45, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I think that more important than avoiding having articles about "every middle management wallah" (after all, isn't that basically the same argument as "we should have more articles about engineers and less about footballers"?), we need to make sure that the guidelines actually guide us toward having full-length articles with verifiable content. The problem with the proposal isn't that these engineers are unimportant, it's that the criteria provided are not indicators that sufficient coverage exists of the person such that a verifiable article can be written. Athletes may be equally "unimportant" (a very subjective judgment), but any professional football player will by the end of their career have a mountain of neutral coverage written about them, because every statistic of their career is meticulously recorded and archived by an industry's worth of journalists. signed, Rosguill talk 19:01, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
And a key point to remember is that Wikipedia is not a Who's Who-type database, where the likes of corporate engineers/scientists/executives often end up. --Masem (t) 19:07, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I think I know from where some strange ideas about my suggestion came from. It was "overbulleting" in my list above. It had to be "flat":
    • VIP in an industry leader company
    • VIP in several successful (well... hmm...) startups, preferably with wikipedia articles (or redirects after mergers/acquisitions with nontrivial descriptions
Of course it was not my intention to have an article about every engineer in google. My point was Why a Distinguised Professor is verry good, but Distinguished Engineer is yuck?
That said, the guideline is presumption of notability, i.e high chance that sources may be found.
Also, there was about promitionalism of corporate website. Yes, they push PR, but it is about product. No one businessman in sane mind disclose its top talent for fear of brain drain. But vips of a major public company mus be discosed for public, read: investors.
also, Someone wrote: "wikipedia's criterion is notability, not importance". and this is correct: a wikipedian can figure out whether somethin is notable by merely looking at sources, while importance may require interpretation of source and life and the universe, ie OR. Once again: certain kinds of importance is a presumption of notability, i.e if I vote keep i believe sources must exist, but I am not going to intertupt my kayaking to add them right now. It has been happening all the time: an article kept, but in 3 months happily deleted because nobody cared to add refs.
Therere please pretty please i am not starting some "engineern in red" drive. Just think of things which can bring notability for engineers, to avoid stupid discussions whether Predident of Cadence is notable or inventor of chromofluorescent reticle conversion which increased yield 200% is notable. - Altenmann >talk 03:56, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
Well one reason is a tenured professor is a recognized achievement widely regarded as being the pinnacle of a profession. In much the same was as a companies Vice president or board member might be. Also note note all professors are notable, though to be fair it is often not applied strictly enough. Just being professor of Klingon at the university of Much Rutting in the Marsh is not going to get you an article.Slatersteven (talk) 10:06, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
PROF is already a very poor setup, and results in a lot of garbage permastubs. If we want to have something else like it, let's please not. Something is notable because it has been extensively noted. If it hasn't been, it's not about being "worthy" or anything else, it's just we don't have the sources to write a complete article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:43, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Concur with Seraphimblade. For example, Tu Youyou's most important work was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but there was virtually no news coverage of her in the West until she won the Lasker Prize. An WP article was belatedly created in 2012. Even then, she did not become famous worldwide until she won the Nobel Prize in 2015. This is the way science and engineering works -- at any given time, there are millions of scientists and engineers laboring away in obscurity. In 10, 20, or 30 years from now, the work today of a few of those persons will eventually make them famous around the world. But they're not covered in Wikipedia until they are notable in the sense of being noted -- in that there are multiple neutral, verifiable third-party sources covering their work. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:22, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
There is no requirement, nor should there be, that the sources used for notability be "news coverage", nor that they be "in the West", nor that the subject be "famous worldwide". We can, and should, cover academics who are prominent in China even when their prominence has not reached the publishers of English-language sources. And for that matter, what you say about "multiple neutral, verifiable third-party sources" is completely irrelevant for academic notability as that has nothing to do with any of its criteria. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:06, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
"multiple neutral, verifiable third-party source" is a policy requirement for all articles; notability only establishes that we'd also prefer those sources to be secondary to explain why the topic is relevant to include in an encyclopedia. That's the problem with PROF in that because the academic world rarely writes much about the people within it, and mainstraeam coverage of academic are blips compared to other arenas, that PROF is trying to reach for other signs to incorporate academics, which at least show implicit importance to the world (eg citation counts). But for commercial STEM positions, there's not even that type of index. And its trivial to become an "executive" in the modern world, particularly with small businesses. But we also need to keep in mind that the corporate world does get more coverage than typical academics, so there's a better chance to start that if a STEM engineer or scientist in the commercial field has done something significant, they will be noted. But all this still comes down to meeting WP:V and WP:NOR policy with neutral, third-party sourcing across the board regardless of topic. --Masem (t) 06:23, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
You are conflating two different sourcing requirements. The *information* in an article must be sourced to reliable sources, per WP:V. But we are talking about notability here, not verifiability (that is, about whether an article should exist, not about what goes into it once we've made that decision) so your telling us what we already all know about that is irrelevant. For verifiability the sources need only be reliable for the claims sourced to them, but for source-based notability the sources need to meet a much higher standard: they need to, individually, cover the subject in-depth, and (in practice if not in the letter of GNG) they need to have some sort of national or global prominence rather than being local to a town or specific discipline. It is those parts, the in-depth coverage in individual high-profile sources, that causes GNG to lend prominence to vacuous celebrities and to businessmen willing to pay publicists for that level of coverage. Fortunately, our academic notability guidelines avoid that mess by being based on criteria that make it more difficult (though not impossible) to game. That is why I object strongly to what I see as your efforts here to trash that and replace academic notability by academic celebrity. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:03, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Notability is expected to shown from verified information, not what WP editors feel is notable. (Our SNGs can establish an inclusion that rests on more editor intent, but that's why all SNGs include the rebuttable presumtion to challenge that) That's why notability is based on secondary sources - not just that the information if verifiable but that someone within our RSes have actually placed it in context beyond just a data dump. And yes, we do have the problem that we have professions that get far more press coverage than others, and we do have professions where there is COI-based coverage. The latter we can do our best to exclude COI sources from evaluation of notability, but we really cannot do much on the former problem, or how that affects other professions that do not have a great deal of coverage. I know academics are rarely discussed in any RSes but we're also in the problem of trying to create notability from a void of sources that discuss academic notability. And if you weaken that for academics, then you're going to end up with proposals like this for engineers and scientists in commercial professions who similarly may not be talked about but are further on the potential of COI. It sucks that it makes it hard for academics, but we really have to be careful about bending notability rules when RSes simply just don't exist for demonstrating notability. --Masem (t) 15:21, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
You can make stricter and stricter versions of publicity-based rules, as you seem to be advocating, in the hope of only including people for whom the publicity is somehow real. Or, you can allow content to rely on scattered and local but reliable sources, but use a subject-based notability criterion that is aimed more at significance than publicity. Somehow, I think that NOT using publicity as the basis for article inclusion is going to be a more effective strategy against the spammers than forcing all real content to be based on publicity. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:51, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
I would need to dig it out where it ended but I think we need to refer back to the discussion about 6 months ago related to historical female figures which the media of the old tended to overlook and trying to loosen notability to be able to better cover those. My recollection was that generally the community rejected weakening notability - that is, allowing only local coverage to define notability - in that case. The same applies here. It is a unfortunate fact that academics are broadly humble and there is little coverage of the academics themselves unless they hit groundbreaking research and discoveries (the type that lead to Nobels, etc.) But WP cannot make coverage out of nothing, and the community seems against using local coverage as a replacement (to my recollecton). What's probably worst is that this concept of private-sector STEM researchers, engineers, and scientists actually probably get more non-local coverage -- but at the cost that that coverage is likely from COI-based sourcing. We're basically in a place where the value of recognizing academics is a strong goal, but doing so while weakening various policies and guidelines that others will jump on and game essentially boils down to righting great wrongs, which we just can't do. We can try to find a non-gamable pathway (such as a research's body of work recieving hundreds or thousands of citations, a person becoming dean of an accredited university program, and other things that show the importance of that research through implicit means), but there's always going to be the onus of finding more secondary and non-local sources to support that. --Masem (t) 20:33, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

(OD) I have to agree with Masem on this. Does it reflect badly on modern society that academics are not considered more worthy of coverage than they are... yup... but that is the reality and it is not Wikipedia’s job to change society. We reflect what is, not what we wish it were. Blueboar (talk) 20:45, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Masem, if you think I want to "loosen notability" or add special exceptions for people from disadvantaged circumstances (as that 6-month-old discussion advocated) then you are arguing against a phantom in your own mind and not reading what I am writing here. I am happy for the standards to be strict. But strictness does not need to mean sticking with publicity-based inclusion guidelines like GNG and making more and more unrealistic thresholds for how much publicity one needs to buy to become notable. Instead, we have in WP:PROF a well-functioning example of an inclusions guideline that is based on measures of significance other than publicity. Is it "reflective of today's society" that wealth buys fame and fame buys Wikipedia coverage? Maybe, but it doesn't have to be. We need our articles to be based on reliable sources, and that provides a minimum level of notability below which nobody should be included, but it has been years and years since anyone accepted that minimum as the level at which someone should be included. When we make our inclusions guidelines stricter than the bare minimum needed to ensure that we can write a properly sourced article, we don't have to continue using the existence of sources as the only criterion for inclusion. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Several of PROFs criteria are presumed importance by WP editors, not by the world at large, developed because the world at large does not readily recognize academics. At the end of the day, we're expecting that articles on academics (and for any topic) are more than just primary sourcing. We ultimately want secondary sourcing so that we are giving more than a data dump or being a Who's Who (this is the same problem with the Olympians discussion too). It sucks that academics do not get the recognition they deserve, but again, we can't create coverage that isn't there. I'm all for criteria that has a reasonable strong assurance that good secondary sourcing can be found so that we can have more articles on academics to be developed, but there's some in PROF (like #8) that I have strong reservations about eventually showing secondary sourcing.
It is reflective of today's society that other areas like celebrities and athletes get far more coverage, and I would be all for more restrictive guidelines on inclusion so that we're pulling more away from being a Who's Who, but you can see with NSPORT that's a fighting battle, because that media coverage actually exists and it becomes hard to challenge that factor. I see that the same situation as with womens' achievements being marginalized in earlier centuries; in this case, academics and others' achievements far outweighted by more banal evaluation. (It's probably actually gotten worse move into the 21st century simply due to what popular media produces and expects people to consume). --Masem (t) 23:27, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
High-achieving academics get plenty of secondary sourcing from the citations to their work in the papers of others. Current practice requires somewhere around 1000 of these secondary sources (depending on field) to satisfy WP:Prof#C1, a much higher number than in most other areas. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:04, 28 January 2019 (UTC).
Citation in other papers is rarely secondary sourcing about the academic, but of the research topic. (I have seen papers commend specific research efforts, that's secondary sourcing on the academic). But I do not have an issue of allowing per SNG and the usualy presumption of notability that having your papers cited 1000+ times is a good sign that secondary sources can be found with that proficient reliance on one's work. --Masem (t) 00:40, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
A citation in a scholarly publication is not a citation to a research topic but to a particular piece of work to which the academic (in question) contributed, see WP:Prof. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:43, 28 January 2019 (UTC).
My point is that a mere citation in another journal article is generally not a secondary source on the academic or the work they are doing, it just points to the previous work that existed, making in primary. An indepth review article would be closer to secondary, but review articles are nowhere as frequent. --Masem (t) 23:50, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
You will find that consensus is not with you. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:51, 29 January 2019 (UTC).

New user essay

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I'd appreciate comments at User talk:Andrewa/Verifiable facts about non notable topics as to whether this new user essay is barking up the right tree. Andrewa (talk) 06:52, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Animals

Latest comment: 5 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

I just reviewed, and accepted, a draft on a zoo elephant. However, my question is about a notability guideline. I looked for one and did not find one. Is there a notability guideline for animals? (This is an entirely different question from a guideline for species of animals.) I did not find one, and I assumed that general notability applied, without any further guidance, and accepted. One reason that I thought that there might be a guideline is that the inverse is true, that there is a speedy deletion criterion for non-notable animals having no credible claim of significance. These are subject to A7 and in particular can be tagged with {{db-animal}}. (I assume that this was due to editors creating stupid stubs about their dogs and cats.) So is there an acceptance guideline, or only a deletion guideline? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:14, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

No, there isn't - it would be expected to fall under the GNG allowances, with a dab of making sure there's not too much COI in the sources given this is a zoo elephant. They are probably listed among A7 with things like garage bands and the like in that due to self-promotion by a zoo in this case. Individual zoo animals can be notable. --Masem (t) 20:26, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, User:Masem - I think that the reason why individual animals are mentioned in A7 is due to stupid stubs about dogs and cats. It is also true that zoos can self-promote, and that would be covered as non-notable organizations in A7, which is not the same as non-notable animals, just two different kinds of A7 crud. Of course, there is always the possibility of some sort of self-interest with any living animal, because any animal is probably a pet animal, or a working animal, or a wild animal that is noted for some reason. But then, there is usually usually the possibility of self-interest, which is why nineteenth-century people are a little easier to assess. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:45, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Notability Guidelines for Scientific Subjects

Latest comment: 5 years ago27 comments10 people in discussion

Maybe I am looking only in the wrong places, but I can't find notability guidelines for certain scientific topics that I think should be notable. I see that there is a notability guideline for astronomical bodies. However, is there a notability guideline for chemistry? In particular, when is an identified and described material having a CAS number considered notable? Always if it is properly verified with a journal reference? Sometimes? I have a similar question in biology. When is an identified and described taxon at the species or higher level considered notable? Always if it is properly verified with a journal reference? Sometimes? (Also, what about disputed taxa? My own opinion is that they should be considered notable, but that the dispute should be noted.) Maybe these guidelines exist, but, if so, they are not in the proper category. Do these guidelines for distinct items of knowledge in chemistry and biology exist? Where are they? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:09, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

It's probably a fair question that would be open for an RFC. I personally disagree with the astronomical bodies, but if that is considered to have concensus, then by the same metric chemicals with CAS numbers means that there are definitely scientific papers about them. Biology I do believe that we have notability down to a specific classification but specific members from that classification or lower need more sources. But again, this is the type of thing that RFC may be better. --Masem (t) 05:18, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
For taxonomy, see WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES. I don't know about chemistry though. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:37, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
On the basis of that, any chemical with a CAS number (which is used for cataloging chemicals in scientic literature) would follow the same. But that should be a RFC to establish that. (And potentially the development of NSCI for the notability of scientific topics). --Masem (t) 05:44, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I have not much encountered real notability questions for scientific topics. Sort of close was astronomical objects, such as asteroids, stars and galaxies, which were contentious here for a time, but I think should be considered more of a merge and page-structure issue than a notability-deletion issue. Astronomical objects are kind of like Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features), except they get a lot more leeway for not being transient, and for not being criticized for local promotional reasons. In another direction, I feel that anything scientific but short of Wikipedia:Fringe theories is allowed. Where the content is too small, I'd suggest merging and listifying similar topics. If it is real science, WP:Verifiable and not WP:OR, it is virtually deletion proof. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:01, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
    • I've seen lots of cases where someone writes an article about a topic invented in their own newly-published and uncited paper and it gets deleted. The criterion I generally use for scientific topics is basically WP:GNG: it has to have been written about in-depth by multiple independent groups of researchers. It's a very easy standard to meet but it still is often not met. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:20, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
User:Masem - What is the nature of your disagreement on the astronomical bodies? Robert McClenon (talk) 07:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
User:David Eppstein - WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES is only an outcome essay. It summarizes usual outcome and is not a real guideline. I agree with the conclusion, but would prefer something with some guideline force. Any taxon at the species or higher level in the traditional system and any named clade should be an acceptable subject. For any taxon, we even have an infobox for the purpose. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
I think that WP:GNG is unnecessarily strict for taxonomy and chemistry. I don't think that there should be a need for the item of knowledge to have been written about by multiple independent groups of researchers. That isn't an easy standard for some things like a new species of beetle. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I think that an RFC is in order. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Let's start with why we do have pretty open allowances for geographic places: we have that because we have specifically decided that WP can be a gazetteer as part of being an encyclopedia. So any recognized place name on Earth should have an article to fill this out. In contrast, for astronomical bodies, we do not have the same positive allowance for such bodies, and thus the guidelines, at least criteria #2 , seems too inclusion. But that's not saying that we could not ask the question if we should allow WP to serve as a astronomical-bodies guide just as we have with being a gazeteer....
And that thinking is where one could establish the same allowance for being a recognized chemical database (If a chemical has a CAS number, there has to be some papers out there about it by definition), and a biologic taxonmity (at least, down to every genus) (as such determination also requires study). Hence if an RFC is done, I would approach it from this mindset, that we are adding to WP's functionality, rather than trying to crave out new notability rules. --Masem (t) 15:07, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Probably a needed patch to the rudderless patchwork which is Wikipedia guidelines for inclusion as an article. The real master question that the policies should implement is: "is this suitable to have an article an ENCYCLOPEDIA which will only have about 10,000,000 articles? And the answer needs to be a weighted combination of "enclyclopedicdness" and real world notability. Separate binary tests of wp:not plus rudderless wp:GNG and wp:SNG's or'd together ends up with lots of problems. One of the problems is that real scientific topics don't qualify while kid's sports teams do.North8000 (talk) 01:17, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Not that's not a good question to ask to ask at all, in fact I'd probavly argue it is the worst question to ask. There is no cap on the number of articles for good reasons (among other it contradicts the "gathering the world's knowledge"), but more importantly imho that approach (of a cap) is quick way to kill the project, because many editors/authors will simply leave.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:15, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
A cap is not a great way to think about it, but we should keep in mind that we are a volunteer project, and with only so many editors/admins, there is a point where we'd have too many article to maintain from vandalism/etc. We're not near that point but it is something on the horizon. --Masem (t) 03:16, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
I think we are close to that point in some areas. Every article gets vandalized at some stage. In some of the less popular article that I watch I believe that I am the only watcher to make corrections. When I am gone, I suspect the articles will degrade from thereon. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:39, 27 January 2019 (UTC).
Nah, we're not that close. We have automated tools that help with vandal catching, and we have users that do go around and examine random articles for any problems. It is a valid concern, but not one I'd be using to say "stop making articles, we can't keep up". --Masem (t) 15:10, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
I agree that maintenance is an issue and that it becomes more difficult with number of articles. Nevertheless is an article cap no real answer to that problem because imho as stated above it will essentially kill the project. Exactly because it is voluntary projects many/most authors will leave if they get blocked from writing articles and essentially "ordered" to do maintenance only due to a cap. The notion that a lot of you may have invested a lot of time and resources in writing a good article (or even improving existing ones) to provide information to others will be wasted due to "cap management" by others is a strong motivation killer.
So as long as one sees Wikipedia as a project associated with (and based on) a larger community of volunteers collecting the knowledge of the world (as a neverending process) the notion of an article cap is not going to fly. There a lot of other ways to address and improve the maintenance issues, none of them perfect though.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:01, 28 January 2019 (UTC)


It seems to me more and more sources are becoming available on the Internet, and I am spotting topics that could be made into articles faster than I can write them. As Masem says, we have automated tools, and I believe those will keep getting better. Yeah, I do worry about little articles hidden in the nooks and crannies of Wikipedia, but I think the project will survive. - Donald Albury 18:35, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

The Way Forward on Scientific Topics

I would like to try to define what the next steps are, as to where and how to define and formalize the rules. Where should the discussion be conducted (here, VPP, the talk page of the new guideline)? Am I correct that the new guideline can be developed in Wikipedia space, with the objective of the RFC being to put the {{guideline}} (or whatever tag on it? What are the next steps? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:30, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

VPP is the right place at least to advert it - you can clearly also drop notification here and other reasonable places (do we have a chemistry wikiproject?). I would present the RFC first making the question "should we have a notability guideline for chemicals" and then explain that this would likely include anything with a CAS number, as a start. There may need to be exclusions like drug brand names (to avoid promotion and issues with MEDRS). Assuming that there's consensus for such then we'd develop the guideline and have another VPP to make sure it looks okay.
If you do feel that a guideline would be accepted to start, then optionally you can draft a guideline and present that at VPP for acceptance, skipping the first step. --Masem (t) 17:34, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Notability of Olympians

Latest comment: 5 years ago58 comments17 people in discussion

Just throwing this out there for general comment: Are Olympians "Notable" simply for being Olympians? If not, would medaling in the Games (Gold, Silver or Bronze) make one "Notable" for Wikipedia purposes? SeanNovack (talk) 15:57, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

As I understand it competing in the Olympics is enough.Slatersteven (talk) 15:59, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
WP:NSPORT "Athletes from any sport are presumed notable if they have competed at the modern Olympic Games, including the Summer Olympics (since 1896) or the Winter Olympics (since 1924), or have won a medal at the Paralympic Games" (with the understanding of "competed" meaning they actually were in an event and were not a first/second-string backup player.) It is based on the general observation that at least in Western media, each of these athletes gain significant coverage in the weeks leading up to the event as a "hometown hero" type thing. --Masem (t) 16:01, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
In practice, Wikipedia has an article for anyone who's ever gotten within a half mile of the Olympics, regardless of whether we can ever write more than seven words about them. GMGtalk 16:02, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
I give you Kim Chun-hwa (North Korean short track speed skater)Naraht (talk) 16:17, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
Just the sort of thing we should avoid. But policy is policy.Slatersteven (talk) 16:18, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
I see absolutely nothing wrong with Kim Chun-hwa. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 08:11, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Olympics has 159k articles within it's scope. 110k of them are stubs. Five bucks says at least 55k of those are permastubs. GMGtalk 16:20, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
There is no such thing as a permastub. With proper research, all articles characterized that way can be improved and expanded. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 08:11, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
In most countries there is either local (e.g. US - state or city) or national level coverage for their respective Olympic teams during the Olympics - with usually a short bio of each athlete on the team. In addition most athletes (exceptions such as Eric Moussambani being rare) compete in other international and national events that generate coverage. It is usually possible to pull these out of stub territory - if you really try that is. Icewhiz (talk) 07:46, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Much of that coverage is likely to be in languages other than English. So considering such subjects automatically notable can be a way of countering Wikipedia's systemic bias towards English-language topics. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:49, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Indeed. English press isn't going to cover and obscure non-English athlete - but their home country usually will (even for athletes with a poor showing on the international level (e.g. not getting through the qualifiers) - but that are locally significant in the home country - e.g. Bolivia at the Olympics never won a medal, but I'm sure their athletes have coverage in Bolivian press). For pre-internet era (which varies per country/newspaper - many newspapers only have online articles from the 2000s or so) - this may require newspaper archive access. Icewhiz (talk) 07:58, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Incidentally it was not difficult (in part by looking for sources from the North Korean English-language news service) to expand Kim Chun-hwa by a factor of more than three. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • "Five bucks says at least 55k of those are permastubs." As may be, but you could make the same wager, with the same degree of accuracy, about just about any area on Wikipedia. So far, I don't know of any notability guidelines which factor in the degree to which Wikignomes give a damn about stub-filling. Ravenswing 14:23, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Well, I could make the same wager with the same degree of accuracy for any SNG that doesn't actually pertain to whether a well sourced article can be written. And if you ever see me comment to any effect other than "we should do away with any SNG that sets a lower bar than GNG", then please have this account blocked because it's obviously been compromised. But you know, opinions are like assholes and most people have them. GMGtalk 14:46, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Possibly you missed the language dripping all over NSPORTS that the GNG needs to be met all the same, and that the SNGs in NSPORTS are all presumptive. But that being said, how many editors really need to be told that the fundamental element in writing a well-sourced article is to do the damn work and dig for sources? Yes, indeed, sourcing an article on North Korean speed skaters (for example) takes more effort than glancing at the top page of English-language Google results. That's the price of doing business for an encyclopedia that, after all, is not named Englishpedia. Ravenswing 01:10, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • There is a very simple answer to the question “are all X notable?” Which is: “No... although MOST may well be notable, there will always be a few that are not.” Once you accept this answer, then the next question becomes: “how can we tell which Xs are notable and which are not?” GNG gives us a base line for answering that question... and the SNGs tell us which criteria will give us a high probability that a particular X will pass GNG. Passing an SNG is, however, only a high probability, and not a certainty. Blueboar (talk) 17:15, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • A subject is notable if and only if it is covered in depth by multiple reliable sources, to such a degree that we can write a complete, non-stub article about that subject. Most Olympians probably pass that, but not all do, so those who don't are not notable. Period. It is the job of the article author to find sufficient sources prior to beginning a mainspace article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 11:34, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

I highly doubt sources exist to support East German handball players with a single Olympic appearance. I recall only a single source provided to show they existed. Sports editors need to read WP:PAGEDECIDE which suggests the best way to handle these obscure players is grouped on a list. Legacypac (talk) 12:20, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

  • There is nothing wrong with a short article, and if it can’t be expanded that does not mean it should necessarily be merged somewhere. I’m sure most readers would not want to deal with scrolling through a massive list if they are interested in only one entry. That may be appropriate for some topics, but not good practice for others.

    Beyond that, one of the key meanings of “encyclopedic” is comprehensive. And Olympic athletes are one topic that we wish to be comprehensive. It’s not just because nearly all will pass GNG and so there is no merit to turning each one into a deletion fight, but that the topic has been deemed inherently worthy of inclusion so long as it’s verifiable. Clearly not all editors support that view, but enough do and always have in many different subject areas, and there’s nothing “inherent” in the concept of notability to prohibit it. I think it’s also a big part of why N has remained a guideline rather than a policy; unlike V, there are often good reasons not to apply it and no compelling reason to impose GNG strictly. It often seems like attempts to do so are elevating the rule over the goal the rule is supposed to support. I simply don’t see any merit to poking arbitrary holes in coverage of an encyclopedic topic where we can and should be comprehensive. postdlf (talk) 14:06, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

    • We can't have one area of WP running with those concepts. We allow NSPORT because there remains the rebuttable challenge of presumed notability- if absolutely no sourcing can be found to expand the article past a stub-state, we shouldn't have an article on it. Non-notable Olmypians, followng a failed challenge to find sources, can go into lists articles, just with the list filtered by country and probably by year for larger countries, and use redirects to help those be searchable. An encyclopedia is comprehensive coverage of a topic, but not comprehensive across a topic, which is what the above is asking for. Every other part of the encyclopedia follows this approach, sports do not get a special exemption. --Masem (t) 15:11, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
      • Your approach here is regrettably prescriptive rather than descriptive; none of us are empowered to "allow" or "disallow" anything, and you are framing your own preferences as if they are a concrete state of affairs (see also reification (fallacy)). And I disagree with everything else you've said, not only speaking from my own preference but from observing what actually happens in Wikipedia and what consensus is demonstrated notwithstanding attempts to legislate top-down edicts. There absolutely are areas in which we are, and should be, comprehensive across a topic within the bounds of policy: populated places come to mind, where I have seen (thankfully) unsuccessful attempts to delete articles on small towns that have census data but no secondary sources. Such a waste of time to go out of our way to attack such things, and actual harm to the scope of the encyclopedia and editor good will... "Notability" is a rough proxy for desirable content that can be used to filter out a lot of insignificance or self-promotion (the latter really being the main motivator for its development out of deletion discussions a decade and a half ago). But there's no value in sacrificing content to it for no other reason than "that's the rule" (especially when consensus has always been against elevating it above guideline). On merging, section headers are notoriously fluid so I put little stock in redirects to lists to guide readers. Just because we "can" do something doesn't mean we should, and that we "can" merge is not an argument as to why short articles are harmful. That assumption really needs to be challenged. postdlf (talk) 15:39, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
        • The reason we have geographic places is that there was project discussion to come to consensus years ago that WP's function should include that of a gazetteer, thus allowing any officially-recognized place name (at national level) to have an article regardless of how stubby it is. There has been no similar discussion for Olympians, much less any other topic; that's a discussion that is above and beyond notability. And I know NSPORT agrees on the principle of rebuttable presumption: just that there have been very few proper challenges to that presented (that is, someone actually doing the work of BEFORE to prove out there are no sources in print from the local area for the athlete); most challenges fail from a lack of a proper search and thus we keep those articles. There's nothing wrong with how NSPORT is written to include all Olympians, but all that is established on a rebuttable presumption of notability, as with all the rest of NSPORT, that should we be unable to expand further, we should not have a standalone article on the topic. So it's fair to include all Olmypians as stub articles to start in hopes they can be improved, but we cannot pretend that 100% of them can be expanded beyond a stub with lack of secondary sourcing. And in regards to lists, there are templates like {{anchor}} that provide linkable anchors not tied to section headers. --Masem (t) 16:39, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
          • Good point about the anchor template, that goes some way towards mitigating the issue of merger. But there are still at least two assumptions or premises implicit in your position that merit challenging. I don't see what is ever gained from the effort and conflict involved in trying to rebut such a presumption. Nor do I see any reason to be concerned that an article has not and may never be expanded beyond stub length. postdlf (talk) 22:53, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
            • The rebuttable presumption is necessary because WP overall favors including topics to give editors the chance to try to improve them, but still recognizes that we need a mechanism to review topics that barely meet our notability guidelines that is beyond the simple checks that WP:CSD is aimed to cover. We recognize there's no deadline for developing articles so the bar is set to favor retaining articles. But we still ultimately, perhaps futility, want each article to be potentially of at least good article quality if not better. Permastubs and articles only sourced to non-secondary sources fail that. So if an editor clearly shows the effort to prove that the article cannot be expanded beyond a permastub, then deletion is fully appropriate. --Masem (t) 01:55, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
              • You've just rephrased those premises, not justified them. That assertion that deletion is "fully appropriate" is exactly what I'm questioning, because I'm not seeing an explanation why stub status is bad. And why anyone would, after trying and being unable to expand content beyond a stub, then expend effort to get it deleted rather than just moving on to another topic and leaving it as is with the chance, whether negligible or not, that someone else might find something they didn't. "I can't improve it, so no one else should ever try again, and though it is verifiable and is of a topic we want coverage, I want it wiped out. Because it is short." Really? We shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, nor even the good [article] be the enemy of the adequate [stub]. postdlf (talk) 12:55, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
                • At the end of the day, WP:NOT#IINFO applies - we are not an indiscriminately collection of information, and more specifically we are not a Who's Who. The argument that we should include all Olympians and can never delete them, even if they only can be written about as a permastub, fails the Who's Who aspect. We need more about these people to get away from this factor, and if we can't add more, we need a way to delete them to meet this core policy. That's the whole point of notability. And should it be the case that well after a stub is deleted someone discovers very obscure sources that were not where one would have expected to find them that give more depth to the deleted athlete, the article can be readded - what's lost in the permastub in the deletion process is not the same as if someone deleted one of our featured articles and lost years of contributions. --Masem (t) 15:08, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
                  • You've again just reframed your premise, now as "including short articles would be indiscriminate", rather than actually justified it. We're not talking about reproducing the phone book or writing an article for your house or lawn mowing business. When we're talking about a finite group of people (or anything) of a certain class or subject that has already been deemed worthy of inclusion, IINFO does not apply and there is no value in poking holes in our coverage. Deleting a short article will not make more long articles. And a small loss is still a loss, and a symptom of entropy, not of anything constructive. "Don't worry if I delete your contribution, someone eventually may also use their time to write it again." postdlf (talk) 17:41, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
                    • I would not consider the set of all Olympians to be "finite" (between 2000 to 3000 for each Olympic games) in contrast to, say, world leaders (an odd 200-something at any time) or Nobel Laureates (less than a dozen picked each year), which are topics which we should fully enumerate as an encyclopedia. IINFO/Who's Who absolutely applies here. And again, I've said before that list articles are better than short stubs; it definitely would be preferable that those athletes challenged for deletion should be merged into appropriate lists than deleted outright, but the point is WP avoids permastubs and seeks to put that into lists. The information will still be there, the name will still be searchable (via the redirect) but there's a huge resistance against this approach. --Masem (t) 17:51, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
If we change policy (I think there may be as justification for it) then we should take this (or at least alert) the concerned projects, and take it to village pump.Slatersteven (talk) 15:48, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Going back to the original question, though, you can presume an Olympian is notable for being an Olympian. It doesn't mean they actually will be, and it doesn't mean that we will be able to develop their article into anything more than a stub. But a) stubs are fine if WP:GNG is met and b) not every Olympian will in fact pass WP:GNG per WP:NOTDIRECTORY. If all we have on you is you finished 53rd in an event or played 20 minutes on a handball team that didn't win a game, you're not guaranteed an article. SportingFlyer T·C 22:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Regarding "stubs are fine if WP:GNG is met", the point behind the argument is that if an article is a permastub, and cannot be expanded through any reasonable amount of effort (including a good old fashioned library card), then GNG has not been met. While NSPORTS is admittedly better than NPROF, which explicitly claims an exception to GNG, NSPORTS is also basically a fait accompli, in that even if we would delete these articles at AfD (which the community won't), the amount of effort it would take to actually clean them up is still probably a net negative. Given, it is still probably better to get permastubs out of NSPORTS, than what we often get from NPROF, which is articles on living persons sourced basically (or literally) entirely to official bios on official websites and their own publications. But we have a dedicated group of editors intent on holding the line that this is where we make an exception to BLP, despite BLP being the official stance of the WMF, and not merely a local policy. Of course no one is likely to sue us over the issue, because, being official bios and all, they are reliably the approved sanitized version of their biography.
The best course of action here, and the one I long ago adopted personally, is simply to stop making these articles. Deletion is a gargantuan task and likely a net negative, but not creating articles that can only be supported by arbitrary SNGs is comparatively effortless. We get better articles when they meet GNG anyway, and permastubs and flagrant BLP violations don't really do our readers any good to boot. GMGtalk 13:39, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
You're conflating different standards here. We are talking about stubs of a certain valued subject that meet V (and NPOV, and every other policy) but not necessarily GNG. And compliance with BLP has nothing to do with the length of an article, and does not require that GNG is met. postdlf (talk) 17:41, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Sport SNGs don't exist because we "value the subjects," they exist because SNGs provide a clear guideline for when someone is likely to meet WP:GNG or not, especially when you're comparing two athletes from different parts of the world. We are not a directory of any person who has ever appeared in a sporting event. For instance, there's a footballer in draft space who appeared in a World Cup Qualifier, but all we know about him is that he appeared on the team sheet for three particular World Cup Qualifier with a link to a football database directory showing those three games. I can't find anything else online, meaning he's not notable enough for an article. Regarding permastubs, a permastub is very, very unlikely to meet WP:GNG. SportingFlyer T·C 08:23, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
There is no such thing as a "permastub" and that term should be abandoned. Every time somebody called an article about a topic I found interesting a "permastub" or nominated it for deletion, I have been able to triple or quadruple the length of the article with an hour or two of effort. For an example of an Olympic athlete, take a look at Arthur Busch before and after I edited it, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arthur Busch. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 08:31, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
The fact that you were able to improve one article does not mean there are no permastubs. If you can improve all the other stubs on Olympians, I will be convinced. In fact, here is a challenge for you: pick 10 at random and see how far you get. Blueboar (talk) 12:31, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
I would argue that the Busch article still fails notability, but obviously without doing a BEFORE check on sources, cannot confirm if there's more out there. All that reads is that person played in some matches, and little else is known about them. That's exactly the type of article that we do not want per WP:NOT#WHOSWHO. None of the sources are secondary about the person. So no, that really hasn't been expanded to a point where it can't be challenged in the future if someone did a proper BEFORE search. --Masem (t) 15:12, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Comments: I was under the impression that a guideline could not override policy. I would also have thought that several policies added together would certainly rise above NSPORT or a specific and higher WP:NOLYMPIC. I can understand a "presumption" but to claim an "automatic" notability, that anyone participating in an Olympic game is inherently or intrinsically notable, helps Wikipedia how? Admins using the word automatic or automatically notable makes it appear that notability is indeed inherited. A BLP article on an Olympic participant, sourced from one sports related site in the "External links", doesn't appear notable. It would seem that if there is little or no verifiable content, the subject must not be very notable. I would think using policies and guidelines together and not trying to over-ride one with another would be better for Wikipedia. I couldn't find anything of substance on Janusz Malik or Rajko Lotrič yet they apparently qualify for an article through an automatic exemption or inherited notability. Hopefully it was just that my searches were flawed. Otr500 (talk) 23:02, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
Otr500 "couldn't find anything" either because Otr500 never put any effort into looking for anything or because they do not know how to find things. As I already stated at my talk page, sources suitable for expanding both Malik and Lotrič are easy to find, in Malik's case by looking at the corresponding Polish Wikipedia article, in Lotrič's case by doing a Google search for his name. The articles are in a sad state but that's a reason to improve them, not evidence that it's impossible to do so. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:49, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
When I look at the Polish article on Malik, albeit with google translate on, all I'm seeing are stats and basic bio data, but nothing secondary of why we should have an article on this person. We're not a Who's Who, we're not a stats book. (And keep in mind, WP:NOT should be read only in context of en.wiki, other wikis may have different allowances). I'm not saying there may be more sources, but if all that can be developed are tables of statistics, that's not showing notability. --Masem (t) 01:29, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
Really? When I look at it (also through translate) I see sourced stories about how he was initially left off the Olympic team but added through a campaign on Polish radio; how he did well in training but not as well in the actual Olympic competition; how he blamed the poor showing on a poor mental game caused by his youthful pride; how he used the prize money from the competition to buy a motorcycle; and how a bad motorcycle crash ended his competitive career. Does Wikipedia show different things to different people? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:44, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
Okay, something weird must have happened when I clicked Google TRanslate, it jumped past all the prose. I will still raise the point if the article was just stats and basic bio, that's still failing several policies and guidelines if there is no sourcing to expand it further. --Masem (t) 04:22, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
And does the found sources provide support of notability, being only the #3 and #13 World cup standing (Malik), or just reflect acceptable content sourcing past just participating in this supposedly "automatic notability event"? My main problem is with an advancement of "automatic notability" or someone being intrinsically or inherently notable just because they participate in one notable event and regardless of sources. If one editor finds something others missed that does not mean all the other editors involved should quit Wikipedia. If normal discussions result in article improvements over a status quo of nothing that is a net positive. I would think that most would agree that because there was capitulation on academic article sourcing (other stuff) we should not dismiss all sourcing requirements. Otr500 (talk) 03:49, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
So you are arguing that he has to score particularly well (and just going to the Olympics isn't well enough) to become notable? That seems to be the exact opposite position to one that Masem was taking only a week ago in an analogous discussion on academic notability, where no matter how well-regarded an academic's scholarly accomplishments might be, or how many thousands of other academic publications cite and describe them, we should still not allow articles on those people unless we have in-depth publications about their personal lives. I am inclined to agree with your position (beyond some minimum threshold of sourcing we should look at accomplishments rather than celebrity) than Masem's. But for that argument I think your standard is too high — podium position in world cup or participation in Olympics should be enough and he has both. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:25, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
Being at the Olympics (as opposed to the Maccabiah) implies the athlete is a national champion (or close) in his field, and usually also ranked in international sport venues. By the nature of modern media - this generates national media attention.Icewhiz (talk) 09:05, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
Not necessarily.... there have been plenty of situations where a nation has sent unknown amateurs to represent them at the Olympics. This is especially true for smaller nations without huge funding for sports. Blueboar (talk) 00:35, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
OK, so there is no problem whatsoever with insisting on WP:GNG being met, because that national media attention will satisfy the requirement for non-trivial coverage in reliable independent sources. The "been in an olympics" criterion can safely be clarified as a guideline on the sort of person who is likely to have met Wikipedia's basic inclusion guideline, which has been policy pretty much form the outset. Guy (Help!) 23:06, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
I think that interpretation is quite different from how the guideline is typically used in practice, as a higher threshold than GNG: if an athlete is not an Olympian, and not one of the other recognized classes of likely-notable athletes such as players in top-level professional leagues, then AfD participants are likely to require extraordinary levels of coverage for them to be considered notable, rather than merely the reliable and in-depth but "routine" coverage that might exist for many other athletes. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:17, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
Implies, and a presumption of notability does not infer automatic notability. That swings the pendulum all the way the other direction. If an article is a BLP then sources are required so what is wrong with following WP:PROVEIT? Stop allowing BLP articles to be unsourced or sourced by a primary self-published "official website listed under an "External links". This places the burden on the person wanting to add material so that others can verify it and not on the reader (or editor) to have to go look for it. Either that or change the "rules" to "Just create an article and ignore the rules. Well, I guess we sort of have that now. Has anyone recently looked at the category for unsourced articles? Otr500 (talk) 09:24, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
Entirely unsourced would qualify for BLPPROD (on the living).Icewhiz (talk) 10:09, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
That is correct and as you stated "entirely" meaning containing no sources in any form. A normally unacceptable IMDb, Find A Grave, or sole primary source (subjects "official" website) under an "External links" (reliable or otherwise), even though such an article would still be considered unsourced, means it can't be BLP prodded. I have only ran across a couple of entirely unsourced BLP's. Otr500 (talk) 15:00, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
Coming from the last two comments by Otr500, I do want to stress that there is a reason we have a presumption of notability set by meeting a certain criteria in the subject-specific notability guidelines, in that as long as the criteria are appropriately chosen that meeting is nearly 100% certain that secondary sourcing can be found and added, then we allow the presumption to hold with the expectation it can be challenged if an in-depth search can find no sources. Sources still must be provided to show that the criteria is met, but those don't need to be secondary (but they should be from RSes and be independent/third-party/non-user generated ones). The whole way the SNGs work is that as long as the criteria is good and only allowing in a few notability false positives that can be reasonable challenged and deleted following a BEFORE search, then we're fine with the articles being created. For Olympians, I'm reasonable sure that "any athlete that competed in at least one Olympic event" is a fair bar. Its still not automatic notability because we have the rebuttable presumption there. --Masem (t) 16:20, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I have to remind everyone that we draw a distinction between “sourced/unsourced” and “source-able/unsource-able”... the first paring relates to the current state of the ARTICLE ... the second paring relates to the overall state of the TOPIC. Notability determinations should not be based on the first paring, but rather on the second. An unsourced article can be fixed by adding sources. An unsourced-able topic can not be fixed. Our SNGs help us to determine the likelihood that an unsourced article can be fixed ... but they are not a guarantee that this will happen. An SNG can not help if the topic is unsource-able. Blueboar (talk) 16:57, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
Comments: I am totally satisfied with the "presumption of notability" just not "automatic notability". I also agree that the state of article sourcing is different than a subject that cannot be notably sourced. I realize there is no "perfect" Wikipedia world but it sure would be cool if an editor that found a possibly elusive source to just toss it out there. Then a discussion may concern reliability and not "source-able" versus non-source-able. Anyway, thanks for clearing up "automatic" notability. Otr500 (talk) 21:49, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Sports articles are treated as directory entries

See Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports) § NOLY. The WP:NSPORTS article asserts, in as many words, that meeting the locally agreed criteria (e.g. "has competed in the Olympic Games") qualifies for an article regardless of the existence of independent sources. Many articles are drawn simply from a name at the bottom of a results table. Guy (Help!) 23:02, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

At some point, we might have to determine whether we are the experts, as contributors to an online encyclopedia with no qualifications, and whether we are the people who should be determining what the arbitrary standards for notability should be. Alternatively, would could allow the sources, those things that determine whether or not volunteers with no qualifications on an online encyclopedia can actually write an article, to themselves determine what is important enough to write about, in order to allow us to write about them in turn. But that would be silly. That would break years of arbitrary rule making and stringent following of arbitrarily made rules. It might even make the system intuitive so that people who were not thoroughly indoctrinated into the community jargon could actually contribute without needing to spend several days reading our arbitrary rules. GMGtalk 01:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
No, you’re interpretation is not quite right. Though I do agree that the bar is set way too low for some of these NSports sections, none of them actually dictates that something qualifies for an article. The notability connected to the outlined standards is only presumed. Whether a subject actually merits an article still needs to be proven with sources and by it meeting conditions set out in important policies. Someone who’s name was only ever present in an entry list or results table will fail because of WP:ROUTINE.Tvx1 07:44, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Notability of Guinness World Record holders

Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I have proposed CYM Group for deletion but I am hoping for some input in the discussion as to whether achieving a Guinness World Record and some related press attention is sufficient to give notability to this otherwise non-notable student club. The position is similar to the WP:SINGLEEVENT criterion for a biographical article. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:12, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Seems fair, I am not sure that most world records are really notable.Slatersteven (talk) 18:15, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

RfC on Notability (academics)

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is a discussion on restructuring the notability guidelines for academics, to make it more logical and in line with how academics are evaluated by their peers: Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#Confusing structure and vague metrics While it does not propose any changes in the actual notability criteria, the hope is that the new structure will it will make it easier to use, help to identify gaps, and make it easier to further develop the criteria in the future. Martinogk (talk) 00:01, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Reviving an old argument about "significant coverage"

Latest comment: 5 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

User:greenrd, in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slate Star Codex wrote "If we can write a substantial, well-referenced article based entirely on putting together material from what you characterise as mere mentions, what's the problem?"

This seems to me a very good question. The interpretation and justification of "significant coverage" is that there are enough references such that each "addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content." However often no original research is required to extract the evidence that verifies the claims, so why would it not be enough to say that each reference clearly validates the claims made without need for original research, and that there is enough coverage to maintain the health of the article?

Cf. the further discussion of notability guidelines I linked to on Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Slate Star Codex — Charles Stewart (talk) 23:45, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

  • Significant coverage means whatever the median AfD discussion determines it means. We can try hard to define it here, but in reality, no matter how strict we define a sourcing based standard (rather than an merit-based standard), it will always come down to what the median AfD discussion/participant thinks it means, and there isn't really a good way to fix it so long as we keep a sourcing based standard. This is because this talk page doesn't handle the enforcement of its own principles, but rather AfD does. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:59, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Of course general understanding trumps abstract principle when it comes to the outcome of enforcement, but that AfD did see a lot of discussion on the exact wording of significant coverage. I could easily suppose the outcome of the AfD would have been no consensus if th e wording had been different (although I say that without having actually seen the article). — Charles Stewart (talk) 00:26, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
Using that deleted article as a example (I'm looking at its contents as an admin), all references to it were literally named drops of the form "Scott Alexander of Slate Star Codex said..." Gives zero information about the topic of the Codex outside that it is a blog written by Alexander.
To me I would more than a single sentence in a article namedropping the topic to confer notability. I would expect, for example, some transformational analysis about the topic, even if this was something simple like "Scott Alexander of the Slate Star Codex, the largest-known blog dealing in this area, said..." gives some coverage over the name drop. But if only have that type of sourcing thoughout all the references, that's not helpful either. I would expect to see at least a significant portion of an article from an RS talking about the significance of the topic in question, which then added with these short but transformative mentions, would be a sufficient start to presume notability. That still might be challenged in the future if you cannot add more, but its enough to have the standalone article to work on. But as Tony says, this is a matter of consensus when the line is passed. --Masem (t) 00:01, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for giving this background information. Can we restore the article to draftspace to support the discussion here? — Charles Stewart (talk) 00:26, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion: link to WP:NOT in "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article"

Latest comment: 5 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
  Resolved

I think What Wikipedia is not is an especially salient policy in the context of § Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article. Particularly Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not § Encyclopedic content (aka WP:NOTEVERYTHING). What do people think about linking to it? Either (1) as a section hatnote ("See also: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not § Encyclopedic content") or (2) within the body:

Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies (such as WP:NOTEVERYTHING).

(suggested addition in bold) Or, (3) a different rewording option:

Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the article or list) is governed by content policies such as due weight and What Wikipedia is not.

Colin M (talk) 17:39, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

I prefer the former wording. I don't have a strong opinion as to whether the link should be included: on the one hand, links help people find the answers they were really looking for, on the other, discursions reduce the impact of guidelines. — Charles Stewart (talk) 23:54, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
I made a small change so that "content policies" links to a more readable page than the category it used to link to. With that link in place, I'm less inclined to make this change (since WP:CONPOL prominently links to What Wikipedia is not). I'm going to mark this as resolved for now. Colin M (talk) 02:09, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Where does coverage in alternative weekly papers fall for notability validation?

Latest comment: 5 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Alternative weeklies can generally pass factual reliability but where do they stand on their significance towards establishing reliable evidence of notability? As you can see in Alternative_newspaper, alternative papers such as Willamette Weekly has a local emphasis and therefore, in-depth coverage of local affairs is expected. So do significant coverages in alternatively weeklies count as significant for general notability for Wikipedia purposes? My general impression is that they don't. [Context] Graywalls (talk) 18:05, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Several attempts have been made to exclude the use of such newspaper coverage from counting in a WP:GNG assessment. However, those efforts have failed to gain broad consensus support. The most recent example can be viewed here: Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 64#Local source, again. In general, though, it is fair to say that the more local the coverage, the less likely one is to build consensus that a topic meets GNG. Major metropolitan dailies tend to be given greater credence. In the case of Willamette Week (?), the publication has been around for nearly 50 years and has received a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism; this suggests a high degree of reliability. Cbl62 (talk) 18:26, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
I had a related discussion and one editor suggested WP:ORG is a higher standard on top of WP:GNG. [diff The "reliability", nor the local emphasis is the question here. As a local paper, the emphasis is strongly local and gaining local interest naturally means covering local interest in greater details than larger audience publications. When the article subject concerns something naturally susceptible to promotional inclusion such as organizations, companies or people, do local weeklies have significant weight in establish notability in organizations categories for justifying inclusion of companies and organizations? Graywalls (talk) 18:40, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Notability double standards

Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Have sec on camera and win a minor award given out like candy or do decades of research and get over looked due the fact your not a white male. Guess what article Wikipedia covers. 2A01:4C8:F:DE9E:4882:1385:4275:3E12 (talk) 13:43, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The one that gets coverage in RS.Slatersteven (talk) 13:55, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
And we're unfortunately stuck with decades/centuries of media bias of the past that did overlook women/underrepresented groups to science. But if they can be documented now by RSes, no reason we then can't include them. We just can't include without demonstration of sources. --Masem (t) 14:06, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Or to put it another way, ask all those media outlets, feature writers and publishers why they have ignored this person, not us. We do not set trends, we follow them.Slatersteven (talk) 14:10, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Discussion on independence of two sources with same owner

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is a discussion on the independence of two sources with the same owner on the reliable sources noticeboard. If you're interested, please participate at WP:RSN § Sources from the same organisation. — Newslinger talk 07:26, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

industry plants are a loophole in the notability policy

Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Industry plants get tons of significant coverage deapite having no real impact in the world of music. Wikipedia should close this loophole and delete the articles of said plants. 2A01:4C8:1F:861:EFDB:4907:26B5:71B5 (talk) 12:45, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Notability is not a measure of importance or impact; it is a measure of whether sufficient sources exist so that a policy compliant article can be written. GMGtalk 12:48, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Discussion of specific sources for notability

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I opened this discussion on WP:RS/N about notability of a particular person:

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RS_possibilities_for_John_D._Zeglis

I am especially interested in how useful the various sources might be in establishing notability (on any person, not just that particular person), and an editor suggested I post here. Please reply at the discussion page at WP:RS/N rather than here, unless you think it really is more relevant to notability than reliable sources. --David Tornheim (talk) 14:39, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Small change to WP:ARTIST

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I have proposed a small change to WP:ARTIST, described over at the talk page for Notability_(people). Comments appreciated.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 23:45, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Establishing notability of older material

Latest comment: 5 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

Soe I recently created a stub here. Not my best work. But I still felt it deserved its entry either as a character article or series article due to its historical presence in the 30's, 40's and 50’s. I was reverted the first chance I get a review. I know I wouldn’t get many coverage on it. It’s old. But it still has a legacy I feel. My question or point that I am trying to ask is how to covey this "real world" notability of something as old of this. Despite him even appearing in comics in DC continuity. I mostly do good job with the newer stuff. Many present coverages of new media that comes out makes it easy for that. But in this case I feel like the sources would be more like Little Lulu (Another Dell character). Old sources need to be drugged up to prove an ancient character was a big deal. Or is maybe the editor being too strict thinking the character is got to be Superman level notable on the fact that he mostly has to be a cultural icon and be heard from by everybody. Jhenderson 777 16:32, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Diff before redirect for convinence.
One of the things people get upset about with notability is that they feel they if a topic is non-notable it can't be covered at all. That's incorrect. We can always cover a non-notable topic within a larger notable topic where it fits, using redirets to get readers to that notable topic. Particularly if you can only write a few short lines, that's a way to merge things in. This is that type of case. And this gives you the benefit that the content you have isn't likely to be deleted, and you can still expand on it with sources, and if you get more, in time, you can expand it to a separate article. --Masem (t) 16:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for showing the diff. I will point out that I know of at least two more sources that I haven’t used. But i don’t know if that's enough to expand or help prove notability. Jhenderson 777 16:40, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
The problem is that we do not to have fairly strict criteria so as to stop "but I know how important it was" type of articles. This means that older (and thus culturally if not historically) obscure subjects can become almost impossible to establish the notability of. There is little (I think) we can do about this, without opening us up to all kinds of old tat.Slatersteven (talk) 16:45, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
The issue is I thought I provided enough sources. I know more sources involving comic books that may help too. Like this and this It’s not like the the article I redirect to is proving GNG either with its sources. It just maybe was I think the info maybe wasn’t enough yet to help prove that it could stand alone maybe. Jhenderson 777 16:54, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Update note: I think I may have improved on it. Better?. Jhenderson 777 20:06, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I would say its probably good enough to survive a PROD or an AFD (enough secondary sourcing that implies more could be found). Obviously it could be improved, but its enough to pass the standalone article level that the GNG gives. --Masem (t) 21:01, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

We should be ashamed of ourselves

Latest comment: 5 years ago44 comments13 people in discussion

For every woman scientist denied an article because of notability, I suggest we create a foundation for notability victims. Victims of notability (talk) 20:57, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

  • As one of the new page patrollers, essentially the first line of enforcement for notability guidelines, I don't think notability guidelines are a significant contributor to gender disparity in articles about academics: the much, much bigger issue is the lack of people submitting articles about women in the first place. I would say that of the articles about academics that I don't approve, 90% of them are because of a copyright violation, not due to notability concerns (although that's neither here nor there as far as gender disparity: articles improperly containing copyrighted content are not disproportionately about women). signed, Rosguill talk 21:18, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
  • This has been discussed before. Lack of contributors is one problem, Copyvio/COI-type issues are also another. Another cause is simply due to lack of sourcing of such accomplishments due to societal roles in the past, generally not putting woman at the same level as their male counterparts (A problem that should not exist now). --Masem (t) 21:28, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
The issues is not us, its all those RS who do not cover them, take it up with all those feminist scholars, writers and reporters who choose not to write stories about them.Slatersteven (talk) 07:09, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
  • In fact - the de-facto notability standards on Wikipedia for women scientists are much lower than men (this isn't policy driven, but !vote driven - based on arguments like those above and attempts to counter Wikipedia:Systemic bias). The exact same bio - as a man - will often fail at AfD and pass as a woman. In my humble opinion, while this may WP:PROMOte individual women of borderline notability, overall our laxer standard for women is a disservice for the image of women in science - as instead of showcasing those that pass clear notability guidelines, by lowering the bar we present a different caliber of women scientists in relation to men scientists. Icewhiz (talk) 11:17, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that there are many facets, including the above. But if we're talking about history, we can't rewrite it based on our current sociological-political lens. In history there were just less women in those types of roles. Composers, scientists, generals and commanders, heads of state etc. North8000 (talk) 12:23, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

It's not only the gender disproportion, but also coverage disproportion. Eg: If the Harvard Computers existed today doing the same type of work, I would argue we would be easily be able to make each of those women a standalone article. But because it was in the past, we can only substantiate a few because the others simply didn't get the coverage from a male-dominated world viewpoint. --Masem (t) 13:41, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
It's also not that there were necessarily "less women in those types of roles", or even that there is no documentation. It is literally that women's (gender) contributions were not part of academic study until the 1970s. When the women's movement/civil rights movements/anti-colonial movements began in the 1960s, scholars began to rethink the previous presentation of history. Scholars recognized that there were depictions of women, people of color, and marginalized segments of society in artworks throughout history. Studying those images and trying to identify who the subjects were, there was recognition that there were also books which presented information on subjects who had been ignored by previous researchers. Scholarship has changed a lot in the 1/2 century since the focus shifted from a power-dominated world view.
There will never be an "equal" (whatever that is) presentation of historic events because too many of the records have been lost or obscured because they were not preserved or studied. We aren't righting great wrongs or lowering the bar to include a more diverse representation of history by over-representing figures history previously failed to include. Instead our focus should be on correctly representing the previously underrepresented segments of society. If we are able to adequately cover the notable history of the most disadvantaged members of society, we will clearly be able to relate the notable histories of the most advantaged. SusunW (talk) 15:11, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Oh, for crying out loud. I've never heard so many bogus arguments in one place in a long time. Let's see here:
  1. "The exact same bio - as a man - will often fail at AfD and pass as a woman." Really? Got some proof of that? Did someone try it? Put up the diffs, I'm calling b.s. on that.
  2. "take it up with all those feminist scholars, writers and reporters who choose not to write stories about them." I might point out that men have had, oh, about a 3000-year head start. And, until quite recently, there were fewer women admitted to the field and fewer yet free to pursue their own projects. We're doing the best we can to catch up. But fighting systemic bias is taking a lot of time and energy from actual research and writing, by the way.
  3. "if we're talking about history, we can't rewrite it based on our current sociological-political lens." Wrong. We always write history in light of the present. Recall Nehru: "History is almost always written by the victors and conquerors and gives their view. Or, at any rate, the victors' version is given prominence and holds the field."
Enough said. There is a double standard for articles about women, the standard is not "lower" and the standard is that women are evaluated like Ginger Rogers -- they have to do everything men do, plus do it backwards and in high heels. Montanabw(talk) 18:00, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
On the last point: "we" as mankind can work to write about these female academics of the past by doing investigative research, but "we" as WP editors cannot. We have to have someone else do that digging for us, otherwise it becomes original research. And I do see people outside WP trying to document these female academics better, its just that is going to be a limiting rate. --Masem (t) 18:03, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
By that standard, all Wikipedia articles that are either copyvios or original research. We should just delete the whole project. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:16, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
There is a difference between us using published books and articles and summarizing information, and us going into personal journals stuck in attics, notes stores in some campus, and other "digging" to complied a good bio on a person. --Masem (t) 18:22, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

David did hit on something there, summary IS inherently wp:synthesis. But that's a different policy page. :-) North8000 (talk) 01:00, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Absolutely true, but to that end, that's why our (WP editors) summarizing should be skimming off the surface of published material, and not digging into material, particular unpublished stuff. (Which for trying to cover women academics of the past, is almost a necessity). --Masem (t) 01:13, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
As stated at Wikipedia:No original research § Synthesis of published material: Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. Summarizing sources does not require synthesizing conclusions not contained within the sources. isaacl (talk) 03:15, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
Stating one sentence of the policies that summarization does not violate such does not refute what I said. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:04, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
Sure, if your use of the jargon "wp:synthesis" is intended to mean something along the lines of "summarizing requires creating new text that is not directly taken from the sources", I agree rewording is creating something new. Typically, though, the jargon is used to refer to synthesizing conclusions not contained within the sources. isaacl (talk) 19:19, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
Its OR, so it may well involve Synthesis. This is why I am against any weakening of our polices. If we cannot verify what sources say we cannot check to see if it is compliant with our many sourcing polices. But you are correct creating new text is not synthases, it is original research.Slatersteven (talk) 08:55, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I did not say that creating new text is original research. As per the need to avoid violating copyright, we cannot write an article as a pastiche of literal sentences extracted from sources. Thus we must restate the information in our own words, which is new text, but it is not original research. I was commenting solely about whether or not summarization is inherently a synthesis of conclusions, and not about the quality or verifiability of sources. isaacl (talk) 16:16, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
True, but by the same token (I think the point being made) is that it can be, which is why we have wp:v. This breaks if we can use our own research (rather then that of others) as a source.Slatersteven (talk) 16:21, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
For example, summary inherently derives or decides the "main point" where such was not explicitly stated or stated to be such. I'm not advocating change.....at least it's not on the top 10 list of things that need change.North8000 (talk) 16:14, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
I wouldn't say it is inherent for all sources. Some sources explicitly state a main point; others clearly indicate the main point through effective writing. It isn't original research to understand good sources and to relate their content. It does take editorial judgement, particularly in determining the due weight that should be given to different aspects. isaacl (talk) 16:27, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
Like most Wikipedia items, the big fuzzy system makes it work most of the time. Which is the other editors looking at it and saying "looks reasonable". And, like most Wikipedia systems, it sometimes goes bad, e.g. by Wikilawyering to knock out material. I remember on case where the author had one overly-brief sentence which, when taken out of context, was sort of contrary (on the main point) to the paragraph that it was in. Attempts to substitute a summary of the paragraph for the out of context sentence we successfully deleted citing synthesis. North8000 (talk) 17:31, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
wp:v makes it clear that is must be obvious to anyone who reads the work, in effect it must be explicitly stated.Slatersteven (talk) 08:46, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
That doesn't address the common problem. Even if obvious it's still technically synthesis, which means that wikilawyers can use it to knock out any summary, even if obvious. North8000 (talk) 19:21, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
Sadly I agree (I have seen it, "well it does not use the exact same word"), but then any rule can be gamed. It is down to us to police it fairly.Slatersteven (talk) 09:48, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
I take your "Police it" to mean to try to see that the rule is used only as intended. But we'd lose because the letter of the policy says otherwise.:-) I'd say it's down to us to evolve policies and guidelines to make things work even better. North8000 (talk) 16:42, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
My point is we are not the problem, we ca only work based upon what others are producing. So rather then wasting column inches telling the world how unfair we are sources should be giving us the material we can use to both create articles and establish notability. Yes men have had a head start, but this is not a race where there is some finish we get to first. There is nothing stopping a writer from writing a series of articles about notable women (or dare I say it even books) and get them published. The we can use those to create our articles, what we should not be doing is relying on wp:or which would make wp:v impossible as I do not have access to your attic. This is my point, we are not the problem, merely a symptom (and not even a very severe one). A problem better solved in academia and the mediaSlatersteven (talk) 11:34, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
I think we would need to determine what the issue actually is. If we're deleting articles on notable subjects, that's a problem we can and should fix. On the other hand, if the subjects are genuinely not notable, but one thinks they should be, that's not a problem we can fix on Wikipedia. Instead, scholars, researchers, and journalists would need to correct that, by researching and writing about them. Once they do that, we have sources from which to write the article and can do so. So, which one is asserted to be the case here? Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:29, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
One aspect of the subject is that new articles on newly-notable women almost always get taken to deletion processes, but a large number of articles on men of roughly equal notability skate by without a second glance. There appears to be a large contingent of editors focused on keeping out women, and doing it by attacking the weak, while there is not as strong a focus on keeping out articles on men. So even if our deletion discussions are fair and neutral (a proposition I will neither defend nor deny) the process by which articles are taken to deletion is unbalanced, in a way that is creating the strong impression among outsiders that Wikipedia is hostile to women (see e.g. https://www.metafilter.com/180622/Wikipedias-ongoing-diversity-problem for a recent example of this perception). —David Eppstein (talk) 17:06, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
So we have a case study, how many of the male scientists who worked on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory team that purified the radioactive sample of berkelium-249 from which the new element were not even nominated for AFD?Slatersteven (talk) 17:12, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Whataboutism is a frequent tactic of defenders of the sexist status quo. It is always possible to find some marginal men who do not have articles and use them to argue that women should not also have articles. It does nothing to address my point that, when articles on women are created, they are much more likely to be taken to a deletion process than articles on similarly-notable men. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:33, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
It does if those articles would not have even been created if they were men. Maybe the problem is that far too many articles on non notable women are being created, whilst no one would even bother to create such articles about an equivalent male, thus more are being nominated for AFD. If women are getting AFD'd for no other reason then they are women that is wrong, if articles are being created just because they are women, that is also wrong.Slatersteven (talk) 17:41, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
David Eppstein, do you happen to have available the data behind that assertion? I don't think arguing back and forth anecdotes would help much, but if there is data that would be very useful in identifying any issues that may be present. I took a look and can't find any. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:39, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
I don't know how to easily automate this, so I manually classified a sample of the first 100 deletion discussions listed in Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Academics and educators/archive 2, at a time earlier today when the most recent of the 100 sampled discussions was Ashley C. Ford. My classification found that fully 35% of the deletion discussions were about women. This is at a time when the number of women represented in biographies in Wikipedia is below 18%, so applying Bayes' theorem with   and   gives  . That is, according to this sample, women are nearly twice as likely to be taken to deletion discussions as biographies in general (and therefore even more likely compared to men instead of to the general population). I had the strong impression that they were more likely from years of watching academic deletion discussions, but I didn't realize the effect was this strong. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:20, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, that definitely warrants a closer look. I think I can do some amount of automation, to see how many of each (I'll use that archive as a sample set) did in fact result in the article being deleted, and how many of those were subsequently recreated without issue or restored by DRV. It may take a bit though, as I will probably have to classify the deleted ones as male or female by hand since some names are androgynous. We may then be able to take a look at a sample of the deleted ones to see what kind of sourcing was available at the time they were deleted, and that should give us a pretty good idea if we have a problem of deleting articles we shouldn't be. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:29, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
One tip for that, looking for David's sample set, is that you should make sure that we're equating professions here. Many of that 100 are not what I would call "academics and scholars" - spot checking I saw podcasters, businesspersons, activists, and so on. There were some university professors, for certain, but the broadness of that category begs additional questions But in Alan's point below, we definitely need to consider the rate of creation as well as the time period between creation and AFD nomination. I am certain there is an element here that gender of the BLP article will impact how its handled, but the scale of that compared to other factors (lack of coverage in RSes in the first, the general history of mankind and how it has treated women and others) may not be as great to know if WP has to take steps or not. --Masem (t) 22:46, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Given the 100 used (Deletion sorting/Academics and educators/archive 2) especially its subject matter and time period, would it not make more sense to use percentage "number of women represented in academic/educator biographies in Wikipedia created in 2019", not to use percentage "number of women represented in biographies in Wikipedia"? Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:38, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
It would make more sense, but I didn't have easy access to that number, and I didn't have any reason for expecting a specific direction of difference between it and the population as a whole (so by Bayes, with no prior to adjust for, I left that number alone). Probably the clearest way to handle this, if one were to automate this, would be to look at all B-class AfDs rather than just the ones in a specific delsort. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:17, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Exactly - I suspect that is a fatal flaw in the interesting calculation above. There are many very productive editors who concentrate on female biographies, and effectively only write these, and thyis has been the case for some time. I've never heard of any editors doing the same for male subjects - or scientists anyway (obviously, if you write only contemporary baseball bios ....). Johnbod (talk) 17:31, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Note that Johnbod posted this "fatal flaw" comment after I did a different survey, in direct response to a bogus claim by Johnbod that the majority of new scientist articles were on women. My survey found that (of the articles I surveyed, on women scientists) 25% of new articles were women, still well below the 35% of AfDs. Someone please give me a reason for being able to take Johnbod's comment here, pretending that data didn't exist and in contradiction to it, as a good faith and honest contribution, because I'm not seeing it. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:52, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Different time periods? There's actually a lot of good reasons. A better metric would be, for example, take a significant time period (6 months, a year) sometime recent but not too recent (say, from 2014-2015) identify all scientist/academics in that period that were created, and then how many of those were deleted (which could be an event outside that period). And then compare the numbers of % of male scientist articles that were deleted against female scientists. --Masem (t) 21:02, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
If you have some way of easily automating all that, including the determination of who is a scientist or academic, please do so. And then try different years so we can get some idea of the trends. So far I have been limiting myself to smaller sets because I'm doing it all by hand. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Unfortunately, thinking through, there's no real way without manually using a lot of tools. Plus admin help to see deleted content. Potentially an alternate way is to go backwards: start with the deletion sorting list for academics, determine article creation date (if deleted, potentially looking at this bot's history for academics?) and then do the determination of article fate based on gender for articles from a specific time period. Please note, I am not trying to dismiss the concerns here, but just making sure we have an apples-to-apples approach to measure the degree of the problem and see if this really something that we can actually take action on or if its a systematic bias external to WP. --Masem (t) 22:22, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Fictional characters

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Greetings, all. This is a simple heads up about a suggestion submitted in the talk page of the fictional characters' notability proposal. -The Gnome (talk) 10:58, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Categories with the most company articles tagged for failing NCORP and lacking references

Latest comment: 5 years ago12 comments5 people in discussion

After the discussion about art galleries above, I figured I should take a look at which kinds of articles are really the most likely to most blatantly violate NCORP (by not having any sources at all. Hint: It's not art galleries. So I wrote some code to list all the categories of articles that are in both Category:All articles lacking sources AND and sorted the list of categories they belong to by frequency. Here's my top 3

  1. 101 unreferenced and 55 articles tagged for NCORP in Category:British record labels
  2. 84 unreferenced and 48 articles tagged for NCORP in Category:United Kingdom record label stubs
  3. 86 unreferenced and 36 articles tagged for NCORP in Category:British independent record labels

There's probably considerable overlap between those categories.

Note that there are 148100 articles that have been tagged as having no sources and 862 that have been tagged for no sources AND NCORP.

Also note that there's a difference between actually not having sources and being tagged for lacking sources.

To see a list of articles in a user-friendly form, you can run WP:PETSCAN with this query for example: https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?language=en&project=wikipedia&categories=All%20articles%20lacking%20sources%0D%0ACompany%20articles%20with%20topics%20of%20unclear%20notability%0D%0ABritish%20record%20labels%0D%0A&ns%5B0%5D=1&search_max_results=500&interface_language=en&active_tab=

Considering the consensus expressed in the discussion about art galleries, it seems clear that such articles should not exist and ought to be deleted. I'm reluctant to bring them all to AfD at the same time. Is WP:PROD an option? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vexations (talk • contribs)

Keeping in mind that we cannot stop editors from making articles but can remove them if they are problems, asking for deletion of this many articles in a short amount of time goes against fait accompli. The better solution is to bring up the concerns to Wikipedia:WikiProject Record Labels and inform them about NCORP. That will hopefully lead to a cleanup effort. If that gains no traction there, then you can talk about a mass AFD (showing that you've tried to resolve before). --Masem (t) 03:30, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Unfortunately, WikiProject Record Labels has very little activity nowadays. But the applicability of NCORP to record labels has been discussed several times previously at WT:MUSIC, probably most recently at Wikipedia talk:Notability (music)/Archive 21#Proposed criteria for record labels. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 21:27, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Given the new NCORP, I would take all those previous discussions to be moot. They beg the same things that were being considered for the art galleries discussion (see above), but NCORP is specifically stricter for the COI/promotional reasons. I just don't feel a mass attempt to delete them all without seeking appropriate input would be appropriate. --Masem (t) 21:37, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't think NCORP is appropriate to apply to record labels; they should be adjudged by WP:MUSIC as an SNG. Anyone is, of course, free to AfD whatever one likes, but I generally think the best way of doing this is not in the spirit of "cleaning out the Augean stables" and mass-deleting hundreds of articles, but trying to source and determine the notability of things first and then AfD'ing if found wanting. I don't know if that level of care is really practiced anymore, but I don't spend a ton of time at AfD these days, either. The NCORP tagging of British record labels is probably the work of a single editor - most tag-bombing of that sort is done by dedicated single users working through categories or lists systematically. Chubbles (talk) 21:46, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
    • A record label is a for-profit business and absolutely does quality under NCORP. Of course, we would be concerned about mass deletion without a chance to fix up, but the fact most of these exist without sources needs to be fixed. --Masem (t) 22:25, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
      • Does a band qualify, then, too? It is an association of people created for a purpose, in most cases profit. Should we be deleting musical ensembles that do not meet NCORP even if they hurdle several bullets of WP:MUSIC? I see no reason why SNGs for subject areas, determined by the consensus of editors knowledgeable in the area, should be ignored in these matters. Chubbles (talk) 12:13, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
        • Bands are groups of people making creative works, they are not businesses. Record label as an organization are businesses, and not creative content makers (individuals within it are), Mind you, un sources articles on bands would be deleted just as fast as un sources labels... There's even a CSD for bands that show no notability. --Masem (t) 13:01, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
          • There is no functional difference between those two things, but damned if I'm going to talk my way into seeing people argue "delete this band per NCORP" on AfD pages. I spent some time looking through these record labels, and this is not nearly the problem the conversation would suggest. Most of them were tagged in a single marathon session by the user Derek R Bullamore in 2011; Vexations seems to be doing a second mass-tagging, which isn't fun to keep up with. I went through a large portion of them, and am finding that many, many of them are sublabels of larger, clearly notable parent organizations or are vanity labels of notable artists. These are clear merge targets, and I have merged or tagged for merging many of them. I've also redirected a few, prodded a few, and G11'ed a few; at least half of the articles so tagged will be out of the category intersection by the time I'm done and the prods process. Chubbles (talk) 15:18, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
            • Sub-labels that don't appear notable can certainly be merged up into their larger notable parent label, keeping the redirect as a search term. That is strongly encouraged. --Masem (t) 16:25, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I thank Vexations for bringing these articles to our attention. WP:NCORP certainly applies to record labels. I agree that we need to review these articles and fix the sourcing problems. I also agree that those that can not be sourced should indeed be deleted... however, that is the FINAL step of a lengthy process of review and improvement. BEFORE we nominate any article for deletion, we need to be sure that sources don’t exist, and that the subject (ie the record label) truly does not pass NCORP. Blueboar (talk) 13:53, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I've nominated 33 Jazz Records for deletion. The discussion at a previous afd is interesting, with many keep votes along the lines of "This appears to meet the criteria for a notable record label, as it has signed many notable artists." ThatMontrealIP (talk) 14:51, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Also AFD'd Action Records (England) and Alwayz Recording, as a search turned up inadequate sourcing to meet NCORP.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 15:15, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
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