Wikipedia talk:Notability: Difference between revisions

You seem to have missed my point. I am currently editing these pages to try and make them less POV and less original research. I have also started a discussion with the original author regarding these pages. My question to the WP community was more philosophical. With relatively little effort this user has managed IMO to make a very obscure topic which is totally unreferenced available on a vast number of sites. It is not as if these pages were created yesterday or last week. They have been there for over six months. Not many have noticed them. As there is no systematic review of the content that goes into WP, anyone can create anything and by the nature of the distribution of WP content, can make their pages look notable. - Parthi 05:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So you're verifying, citing, and NPOVing the pages? That's good. I'm just saying that I think verifiability is enough to weed out "non-notable" articles. Sorry. -- Chris Ccool2ax contrib. 13:11, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find workable criteria for books. The section in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria is rather unusable. It states: Usually, books with an ISBN-number and/or availability in a couple dozen of libraries and/or a Project Gutenberg type website, and with a notability above that of an average cookbook or programmers manual would qualify. The ISBN thing is stupid; basically every book has an ISBN. How many "Project Gutenberg type" websites are there? Among the hundreds of thousands of libraries in this world there may well be a "couple dozen" that have the book, but how to check that? How do we know if a book is "more notable" than "an average cookbook or programmers manual"? How notable are these? Is What Girls Learn by Karin Cook notable, to mention a concrete example? (Amazon.com Sales Rank: #481,432 in Books) Is Mediterranean Light : Delicious Recipes from the World's Healthiest Cuisine by Martha R. Shulman an "average cookbook"? (Amazon.com Sales Rank: #82,815 in Books)

Another criterion is given in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Precedents#Literature, another spot you're not likely to look: Books are notable if well-known. I know whether I know a book, but how do I know whether it is "well known"? Is The Trial of Socrates by I. F. Stone well known? Who shall say?

I'd like to steer away from (a) criteria that cannot reasonably be checked, and (b) purely numerical criteria.

I propose instead a criterion obtained by extending this criterion for authors (see Wikipedia:Notability (people)#People still alive): Published authors [...] who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work. This can be extended to books as follows: If an author is to be deemed notable by dint of a book they have written, then so is the book. Using the present text, that amounts to: Books are notable if they have received multiple independent reviews or awards.

This can be elaborated upon – the reviews have to be in "reputable" sources, but other things than reviews and awards qualify as well for establishing notability: published essays and such about a book would also qualify, or being the subject of a (notable) film, documentary, etc. Reactions please. --Lambiam^Talk 02:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, many self-published books and vanity-press books don't have ISBN numbers (not that they couldn't have, it's just that they generally don't).

I agree that Amazon's sales rankings aren't useful (and in any case limit the figures to one supplier in one medium).

Many notable books might not meet the reviews criterion, though. For a book to be reviewed, its publisher must think that reviews will help its sales; a hugely selling, extremely influential book in the field, for example, of TEFL for specific markets might be reviewed, if at all, in only one trade magazine — and would be unlikely to be the subject of a documentary, etc.

My worry is that this approach would limit articles to books that aren't merely notable, but are extremely successful and popular, and published in fields that attract critical attention. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you can give examples of notable books that would be excluded, it might help in formulating better criteria. I'd think, if a book is extremely successful and popular, and published in a field that attracts critical attention, then surely someone is going to write about it in a citable source. The ISBN thing was more in reverse: it was suggested that anything with an ISBN more notable than your average cookbook is notable enough for inclusion. I think that would then include way too much. Perhaps the person who wrote this knows only rather notable cookbooks. And while having an ISBN criterion helps to exclude non-notable self-published books, this then also excludes notable self-published books. --Lambiam^Talk 00:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You shouldn't actually be able to write an article about a book that hasn't received press attention somewhere reliable, given that's the basis of the verifiability policy. How would someone source the article? No article should rely on a primary source for its existence. Steve block Talk 19:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does this mean any of the following: (A) You support my suggestion; (B) You think we need no notability criterion for books; (C) You have a better suggestion; (D) You refuse to answer the question on the grounds that the answer might tend to incriminate you? --Lambiam^Talk 23:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some articles do rely on primary sources for their existence, I think. Stubs about movies or books may make reference to nothing other than that movie or book, having only observations that any viewer or reader could make. Wikipedia talk:No original research/archive4#My interpretation. Such an article would not be able to assert its own notability, though, so taking that into consideration perhaps an article can't rely solely upon its subject (a Template:Notability tag could be added). ...Unless the subject matter of a book could make the book notable somehow (not sure about that), or the author's notability is already established? Шизомби 07:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Try... "can I go to a bookstore and find it" or "does it exist"? -- Chris Ccool2ax contrib. 00:23, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a reply to any of the contributions above? I could find it. Moreover, it exists. So what? Is it now notable? --Lambiam^Talk 01:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it can now be included in the encyclopedia. Now find sources and you're good to go. -- Chris ^Ccool2ax _contrib. 14:37, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note Wikipedia:Notability (books), a proposal started less than 24h ago. --Francis Schonken 15:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have been thinking about this a while. I can't decide whether an article about a hospital is per se notable. Example is Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital although there are many many more out there. Should these be included? Should these be deleted? I'm new here and I really don't know, and can't seem to find any precedent. Sometimes, what looks like (to me) non-notable stuff has an article, sometimes I see them being prod-ed. Is this the right place to discuss this? If so, what are your opinions? If not, where should I move this to? :) Thanks! JByrd 20:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC) I don't care anymore. JByrd 01:42, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am a proponent of keeping verifiable but non-notable articles. However, unless Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital is famous for something, then its definately not notable. Theres plenty of precedent for deleting non-notables, and also for keeping them. If you're new here, I would wait a while before you start proposing article deletions. Fresheneesz 02:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen a good number of articles go on death row for being "non-notable". Many people, like JByrd (comment in the above header) seem to think that non-notability *is* sole criteria for deletion - not only that, mistake it for official policy (simply because articles in the Wikipedia namespace always look officialish). I think that articles are far too often deleted based on non-notability alone, and much too often use non-notability as heavy leverage for the articles deletion.

Maybe its just me, but I'm *very* unclear as to what the significant downside of keeping non-notable articles. The downsides are (as far as I can tell):

1. Cluttering categories
2. Inability to keep non-notable aricles up to quality standards
3. It takes up space on servers

And here are some remedies/arguemnts:

1. Easy fix: separate categories into "notable" and "non-notable" sections, with the "notable" section more prominant.
2. Label the article as "non-notable" or with the {{cleanup}} template.
3. Wikipedia isn't paper, and the servers are huge - not an issue. Not to mention non-notibles would take up *much* less space than a notable topic.

Also, this page is misleading - I'm sure many many people have seen the "Non-notable topics do not belong" header and thought "well I guess thats policy then".

I would advocate changing this page to influency common practice and policy toward *not* deleting articles based on non-notability issues. I would appreciate any comments or suggestestions - especially if you have unfixable reason as to what harm non-notable articles do. Fresheneesz 03:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• The main issue is of verifiability, and a lot of people use the notability term as shorthand for the fact that said article is not verifiable in third party sources. Since it's policy on wikipedia that an article topic be verifiable in third party sources, that should be the be all and end all of the debate. However, some guidelines for notability in specific areas have been created, which do offer consensually defined concepts of notability within those fields, and as such notability as a concept exists within those fields and a failing of those guidelines can be deemed at afd as a reason to delete. Steve block Talk 12:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm definately not talking about verifiability, that isn't an issue for me. Could you point me to some of those places where notability is considered policy? Fresheneesz 21:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedia notability criteria is the best place to start. Steve block Talk 21:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notability isn't currently policy because there's a vocal minority who don't think it's the best term to use (the counterarguments have been hashed over quite a bit; there's a summary on this page). Nevertheless, others believe that it is essential, so there are a number of guidelines (note the difference ala WP:RULES) that use notability as a criterion for deletion. As AfD is supposed to be a discussion to reach consensus those notability criteria are intended as a short-hand for existing consensus rather than a rule to be slavishly followed (WP:NOT a battleground for Wikilaywers). I'm personally part of the vocal minority against 'notability' and 'nn' (see my draft essay on the subject at User:Ziggurat/Notability), but a lot of people find the terms useful. Ziggurat 23:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I definately agree that notability is a useful term, but I have heavy doubts about the usefulness of phrases like "delete as non-notable". Despite the fact that certain things are "guidlines" and certain things are "rules", I would imagine that these terms are often overlapped - making for shifty general policy (not to mean official policy..). I think a good idea would be to invoke a more official policy of full *merging* non-notable material - with a redirect from the search term. Fresheneesz 07:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That is a good idea, probably most people on Wikipedia tend to be mergists at heart, and merges can be performed under current policies, but there's nothing to stop editors who are emotionally invested in the subject from reverting. LUEshi was actually closed as a merge after an afd discussion, but it's never been made to stick. I certainly agree that people who simply state a position at afd have damaged it, and when I have concerns on an article topic's worth and take it to afd I always attempt to explain why I don't believe it to be a topic worth having an article on. You might want to stop by Wikipedia:WikiProject Integration If you haven't already. Steve block Talk 13:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What it ultimately boils down to is that there are things which are verifiable, not original research, and capable of NPOV description, which nevertheless do not belong in Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. For example, every single wedding that takes place in the British Isles is trivially verifiable from public records, and descriptions of the proceedings can often be supported by citations from local newspapers, and it's easy to make them NPOV. But I think even among extremist inclusionists, there are very few who would say that we should have an article on every single wedding that meets those criteria. Why? Because while weddings as such are notable, most individual examples are not notable. It's a useful concept. 81.178.65.121 14:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, you're stereotyping. Not all non-notable have any issue with verifiability, NPOV, or NOR. In fact, many pages people might consider non-notable, have a decent amount of editors for the page size. This isn't about other policies - those are already in place. Once again, i'm talking about using *notability* as *sole reason* to delete - which I find against the goals of wikipedia. Fresheneesz 19:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is, a topic having notability isn't against the goals of wikipedia. Unless you are suggesting I am allowed to have an article on myself? The goals of wikipedia are defined by the community, and current consensus has it that I am not a suitable topic for inclusion. Therefore notability exists, and does bear on the goals of wikipedia, expressed as it is in WP:NOT. Sadly, the term notability stirs such strong feeling that we are unable to engage with it and develop it as a concept of worth. Fortunately, we have already declared what Wikipedia is not, and some people prefer to point to that when defining notability. Most of the time, whenever someone utilises the term notable the argument descends into one of semantics rather than a discussion on the merits of the article's topic and it's suitability in the Wikipedia. Steve block Talk 20:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bringing up things like vanity pages on.. me or you for example, is sort of like the debate on criminal justice. Do we want to increase the statistical probability that criminals are caught, or do we want to increase the probability that innocents aren't harmed? I vote for the ladder. I hardly think you could defend an article on yourself with any good reason. But articles are being deleted (not merged, deleted) that have a significant presence in our world.

Your point that "whenever someone utilises the term notable the argument descends into one of semantics" is a perfect reason to discuss this in depth with a large group of people - and actually create policy on it. The debate has wasted a large amount of our time, and (as is obvious from our current dicussion) still is. what Wikipedia is not is not a clear cut policy, and is in many cases violated. Those guidelines are general rules, and not representative of all of wikipedia. Not only that, it only establishes the idea of notability for *specific* items: "News reports", Biographies, and links. Thats all NOT has to imply about notability.

If we want to avoid semantics, long arguments, and wasted time, we need to address the issue of notability. I think that disallowing that non-notability can be considered a problem would help save our time, and help not scare people away from wikipedia. Vanity pages in most cases can be dismissed based on verifiabilty, or NPOV, or OR for that matter. OTHER policies are already in place to deal with junky articles - notability is simply not a neccessary policy, guideline, or classification.

If anyone's interested, for other discussion about this, see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) under the header with the same title. Fresheneesz 07:27, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"articles are being deleted (not merged, deleted) that have a significant presence in our world". Care to offer examples? I also find myself wondering why you think any notability policy wouldn't be as disregarded as all the rest. And if we move that notability isn't an allowable concept, you'd move the debate to significance, fame or importance, both of which have been established in policies and guidelines elsewhere. Whilst Wikipedia isn't paper, it's hard to maintain a database of a million entries, let alone what the database would be if we had all teh entries which have been deleted on notability concerns. Still, I take your point. My attempt at putting notability to death died recently, it might be of interest to you, see Wikipedia:Notability/Proposal. Steve block Talk 13:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Care to offer examples?" - Sure. The Center for CosMedic Rejuvenation and Wellness, The Sentinel (song), The Paly Voice, Lizzie Olsen, Finaghy Primary School, UniModal, FORscene, Men's Fasion Freedom. These have all been proposed for deletion on the basis of notability almost exclusively. Instead of improving the articles, tagging them for improvment, or merging - they have been proposed for deletion. One article that was proposed for deletiong and found a consensus to merge instead, is Yoshi's Story tech demo - but is in the extreme minority in that respect.

Most of the articles I listed above could merge their information into a main band/album page, school page, sister's page, etc. But right now, many of us opt for deletion of information rather than appropriate placement. I argue that its *not* hard to maintain a database of a million entries - not any harder than that same million with a few non-notable articles. I say a few, because I attest that there are few non-notables that have verifiability, and conform to NOR and NPOV. Even if there were many, it seems to have been agreed upon that the data base is not a problem - especially for small articles with small histories. Deleting them puts a larger strain on the database, because it adds bulk data to the database in connection with what might be a very sparsely edited article. A deleted article still puts strain on the database, as all that information is saved.

Of the articles I listed up there, I believe 3 have been decidedly kept. I find it disturbing that notability is taking such a forfront for deletion, that even clear policies are taking a back seat to it. Its really equatable to a witch hunt, where science, established facts, and rules are disregarded in favor of exclusionist and predjudice thinking. Fresheneesz 21:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As for why I think policy for notability wouldn't be disregarded, I don't think current policy is disregarded. People use policy and guidelines to support their line of thinking, and notability is one guideline that can be tailored to almost anyones way of thinking. To some its notable, to some its not. By making policy, you limit the arguments one can make for the deletion or creation of a page. As for importance and fame, Jimbo Wales himself thinks those aren't good reasons to delete an article [15]. Fresheneesz 21:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to be ranting, but this is something that current Chief Technical Officer Brion Vibber said concerning "server load" : [16]

You don't need to quote Jimbo at me, I tend to quote that statement quite a bit and drafted a proposal based upon it, which I suggested you might like to read earlier in this discussion. The prod, or proposed deletion is not a tool for deleting items based on notability concerns, it's a tool for proposing deletion, and can be removed by any other editor and the issue ends there. If you believe the articles which are currently prodded should be redirected, go ahead and do it. The problem is that Wikipedia is currenbtly not scaling, people don't have the time to do the research on each article and work out the best place to redirect to, or in the case of The Sentinel (song), it isn't perhaps a search term that thus needs a redirect.

However, I asked for articles which had been deleted, and since they';re all blue links they don't quite fit that definition. Whilst I tend to agree with you on most points, I think you're wrong in believeing the issue can be resolved. Some people simply believe Wikipedia should have standards, and see deletion as a way of ensuring such standards are adhered to. AFD has long been held to be broken, it is meant to be a discussion, not a simple vote counting exercise, and admins are supposed to close discussions more with an eye on the three key policies than the votes cast.

I don't get your argument that a wikipedia with a million articles is no harder to maintain than one with articles that meet the three key policies, given that if we only went by the three key policies almost everyone in the world could have an article, having been mentioned at some point in a reliable source. It's not a choiced between a million or a million and three, it's a choice between a million or everything. It's easy to say an article on me wouldn't exist, but I can cite reliable sources to the difference. It's not an issue of server load, it's an issue of wikipedian load.

As to the fact that you don't think this issue will move anywhere, I suggest you take a look at Wikipedia Talk:Reliable sources. That's where the discussion will move to. People will always find a method of elucidating their exclusion criteria through policy, even if they have to form it. There's consensus that we have exclusion criteria, whether you call it vanity or notability. Steve block Talk 23:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I quote jimbo for anyone to read, I'm not discussing solely with you, you know. They're all blue links, tho one is linked to its deletion page because the article was deleted. Most of those blue links will turn red soon, as I only took examples from one day of deltions. Also, UniModal and FORscene *have* been deleted (based on non-notability), and have also been reinstated.

Wikipedia may not be scaling because new editors are discouraged from editing. I'll leave it up to imagination how that would happen. Pages on people like you would most likely violate a policy or two, say NOR. Also, what wikipedian load would there be if people simply ignored your page? I'm going to guess little to none, depending if people cared to add categories to your page. That brings us back to the downside of simply tagging non-notable sites as.. {{notability}}. Fresheneesz 00:53, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I give. These arguments always end up in this semantical trap. I apologise for wasting your time on this, although FWIW an article on myself would not fall foul of WP:NOR, unless sourcing anything in newspapers is WP:NOR. I'm off to do something constructive. Steve block Talk 13:25, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I started an essay to shorthand the perennial response at AfD that "inclusion of some articles isn't an indicator of notability of related articles". It is at WP:INCL and I welcome edits and comments.--Kchase02 T 06:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Me and another user started a guideline proposal at WP:NNOT to encourage the use of official policy and established guidelines rather than the neccessarily subjective concept of notability. Anyones comments, edits, or constructive critiscism is welcome. Fresheneesz 08:21, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to do the same thing on Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) this version contains the guidelines. BTW if anyone would like to comment either in favor or opposed please go to the notability page and help get the discussion going jbolden1517^Talk 11:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism: It's not your essay that's flawed. It's the whole concept that we have to limit the amount of information in an encyclopedia to what a user already knows that is flawed. -- Chris ^Ccool2ax _contrib. 12:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note: that applies to Wikipedia:Notability too. --DavidHOzAu 04:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC) Actually, I think that only applies to Wikipedia:Notability; In contrast, The new proposal is well thought out with far less systemic bias throughout the article when compared to this one. --DavidHOzAu 04:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think there would be room in the essay for the argument that having a deletion policy against non-notable subjects is an important tool to protect against spam. Wikipedia is a fantastic tool for Google bombing and there is a benefit for companies to create stubs about themselves and about their products (even if those stubs are pretty close to NPOV). Pascal.Tesson 22:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a Notability criteria for High Schools? There are a ton of people adding high schools that really aren't all that notable but can't be deleted because high schools are "inherently notable". And I was wondering if there was a way to get rid of them. BJK 00:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Unfortunately, there is a vocal minority of people who have banded together to support all articles about high schools and even lower schools recently. They are not in the majority, but AfD's on these articles rarely result in deletion because of the high burden placed on needed a supermajority for deletion. See WP:SCHOOLS. Johntex\^talk 01:23, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • When Jimbo said "...if someone wants to write an article about their high school, we should relax and accomodate them..."[17] he was in the minority. Now, he's in the majority. --Rob 02:34, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are mistaken on the facts and also on your interpretation of what Jimbo was saying. The fact is that school AfD often get a majority of votes for deletion, but rarely the super-majority needed. The "across-the-board-keepers" are not in the majority, but there are usually enough of them to prevent deletion consensus from forming.

Also, reading Jimbo's quote in the context of the discussion, he was not supporting writing an article about every high school. I believe he was saying something more like "It's not the end of the world - we don't have to stop everything to go delete one single article." In fact, he goes on to say "if someone really starts to abuse wikipedia with thousands and thousands of trivial articles do not prove that we ought to delete any and every article that's too trivial today." The situation we have now is people adding hundreds if not thousands of trivial articles on high schools. We are far far away from allowing one or two articles on non-notable high schoold to avoid deletion.

We don't have an article on every restaurant or dry cleaners yet, but we will someday if the "keep-all-schools" mentality is allowed to continue. There is no fundamental difference between the two. I for one think it will be bad for the project, but who knows, maybe an article on every pet care center will be a benefit, not a burden. We'll see. Johntex\^talk 15:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just in case anyone thinks things will never get so bad we are including articles on non-notable restaurants and dry cleaners, please have a look at Wikipedia:Non-notability, which is an attempt to ensrine into policy the idea that "Notability should not be used to argue for or against inclusion of information inside an article..." This is bad for the project. Johntex\^talk 15:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just happened to see this quote by Jimbo today: "...but as a general rule, I think that almost any argument, on any topic, which has premises beginning with 'Jimbo said...' is a pretty weak argument. Surely the merits of the proposal should be primary, not what I happen to think.--Jimbo Wales 17:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)"[18] - Johntex\^talk 16:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The argument about dry-cleaners is specious. High schools are notable in that, people associate themselves, part of their life and career with particular schools. They don't have a "John's Dry Cleaners" reunion every five or ten years, and there's no "Bob's restaturant yearbook" published. "Susie's Hot Dog Stand" doesn't have a football team, and "Mary's Bakery" doesn't have graduation ceremonies. There are a lot of details involved in each High School, that simply are not part of a general institution or company. Wjhonson 01:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Customers of those establishements certainly care a lot about them. Employees care about them. They may have company picnics, etc. The restaurant may very well host a softball team. They may have graduation events to promote dishwashers to cooks. How do you know what they do until we are writing articles on them all? Look at it the other way, assume all high schools have reuninions. So what, that means none of them stand out against the others by doing so. You actualy help me prove my point, most high schools are so similar to each other that there is no point in seperately documenting them. The high schools that stand out for some reason (good scores, fatal mass shooting, whatever) should have articles. The rest should not. Johntex\^talk 02:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then those establishments that have this kind of extended social impact, are notable. But the vast majority of dry cleaners do not. However every high school does. Any institution where a thousand people spend 40 hours a week for 4 years, is notable. That could be a high school, a college, a mental institution, or a government building. They are all notable institutions. Every business however, is not notable. High schools don't have to differ from each other to be particularly notable. They have to differ from mundance existence. High schools are notable compared to dry cleaners. That's what makes them notable. Wjhonson 04:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how it can be said that high schools are more notable than dry cleaners. They each perform their respective functions and they are each important to the people who patronize them. A movie theatre serves thousands of people a day - perhaps they should all be included as well? Johntex\^talk 11:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did explain how they are more notable. You just aren't listening :) The President is more notable than your mailman, even though they both do they're jobs. So the arguments, "they're just doing their function" doesn't work. Wjhonson 20:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a special-case argument on historical persons of note. This would be for example, a person who appears in Who Was Who but for which there is no existing current online biography. The criteria of the Search Engine test should not be used for historial persons as many thousands if not millions of them, cannot be found in a Search Engine and paper biographies must be checked. Wjhonson 23:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm not mistaken, isn't Wikipaedia supposed to be "a repository of human knowledge"? I'm sure I've seen that phrase somewhere around here. What some people may deem as being irrelevant may hold important meaning to the society sometime in the future. Just because something may not serve an immediate purpose doesn't mean it should be rebuffed as being trivial. Stovetopcookies 09:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That statement has been used that we are gathering the "sum total of all human knowledge", but its just a marketing slogan. You can't put any more faith in than any other marketing slogan, such as "we make the internet not suck". Its a catchy phrase, and it helps motivate people, but that's it. If Wikipedia was truly the reposoitory of all human knowledge then we would be accepting recipes and wikinews items and foreign language articles. We would never have formed policies and guidelines like WP:BAND and WP:BIO. We would never delete an article like Brian Peppers or Stolensidekick.com, which have both been deleted on the premise that the subjects were not notable. We would be accepting entire phonebooks and out-of-copyright novels. We are not gathering the "sum total of all human knowledge". We are building an encyclopedia, and we should be considering notability in that process. Johntex\^talk 15:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to disagree with both sides here. First, despite Johntex's critical comments, the Foundation is not a bunch of lying businessmen who say anything to get customers. Wikipedia makes no money off readers, and has no reason say things it knows are untrue, just to to "motivate" us. I'm perplexed why you have such a negative view of the Foundation. Second, when Wales said "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing" he used the word "sum" (as in summary) not "copy" (as in duplicate). Hence we don't have whole copies of out-of-copyright novels, but (hopefully) concise articles, summarizing what's signficant about them. Also, Wales, had the humility (unlike Britanica who first used the phrase "sum of human knowledge"), to say we were building it, not that we've built it. So, clearly the phrase means we are very inclusive, but it doesn't mean we're the internet archive. --Rob 12:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have an issue with marketing, thinking it is the realm of lying businessmen, but that is not the case. Plenty of non-profit groups engage in markeing, Wikipedia is one of those. Jimbo even used whe phrase specifically in a fundraising campaign - that is marketing!

My comments were not meant to be critical at all. I have the utmost respect for the value of marketing. But marketing has to be seen for what it is.

As to the meaning of Jimbo's words, Jimbo is not hte only person to ever use the phrase "sum of all human knowledge". It does not mean "summary" it means "sumation" as in addition or total. It is not literally true in application to Wikipedia. Hence, it is a marketing slogan. That is not a bad thing, but it is what it is. Johntex\^talk 14:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the notabilty clause (does that mean being famous?) is anti-democratic, anti-consitutional and anti-Human rights, and fascistic. The Human Rights Declaration states that:"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". Wikipedia does the most sever discrimination between famous people that are 1st class, and second class Users. Take Kevin Mitnick for instance. He is famous as he got "caught" and the media hyped him. I know a person that does a great job as penetration tester and he denounced anonymously a security hole to a bank company that he found by hazard. He doesn't even get a Wikipedia entry, as he can't brag about it. Instead of Wikipedia notability fascim, Wikipedia had better to define "notability" as in other terms, covering skills, personality, and values too. The argument that there are only 25 persons is poor. Those people might perform on a higher level (much higher) than you and me, and it doesn't bother me the slightest whether their cut-off is 1 out of 250,000 or one out of a million. I saw people above 3 or 4 standard deviations do things you and I couldn't accomplish in a life time. It's more like quantitative matters, it's qualitative. If you saw notability not only as a stupid "fame" thing, but as a value system, you and the other administrators on Wikipedia would re-think the whole topic. There are people that mean alot to others, yet they are inside "niche" and known from a small group only. But those people might be leading scientist, or incredibly influence society, or being perceives the guy from the next-door and be a guy doing AI programming, or saving other peoples lives. It is unfair to exclude any Wikipedia entries on personal names. I would myself see my name... A German saying says that 'Still waters go deep'. If you only stay on the surface, that you neglect the true intriseque value of people.

talk, 20th July 2006

This is an encyclopedia, not a "make everyone feel good" project. (Making people feel good is, after all, what beer is for.) Human rights has nothing at all to do with our content. As for discriminating against unheard-of people, this is by design- we cannot have verifiability and still include people for whom there are no proper sources of information. Friday (talk) 14:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unheard-of is an opinion. If a person has a source, and there is no repuation that it's unreliable, than the mere opinion of another editor, without basis, that it's unreliable doesn't hold sway. Assume Good Faith that people are properly using their sources, otherwise present some evidence that a source isn't reliable. An editor's opinion, is insufficient. Wjhonson 05:24, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Johntex wrote: "If Wikipedia was truly the reposoitory of all human knowledge then we would be accepting recipes and wikinews items and foreign language articles... We would never delete an article like Brian Peppers or Stolensidekick.com, which have both been deleted on the premise that the subjects were not notable. We would be accepting entire phonebooks and out-of-copyright novels." Now, my question is: WHY NOT? Why not accept recipes and out-of-copyright novels? Why not include an article for Brian Peppers? WHY NOT??--Lapin rossignol 02:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• There are other projects, like Wikibooks for that. 72.139.119.165 14:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the following:

Don't delete historical persons based on modern tests

Persons who were of note in their time and place are marked based on the modern test of "I can't find information about them online". Most historical persons of note, in their time, do not have information online, because Google is not the repository of all knowledge. An online search, for historial persons of note, is biased toward modern persons, therefore should not be the criteria for determination of notability.

An editor seems to have added this info after an article they started was nominated on AfD for Notablility and other issues. So the motivation to change this page in response to the AfD seems suspicious, but I was curious if other editors agreed with this recent change or not. --Andrew c 21:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point Andrew is that hundreds if not tens of thousands of persons who appear in standard biographical reference works have no entry on wikipedia. I and other biographers on wikipedia work to uncover those obscure people who were famous at one time, but now have nothing useful online, and sometimes nothing whatsoever. To mark articles with AfD simply because you cannot find them in google is biased. The vast majority of historical newspapers have never been OCR'd and yet they contain mountains of data on people now forgotten. Surely you cannot disagree with this. Wjhonson 23:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well if they are "now forgotten", are they really notable then? I don't particularly want to argue this here and now, I was just curious what other editors thought regarding this. If a discussion starts, then I'll weigh inb more. Cheers!--Andrew c 23:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say yes. The general, and sometimes sole, reason why they may not be found say in the Encyclopaedia of American Biography, but can be in say Who Was Who is determined by space concerns. Not everyone is SO notable to make it into a 500 page book. But if the book could be 5,000 pages or 50,000 pages, then they might make it in. With 1.2 Million pages in wikipedia now, it seems fairly clear that we can resurrect many people of the past who did something interesting and write about them. Wjhonson 00:07, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All this conflict has done nothing but encourage me to start a new project to battle the foes of *slightly* notable people Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikipedians_for_local_history. If you want to discuss notability issues about people or history, come join me here. Wjhonson 06:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If this is not a policy, but an essay, how should I deal with articles such as Anuragam, which conflicts with this principle:

A topic has notability if it is known outside a narrow interest group or constituency, or should be because of its particular importance or impact.

Advice appreciated. --Singkong2005 ^t_c 08:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To enroll and retain [in school] all the children in the 40 villages ... sounds pretty notable to me! But if you think you can argue a case for non-notability, see WP:AFD. -- JimR 11:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How do you "deal with" them? Simple. Keep them. They aren't harming anyone, and technically, the article can't only be deleted because you haven't heard of it. -- Chris ^Ccool2ax _contrib. 04:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with Chris. Just let it be. It's notable to the person who created it. — Reinyday, 06:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This is an issue for us because of the very large number of small clubs putting articles on Wikipedia. This is presently being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#When is a club notable?. I invite anyone who is interested to join in the discussion. Our intention is to bring the conclusion of this review back to this talk page with a request that it be included in the guidelines on the project page. BlueValour 23:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added a section to "Arguements for deleting non-notable articles". I believe this is one of the substantial problems people have with removing notability standards. Here's the text I posted for this section, does this sound reasonable? "Removing the notability standard altogether would result in the creation of literally millions of articles on verifiable, yet utterly non-notable topics. Telephone books would be used to create articles on every fast food restaurant in the world, military records would be used to create individual articles for each of the millions of soldiers who died in World War II, and so on. The effect of flooding Wikipedia with millions of these articles could be disastrous". --Xyzzyplugh 10:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, in rereading my paragraph, I see I've used the word "millions" three times within three sentences. That's clumsy writing... --Xyzzyplugh 10:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But there is no "notability standard" at present, and there has never been one. (The suggestion of this essay seems to be to add one.) This seems to me to negate your prediction of disaster. So far the millions of non-notable articles you fear haven't been a problem, and Wikipedia has been able to scale up successfully as the number of articles and revisions increases. There must be some upper bound to this, but we're not likely to reach it in practice. -- JimR 11:43, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There clearly are notability standards, although none of course are official. There's the general definition of notability in Wikipedia:Notability, and the more specific pages like WP:BIO, WP:WEB, WP:CORP, WP:MUSIC, etc. These are mentioned in AfD discussions all the time. The millions of non-notable articles haven't been a problem, because those that are created get deleted constantly, and this deletion discourages new ones from being created.

We don't actually have to delete millions of articles to keep millions from being created, we just have to delete those thousands which are created, and this lets everyone else know there is no point in them creating an article on their garage band/themself/their grandfather. Much the same that we don't have to have a police officer at every intersection in every city in the world to stop people from running stop signs and red lights. The relatively small number of people each day who get traffic tickets keep the other millions from breaking traffic laws themselves. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xyzzyplugh (talk • contribs) 31 Jul 2006.

Wikipedia:Notability is not a "notability standard" or a "general definition of notability"; it is a controversial essay, that conflicts with another essay on the same topic and with this proposal draft. The very topical and specific notability guidelines on certain topics are just that - they are not generally instructive as to what what is, isn't, should be, can't be, etc., "notable" in any context other than the ones they are addressing. So, no, that ranting interpolation of a new section, rife with hyperbole, exaggeration, wild theorizing that no only has no support but is contradicted by the evidence before us (where's the "millions" of bad articles?), and outright Nostradamus style prediction, does not "sound reasonable." Wikipedia is not a soapbox, nor is it a crystal ball. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you're missing a number of things here. First of all, this article is in the Wikipedia: space, so WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a crystal ball and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a soapbox don't apply. Articles in the Wikipedia: space, whether essays or policies, obviously can't follow all wikipedia policies themselves, because they're all original research and unsourced.

Secondly, my proposed paragraph is intended for the "Arguements for deleting non-notable articles" section. As we have both this section and an "Arguments against deleting articles for non-notability", obviously each section is meant to contain arguements which one side or the other on this issue would find reasonable. Do you disagree with me that people who are in favor of notability standards believe that the removal of all notability standards would result in the creation of vast numbers of non-notable articles? (Note that I'm not asking if you agree that this WOULD be the result of the removal of notability standards) --Xyzzyplugh 23:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what people in favour of notability standards believe; but I would be surprised if many of them agreed with you that the present limited notability guidelines on specific topics are preventing "telephone books" or "military records" being used to create "millions" of articles. No one would individually create "millions" of articles. Even if they did, it's not clear that the Wikipedia infrastructure couldn't cope over time; and if smaller number of not widely interesting articles are created as a labour of love by people who do personally find the topics notable, where is the harm? Just don't read them :-) -- JimR 11:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"No one would individually create "millions" of articles". No they wouldn't, but bots would. Considering that censuses, the Yellow Pages and similar directories are being put on the Internet all the time, if we dropped notability requirements then it's entirely conceivable that bots would be used to generate millions of such articles from them, just as Rambot has generated thousands of articles on American towns and counties. Your last sentence says it all: if no-one reads articles, then no-one is checking for neutrality and verifiability. If people want to post information about non-notable people and business, they have the entire rest of the Internet to do it on. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I request Towns,Cities and Villages notability —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DINOMAN (talk • contribs) 3 August 2006.

I think pretty much all towns, cities and villages are considered notable, so long as their existence can be verified. If a village has been deleted for 'existing, but being too small', I've not heard of it. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea how to approach something like this, but I believe we need some criteria for the notability of publications; Wikipedia has become home to vanity articles for lots of zines and student publications, many of which show no real suggestion of notability. Which college newspapers, poem anthologies, yearbooks, or humor magazines should have articles? Which zines? Which community papers? Should circulation/readership be a factor?

I have no experience working on the subject of notability for Wikipedia, but I am very interested in working on this with someone else.

 Chris Griswold | talk | contribs  02:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have listed the article named Notability for deletion (this wikipedia namespace page/essay is not listed for deletion, please be very clear about that). The discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Notability, I am posting here because like I say in the AfD I want to get a clear consensus about what to do with the article namespace entry. Thanks. --W.marsh 16:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are schools - primary, kindergarten, etc. - inherently notable? Rama's arrow 22:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing."
(Jimbo Wales)

My question is, what part of "the sum of all human knowledge" has anything to do with "notability"? Rfrisbie^talk 03:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not to be trite, but it all hinges on what "human knowledge" is. Surely not the sum of every person's thoughts! I have a pretty good idea of the contents of my refrigerator, but my guesses are hardly known to humanity in general. Rather, the body of human knowledge consists of repeated communication. Our policies reflect this view by guaranteeing that any knowledge represented here has several speakers (WP:NOR, WP:RS, WP:NPOV) and many more listeners (WP:V). The cutoffs are arbitrary but necessary. When a topic is so obscure that it lacks enough participants to meet these policies -- to truly enter the knowledge of humanity -- we call it non-notable.

Of course, this theory is not how it works in practice: we actually follow our intuitions and lock horns over guidelines, and often we cry non-notability for less lofty goals, such as fighting vanity and ads. But I think a serious look at "human knowledge" leads to notability quite naturally. Melchoir 06:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I placed this originally on the WP:verifiablity article, it was removed and later a wikipedian suggested I may have better luck placing it in here. I added the following statement in response to my concern that the black project template may be improperly used to keep obscure or little known articles here. My comment reads as follows:

Articles dealing with urban myths, black projects, open secrets and otherwise obscure topics are not exempt from verifiablity requirements. In general, articles of this nature should not exist here unless they are well known, culturally signifigant, or can meet the criteria for notability (examples of which include the Jersey Devil, the Aurora aircraft, and the Israeli nuclear weapons program). Articles that deal with topics of this nature general have few, if any, reliable sources, leaving them open to claims of original research or speculation, niether of which are permitted on wikipedia.

Thoughts on adding this here, or should I take it elsewhere? TomStar81 (Talk) 09:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some editors keep trying to add the following:

, but bear in mind that the only requirement for material to be included in Wikipedia is that it is verifiable.

Of course, this is totally misleading and incorrectly interprets the first line of WP:V. For instance, WP:NOT lists dozens of cases where verifiable content is not suitable. This includes for instance notes on small local companies and the policy page explicitly refers to WP:CORP. The speedy deletion policy also discriminates between "remarkable" and "unremarkable" people/groups. The AfD precedents, although they are not policy, are overwhelming and de facto constitute standards. Adding the above line is an attempt to make a point that is in clear opposition to the working consensus and as such should be deleted. The last attempt of reinsertion was augmented with an even more confusing

and it does not break WP:NOT.

Please, do not re-insert before consulting extensively. Pascal.Tesson 16:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent idea. —Centrx→talk • 21:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That essay we've had here is very nice and all, but the term 'notability' is used frequently enough that it would be useful to have a concise guideline indicating the current practice, telling us how Wikipedia presently works with, and deals with, notability. After all, guidelines in Wikipedia are descriptive, not prescriptive.

I am aware that some people do not like the current practice. If people wish to change the status quo, they should by all means go ahead and create a proposal for it (in fact, several such exist already). But this page should serve to indicate our current practice, and should change if and when our current practice changes.

Please reflect a moment on this idea and help discuss a proper wording for the phenomenon. Thank you for your time. >Radiant< 21:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Trouble is, the practice varies from AfD to AfD... it tends to depend on who shows up to vote. --EngineerScotty 21:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • There still exists some minimum threshhold; it may vary depending on the AfD, but it is still there and for many cases and most AfDs, it is rather clear where it is. —Centrx→talk • 22:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually I don't think the practice varies that much. In heated debates someone is bound to use the argument that "guidelines are not policies" which I always found was a rather strange way of ignoring the consensus that the guidelines are based on. Pascal.Tesson 22:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The practice varies according to who want to bother with endless discussions where people just refer to non-notable as if they are experts in th particular field and they know exactly how notable something is. The entire definition of notability needs to be made up before votes on afd referencing this concept will convince me that any of the people have a common idea in mind. Ansell 11:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
      • The common idea in mind is that all topics exist on a gradual scale of notability. The discussions on AFD are about where to draw the line for inclusion, and that's precisely why we make notability guidelines in several fields. Btw, AFD is not a vote. >Radiant< 13:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I'm not sure too many people will be happy about the move of the essay though. It might have been more prudent to have your proposed guideline on a subpage or under a different name. That being said I am all for a concise guideline that indicates how to proceed. I think it should include as key points the fact that guidelines are on one hand subject to change and not set in stone but, on the other hand, reflect a wide consensus that should generally be respected. Pascal.Tesson 22:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Ansell and EngineerScotty. Notability is much more personal than verifiability or NPOV. Fresheneesz 04:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wondering what the differences between this proposal, and older ones will be? Where will this succeed where older proposals have failed? Fresheneesz 07:04, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Older proposals have sought to amend the status quo. This page seeks to document it. Any description of frequent results of an oft-used process, makes for a good guideline. >Radiant< 09:13, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why don't we just scrap notability and redirect the page to WP:V? They mean the same thing. Attempting to make a distinction between the two doesn't sound like the status quo to me. Can someone please tell me why we need to form consensus if this is status quo? --DavidHOzAu 12:16, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:V is something related, but different; see User:Uncle G/On notability for some explanation. This page represents status quo; you can easily verify that by checking our deletion pages and logs. You are quite right that we need not form consensus since we already have (the status quo of a well-frequented process, by definition, has consensus). People who do not like the status quo are welcome to try and change it, and if they succeed we shall update this page accordingly. >Radiant< 19:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To DavidHOzAu: I think you might be interested in looking at Wikipedia:Non-Notability (if you haven't already), a proposal that does exactly what you say.

To Radient: Guidelines are not simply to document how wikipedia works. I've mentioned this before. Guidelines are for the future - to help future editors shape their actions. Future actions stem from past actions, and thus I can see partially why you are making the assumption that guidelines are simply a documentation for how people do things. Fresheneesz 20:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So you think the purpose of guidelines is to change the way future editors do things in a way that directly contradicts the way current editors do things by giving new editors a false description of way things are done? —Centrx→talk • 21:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The current editors are not going to change their practice without being given convincing reasons. Future editors are not going to follow guidelines if they seem unreasonable for an encyclopedia and if the guidelines patently contradict what they see being done. —Centrx→talk • 21:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't put words in my mouth. If thats the way you understand me, you are not understanding me at all. Guidelines are to guide future editors. Obviously these guidelines are based on consensus. However, it needs not be how things are currently done. If an engineer builds a better lightbulb, people aren't going to object saying "well thats not how we currently do it". Fresheneesz 04:12, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ultimately, Wikipedia is not a lightbulb and policy and guidance is descriptive. Guidelines aren't to guide future editors, guidelines offer guidance to all to apply in specific circumstances. Steve block Talk 12:43, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I propose that we move this page to something like Wikipedia:Notability/Proposal, and move the essay back here. Radiant unconsentually moved the essay to a backally, and failed to correct the myriad of links to it. Now many guideline and policy pages link back to this half-baked proposal. Fresheneesz 20:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm quite happy for this proposal to stay here. It makes sense to see where the consensus is, and it makes sense to do it from here. There's precedent on doing it this way. Steve block Talk 21:10, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Also, I feel that we should make more effort to point out why notability is so widely considered a valid concept: having had many discussions with others about this it seems to me that a notable subject is likely to gain sufficient ongoing coverage in reliable secondary sources for us to be able to verify the article and, more importantly, verify its neutrality. There are subjects which are verifiable, but which are not sufficiently widely discussed outside of their own closed circle for us to be able to write a balanced article without straying into original research (one which I remember vividly is Aetherometry - verifiable, but the scientific establishment simply refused to give it house room, so that any criticism or context was necessarily OR; so, a verifiable but non-notable crank theory). So for me notability goes right back to policy: WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, much more than just WP:NOT indiscriminate. Notability is a handy shortcut, and some rough and ready rules can be drawn up for subject areas, so it's useful in and of itself, but in the end the real authority comes from policy. And as pointed out above, consensus is established by more than polling on guideline pages (polling is evil). Consensus represents what the community as a whole feels. At present the community as a whole by and large has no problem with trivial subjects being removed; WP:PROD has shown that many insignificant subjects are quietly removed without any challenge at all. Guy 21:39, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I must disagree with Guy and Steve. Why is a proposal at the head of {{IncGuide}}? (Note: this placement is reflected all over Wikipedia.) The guidelines WP:WEB and WP:BIO should not appear as sub-articles of a proposal, unless they are also proposals. Wikipedia:Notability criteria and its shortcut WP:N need to be restored, and quick. --DavidHOzAu 23:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The move will have to be to Wikipedia:Notability/2nd nomination or similar... Wikipedia:Notability/Proposal is already taken. --DavidHOzAu 09:54, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Radiant is absolutely right that as it stands this documents precedent and existing guidelines and is not, in itself, a guideline, proposed or otherwise. In as much as there is long-standing precedent of deleting articles which fail to establish any claim of encyclopaedic notability, even to the extent of having lack of a claim to notability as a speedy deletion criterion (and the speedy criteria are deliberately restrictive), I would say that no further process is necessary, as long as nobody tries to turn this into an inclusion guideline. Right now it documents how things actually work and fulfils a valuable role. In fact I think the three links at the end should go. Actually it's quite an elegant solution to the problem of a widespread consensus with a few vociferous dissenters, which is what has prevented previous proposals being adopted. Guy 10:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the point we should move to discussing is what's wrong with the page as it reads, not what's wrong with where it links. Let's not get too hung up on process, let's address the contents of the page. I'm unclear how a page tagged as proposal or essay holds any impact on separate guidance. Steve block Talk 12:38, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]