If the only coverage that can be found on a person is obituaries, but the obituaries are in several different reliable sources (staff written, not paid or family-supplied obituaries) - is that enough to establish notability? Or does notability have to have been established during the person's lifetime? The current case in point is this one but I have seen this issue come up before. --MelanieN (talk) 17:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
It would depend on the content of the obituary. One that simply says "John Doe, of Nowhereburg, died yesterday yadda yadda yadda..." would be quite different from one that details the acomplishments of a "person of consequence". Roger (talk) 18:06, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
That was my question. If the obituary treats the person as newsworthy and details their accomplishments - but there was never any previous news coverage about them or their accomplishments - are the obituaries sufficient to establish notability? Or did they have to receive at least some coverage during their lifetime? --MelanieN (talk) 18:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm leaning towards the position if they genuinely were notable as Wikipedia defines the concept, they should have received the requisite in-depth, substantial coverage during their lifetimes, not have it scraped together for an obituary. --Orange Mike | Talk18:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
There are some cases where we can say that obituaries giving significant coverage certainly will establish notablity, e.g. half-page obits in national newspapers. Anyone getting that sort of obit. will almost certainly have received other significant coverage during their lifetime, even if we can't find it on the web. It would need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. There's an important distinction between situations where coverage exists and where coverage 'can be found'. Often coverage exists but not on the web.--Michig (talk) 18:23, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Almost anyone getting a substantial obit in the New York Times is going to be notable. I am thinking of the kind of situation where there are substantial obituaries in local media only. For example, a well known doctor or minister, the owner of a medium-sized local business, a local TV personality, or a generous local philanthropist will often get multiple, substantial local obits, even though they received little-to-no coverage while they were alive. The fact that they died, and the wish to eulogize them, seems to be the impetus toward the coverage. --MelanieN (talk) 18:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
The way to consider this is that if the obits are a secondary sources - going into the details, accomplishments, and significance of the person during their lifetime, you're going to meet the GNG through that, though caution is thrown if we're talking about local sources. If the obits are simply "This person died here, did this job, and left behind his family members", that's a primary source, and not appropriate for notability. There doesn't need to be any change in this guideline to have obits work as sources of notability. --MASEM (t) 18:39, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
A staff-written local reliable source is a third-party (likely independent), but not necessarily secondary. Primary vs secondary has to do with the degree to which the material is covered: if it is just repeating basic details , its primary regardless if a third-party wrote it. If it goes more into analysis and opinion, it is secondary and thus appropriate for notability. --MASEM (t) 19:00, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
That's not my understanding of what the different "parties" are. I think it has to do with where the information comes from, not how detailed it it. My understanding is: a first-party source is from the subject him/herself, or from their immediate family, business, etc. A second-party source is one that is more-or-less based on primary sources, and a third party source is entirely drawn from independent sources. According to Wikipedia:Third-party sources, "A third-party source is one that is entirely independent of the subject being covered, e.g., a newspaper reporter covering a story that they are not involved in except in their capacity as a reporter. This is contrasted with a secondary source, which is one where the material presented is based on original material, e.g., a non-fiction book analyzing original material such as news reports, and with a primary source, where the source is the wellspring of the original material, e.g., an autobiography or a politician's speech about 'their own campaign goals'." --MelanieN (talk) 03:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Your definitions are off. First, there's no such thing as "second-party" (as that generally implies the reader). First-party are those directly involved, third-party is pretty much anyone else. Also, a third-party source can be a non-independent source - a newspaper reporting on the death of a former editor-in-chief of the paper will be a third-party, but far from independent. The aspects of first or third-party, independent and non-independent, and primary, secondary, and tertiary are three different ways to qualify a source. For notability, we want independent third-party, secondary sources. Most local paper obits are not this, they may be independent third-party, but the level of detail they give on the deceased is far from what is expected of secondary sources, and we would never have an article on those. I can accept that a major notable figure will likely have a obituary that will be a secondary source (and independent and third-party), but I have trouble accepting that the obits are the only source of notability for such a person; if there is enough analysis of the person's impact from their life accomplishments to be notable by obits, there's got to be sources to say what they did while they were alive. --MASEM (t) 06:24, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly with MelanieN. I think we have to be wary of the cult of celebrity. An actor in even a modestly successful sitcom, for instance, is likely to generate far more "coverage" in his lifetime than a humanitarian or business leader, who might get only scattered mentions in a number of journalistic sources here and there until his life is summarized in an obit. To me this is exactly why the guidelines distinguish between notability and fame. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:02, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I think this has the distinction backwards. "notability" does not require being famous, but "famous" is always notable. I may deplore what a lot of the world is interested in, but Wikipedia follows the RS. DGG ( talk ) 03:01, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Having an obituary does not establish notability. However, there are a number of individuals who were prominent in their lifetime for whom secondary sources are otherwise unavailable. For example, I could find few sources for Guido De Ruggiero, who was a leader of Italian liberalism, minister of education and author of books that still receive serious attention in academic writing, except his obituary. But he meets other criteria for notability. TFD (talk) 19:24, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Articles like this are what the OP is complaining about, I think. A completely non-notable individual who made the news upon his death because he just happened to be one of the last survivors of a major historical disaster. I'm not convinced a person notable for dying is notable at all. Resolute19:31, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I believe the threshold has always been an editorial obituary passes the mark but a typical local section obituary does not. -DJSasso (talk) 19:32, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I think that there should at least be a secondary source, especially where like the example above its just a WP:ONEEVENT notability, in such cases why cant the persons article be merged into the event. Even the likes of Claude Choules raises issues about notability, its not uncommon for recognition of the last by their virtue of them being the last. Yet on the flip side we accept that a person playing just one game for a top level sporting club is notable. I dont see much of a concern about writing an article based on a published obituary, though I'd like to see it have a secondary source that at least mentions the person. Gnangarra05:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Just... no. A life may be trivial, an obituary may be a collection of non-notable acts covered in an independent RS... but in no way, shape, or form is an obituary one event. (and yes, I am the primary author of that essay) Jclemens (talk) 06:26, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
The example Eric Davidson (survivor) is a one event, notability is dervied purely because of being one of the last people to have lived that were injured in the Halifax explosion. Even the Claude Choules is another example that by virtue of being the last he's recieved coverage, though in his case he was also of a significant age that we accept as being notable. Gnangarra07:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Writing an article about someone, be they dead or alive, is the same thing. If they weren't seen as important, they would cover them. DreamFocus06:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
An obit is a secondary source. the only question is whether it is substantial, and discriminating. a local newspaper's editorial obits may not be; the NYT always is without question. If a good newspaper thinks being a survivor of something is notable , tit's their call & Id follow it. The main question for me is the obit a society gives to one of its own officers or especially benefactors. If the society is notable enough, then being one of the chief officers would be notable, but unless it's the president of a national organization, this is a matter of judgment. DGG ( talk ) 02:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
I think we should treat it no differently to other coverage of a person; I don't care whether they're dead or alive. (How callous!). An obituary should count towards notability in the same way that coverage whilst alive does. A few people might only become notable after their death or even because of their death. However, just as with coverage during a person's life, it depends on how routine the coverage is; If a local paper obituarises lots of people, including a 2-sentence obituary of somebody who just ran the corner shop or somebody who organised the village fête last summer, that scarcely counts towards notability any more than an entry in a phonebook. On the other hand, an obituary in a highly selective source like the Economist is a much surer sign of notability. bobrayner (talk) 20:22, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
All obits from reliable sources can be used to verify certain facts (birth, dead, family, etc), and sometimes they should be enough to establish notability if they go into detail. I think -DJSasso sums it up neatly above when he said: I believe the threshold has always been an editorial obituary passes the mark but a typical local section obituary does not. If the source is very selective in the obits that it writes, and the obit is a non-paid, editorial obituary, then it should be enough to establish notability. Dennis Brown (talk) 00:28, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Revert discussion
[Moved from talkpage of Dream Focus]:
Hi Dream Focus. I noticed that you did this revert of a series of edits. The edits were reorganisation, using an improved template, moving in wording from other notability guidelines for consistency, rewording for clarity, and linking to appropriate guidelines and policy. There were no changes for meaning, just making clearer what was already there. Amongst that series of edits, which ones in particular did you object to, and for what reason? Perhaps we can work though them together. SilkTork✔Tea time16:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
You changed the meaning of it greatly. The rules of thumb part is especially troublesome. You do NOT need to meet the General Notability Guideline, since otherwise the secondary guidelines would all be useless. Some people make the horrible mistake of thinking you have to meet the GNG AND the secondary guidelines, an argument that pops up in AFDs from time to time, although thankfully most people know better. The secondary guidelines are there to show that something can be notable, without having to meet the GNG, and what exceptions do apply. DreamFocus16:37, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Do you genuinely feel that there is consensus that WP:N can be ignored? I'm aware that some people think that, but I didn't think that this was a widespread belief.
Anyway - that discussion aside - which exact wording in the series of edits you reverted do you object to? Would you please take a look at [1], and carefully pick out what you didn't like so we can discuss it. SilkTork✔Tea time17:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Notability is established by methods other than the GNG. And any change you want to make, you need to discuss on the proper talk page before hand, and form a consensus there. I don't see anything positive your changes made. DreamFocus18:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
If you are not able to explain the specific wording that you are unhappy with, would you object if I restored the edits? If there is something in particular that you don't agree with, we could discuss that, but a comment such as "I don't like it/I don't see anything positive" is not helpful. Do you object, for instance, to the replacement of <references/> with {{reflist|2}}, which is one of the edits your revert undid. Also, as requested in your edit summary, I am moving this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Notability (people). SilkTork✔Tea time22:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
DF is wrong: the SNGs like this one are there to provide conditions that ultimately the GNG can be met, given time to locate existing sources and for new sources to appear that are a result of that condition (eg winning an award). All SNGs need to aim to meet the GNG at the end of the day - though need not have them immediately, and ergo no need to delete immedilatey - since the GNG represents sourcing that meets WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. --MASEM (t) 22:24, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
No, not true. I believe most people disagreed with you last time this argument came up. If you win notable awards, are cited by your peers for making a unique contribution in your field(getting into a science textbook for bug studiers or whatnot), etc, then you are notable, even without being reviewed or interviewed anywhere at all. DreamFocus22:33, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
I am still not clear on which wording you are objecting to Dream Focus. If you could specify that, then I will remove that wording to allow us to discuss it, and carry on with improving the page. I made a series of edits, and you only reverted after the last one - so can I assume it was the wording in the last edit ("- it would also require significant coverage on the criteria in a reliable source - a passing mention is unlikely to be sufficent.")? SilkTork✔Tea time23:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
[2] For starters lets look at the top: "If a person meets any of the following criteria, supported through independentreliable sources, they probably qualify for a stand-alone article". The original version is far superior "People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards". There is no reason to change that. And I already commented on the rules of thumb bit. Did you have any reason to be moving everything else around, and adding useless redundant bits? DreamFocus23:12, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
What I said is true, DF. There is no disagreement that if you win a award then by the SNG you are presumed notable and the article is allowed. But 5 years later, and the only source in that article is about winning that award and there are no other sources about that person at all, then that presumption was wrong and the article will likely be deleted. When proper criteria are selected (as this guideline already does pretty well), we're likely never to run into this case; the winning of the award, for example, is general assurance that source have existed or will exist, and thus the GNG can be met in time. SNGs are temporary presumptions of notability in lieu of meeting the GNG. --MASEM (t) 23:10, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Wrong. You don't delete an article for someone who has won notable awards, no matter how many years pass. Some people never get any coverage at all, since they aren't interested in doing interviews, or interesting enough that interviewers want to do them. DreamFocus23:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
And therefore we can't write a good encyclopedic article about them if no other sources appear. Particularly since we have WP:BLP1E for people, this is very important to consider. We can redirect such articles to lists of winners of said award. But let's put this in perspective. Most of this specific guideline have chosen criteria that are certain to have GNG-sources that can be satisfied with a bit of legwork. Articles that meet one of the criteria here and then later are determined to fail the GNG are going to be the rare rare exception to the rule; the situation I describe is just not going to happen with any repeat-ability. Compare this to others like NSPORT where they have used much more questionable criteria ("playing one pro game" being presumed to meet notability?) and that's where one needs to understand that SNGs are temporary allowances to meeting the GNG. If you cannot ultimately meet the GNG, you can't have a encyclopedic quality article, and relocation of key material into large topics should be sought. --MASEM (t) 23:36, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Do you see any AFDs where the secondary guidelines are ever ignored? Do you see anywhere that says what you are saying? DreamFocus00:58, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
The key word in the notability guidelines is "presumed". Anyone can challenge the notability of any article at any time, and if consensus agrees that the article is not merited , even if an SNG appears to be met, then that's what happens. I have seen people challenge articles based on weak NSPORT passage though they weren't deleted, they weren't speedy/snow keeps. The only way to avoid having articles challenged on their presumption of notability is to continue to add sources to far exceed the basic requirements of the GNG -- in doing that, you also improve the overall quality of the article, so its a win win situation for everyone. --MASEM (t) 01:13, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm largely with DF here. The SNG are often used to indicate notability in fields where the coverage expected by WP:N just is unlikely to exist. WP:PROF is the best example. As it stands, we will always take an IEEE fellow as a notable academic. And there is plenty to write about them about: their works and their awards are there. Their bio is available from their school (not an independent source, but certainly reliable) etc. They don't generally have independent coverage and so rarely make WP:N, but I think consensus is we should have those articles. Hobit (talk) 14:17, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
For PROF, it is not that there isn't any sourcing for them, but that it often takes legwork to discover and locate that sourcing when the academic suddenly meets the criteria. Once that all is collected and placed in the article, the article will most likely meet the GNG. The SNG exists to give a lot of reasonable time to collect that information before any deletion is called for (like, on the order of years). Again, it is about "presumption" which can always be challenged if no additional sources are ever found and inserted into place. --MASEM (t) 14:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
As a (non-notable) academic who works with literally dozens of notable academics, let me say that I disagree with you. I've looked for sources on a number of fellows and come up dry on every single one. Even after asking them. I suppose we could list off some 20 IEEE fellows and see if we can find coverage that meets WP:N for even half. I have grave doubts. I think that their articles would still be kept at AfD however. Remember our guidelines are descriptive, not proscriptive. If you all want to make a change like this you need to find consensus. WP:FOOTY also takes facts over meeting WP:N. The AfDs and DRVs are pretty much 100% this way. Hobit (talk) 14:51, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Today, with how recent notability is on WP, I don't expect any article that meets an SNG to be deleted at AFD, because as I said, these are temporarily allowances on the order of years, not months, and notability's far too young a concept to start nixing things now. What you can expect, however, is that time progresses, and the work matures, that stubby-like articles on topics that just meet an SNG but do not have sourcing to meet the GNG are likely going to be challenged. As noted, notability is a presumption, and the only way to assure that notability is agreed on is to continue to strive to demonstrate it more by adding sources to not only meet the GNG but to also improve the article towards being more encyclopedic. This is the argument used over and over again as to why we have nearly every gov't- recognized village and town, because notability will ultimately met through sources available only locally at these places and may take time to develop.
Take the IEEE fellow example: per WP: this requires a "unusual distinction in the profession and shall be conferred by the Board of Directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest" Somewhere there must be documentation by the BoD or the IEEE or fellow academics to establish how each fellow meets that point. I understand it might be hard to find, but that's exactly the type of information that would be appropriate towards the GNG. Ergo, it makes no sense to rush to delete an article on an IEEE fellow because sourcing is likely to exist. It may be necessary to consider sourcing atypical of what is usual for academics to make this happen though; that's often the case with notability is understanding what are the right set of sources to use for appropriate notability. This is ultimately the reason why SNGs have to have global consensus. The community must agree that meeting a criteria ultimately leads to sourcing to make not only the GNG work but also validate the article per the core content policies.
Again, stressing that the key word is "presumed"; meeting the GNG or an SNG is only one facet to consider. Someone may be able to argue that a 2-sentence stub of an article for a person that otherwise meets the SNG isn't appropriate, and their weight of argument may end up stronger than the "but he passes the SNG!" calls of others, particularly if the article is only backed by a single source, or it is only a single event in question. If you believe that the SNG criteria is strong enough to rest and do no more legwork, then that's your choice, but the general guidance is that the more and more you can get an SNG-passing article towards a GNG-passing one, the better chance you won't face deletion in the future. --MASEM (t) 15:11, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
No matter how many times you keep arguing the same point, it doesn't make it right. You aren't likely to ever delete someone who meets the secondary guidelines, no matter what you say. There is nowhere at all that says what you are saying. The guidelines were made to help determine what things were notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, that being the general guidelines and the secondary ones. Never did it say anywhere at all that the secondary ones weren't enough on their own to establish notability, or that it was somehow temporary. DreamFocus15:32, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
There is this in the guidelines: the word is "presumed". Meeting the SNGs, or even the GNG , does not protect an article from being challenged for deletion or being deleted if the arguments for that are strong enough. Today, we certainly aren't going to delete articles on these topics without strong reason (eg BLP failures). Tomorrow, consensus may decide we need to be far less inclusive, and those formally accepted SNGs may be nullified. The best approach for anyone when they create an article on a topic that only meets a SNG is to continue to look for and identify sources towards the GNG so that in years to come to strengthen the "presumed" argument. --MASEM (t) 15:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Having seen some of these outcomes (IEEE fellow, etc.) I very much doubt there is anything that is quite what you are looking for. There is usually a single sentence note. Heck, the AAAS announcements (which I'd say are more prestigious than IEEE?) lack even that [3], and I can't find anything else. I very much doubt most of those folks meet WP:N. They might when they die (obit), though those aren't generally independent in any meaningful sense. Hobit (talk) 18:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
If the IEEE has recognized these people, that means others had to have at some point recognized their work, given the presumption that being an IEEE fellow is notable. One may have to go back through academic papers to find where their work has been discussed in detail, etc., to fill in the spaces, in addition to primary sources like the person's bio and academic history. If this is not the case, then this is a bad criteria and needs to be removed. SNGs need to build not to simply include a certain class of topics, but to include a certain class of topics that are certain to have demonstrated notability due to meeting the criteria. Remember, not being notable doesn't mean we can't include that topic, it just doesn't get its own article. A list of IEEE Fellows is a suitable replacement if there are truly non-notable members. --MASEM (t) 19:12, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
If the IEEE has recognized these people, that means others had to have at some point recognized their work, given the presumption that being an IEEE fellow is notable. Others, probably 100s of others, have cited their work. Some in detail. But nothing about the person (in general). We tend to be divided on how to treat "trivial" coverage of someone's work when dealing with their bio. And like DF, I disagree with you on the role of the SNGs. Many of them provide an alternative method for having an article. We held a well-attended RfC on this some time back. I don't recall what the outcome was, but I don't think your opinion had consensus. WP:N is a really good guideline, but for some areas (like academics) we lower the bar and for others (sports persons) we use a different bar. I believe the SNGs came before the GNG. The GNG is just a generalization of the SNGs. Hobit (talk) 22:03, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
The last major RFC that involved SNGs favored the approach I am discussing: that while practically they are used as an alternative of meeting the GNG for notability, that allowance is strong as consensus allows, hence why the language is around the word "presumed". They are not "meet one criteria, never have to demonstrate notability ever again in the future", because, in fact, they should not be written and approached this way. They should be signs like the tip of an iceberg to show that a topic is likely to be notable and with much more sourcing available because that criteria is met. Practically, yes, "Oh, this person won an award, therefore notable" is how we use them at AFD, but every article that stops there and doesn't attempt further demonstration of sourcing is likely going to find itself in a troublesome situation in the future as the work matures further.
Back to the IEEE example, if a person is known for their work and that itself is not a topic on its own, then that work is part of the reason the person is notable, and therefore the article on the person is justified. I can't see any other way to show this; when we talk about a person , we're generally talking about their accomplishments in their life, not just the basic facts of that person. So there's no issue with the IEEE Fellows example.
One thing to keep in mind here: there is nothing wrong with putting non-notable people or other interrelated topics into lists; we still cover the person in a broader, more notable article, that can still be searchable (via redirects) , and non-admin expansion is possible if newer sourcing appears. If all we can give is a bio without accomplishments - aka primary data, that's probably better given as a data point in a table than a separate article. --MASEM (t) 00:02, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Masem, the point I'm trying to get across is that we aren't going to find bio information on these people in 3rd party independent sources. Not likely to happen at all. And on the rare occasion we do, the bio information is just taken from the person's CV. We can literally write a book on the things the person has done in most cases. But we don't have independent sources about them, nor will we ever. Just their work (and frankly the sources generally aren't independent--they simply site and discuss the work, in engineering the work is rarely redone and so the results aren't independent). Is that enough for WP:N? I'd say probably not. Should we have article on these people? Clearly. We can write solid articles on their work and provide basic (though not independent) bio information. The SNG's give us that flexibility. And it's a good thing. Hobit (talk) 04:25, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
If you are telling me that there are no third-party sources for these people, that fails WP:V, straight up, much less WP:N and no SNG can get around that. I don't think this is what you want. I'm arguing that the info you're telling me about these IEEE fellows are appropriate third-party sources (discussions of their work by other reliable sources). You're trying to separate the person from the work. I can understand a case where the "work" itself is notable on its own (eg Project Manhattan), but for most academics, the person and their work are the same topic, and trying to separate them makes no sense: I'd expect to see both the person and their work (a high level overview , of course) in their articles. Ergo, there will be third party sources about the person, and everything's all okay. --MASEM (t) 04:34, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I can't tell, we might be agreeing. But I think you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of scientific (and more so) engineering work. WP:V isn't a problem--we have the IEEE fellowship that handles WP:V quite nicely. We've verified the person exists and has made highly significant contributions to the field. But writing a summary of their work (and bio) out of third party sources would be a nightmare (if possible at all). The third party sources are all generally trivial coverage. "Bob et. at. used a counter to track counts, resetting every 1024 cycles. We use a hash to do the same task. Our method gets a trivial number of false positives, but extends the history for a factor of 1000 more cycles, resulting in a 10% accuracy improvement". Such a statement clearly acknowledges the previous work's importance, but isn't non-trivial coverage of it. Further, the faculty member in question _isn't_ even Bob, it's the person (or maybe persons) at the end of the paper's author list. Does any of that count toward WP:N? It's trivial coverage that doesn't even mention the faculty member by name. It does however clearly indicate they built upon it. Eh, this is probably a pointless discussion. I think WP:N is, by-and-large, a good guideline. At least it's a pretty bright line. But certain areas, academics among them, in my opinion, should have a different standard. Athletics is another one (generally a higher bar in that case). I think there are good reasons for both. Hobit (talk) 15:17, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm in the engineering field, so I know that yes, 90% of the sourcing for a person is simply reiterating finds in a paper or the like as you describe. But if they are a significant academic, you should be able to find other sources - maybe academic papers that go into detail on someone's seminal research, maybe the fact they were invited to speak at certain conferences, etc - that are better for supporting notability. It may take legwork to find these, including looking at more local or more narrow sources, but they should exist if the academic is being claimed as a notable person in that field.
As to your second point about having different standards, that's absolutely out of the question, because now you've suddenly made hundreds of walled gardens, each wikiproject clamoring for their desired inclusion metrics. NSPORT already is approaching this now and really needs to be restarted from scratch based on the idea that an SNG is meant as a tip of a GNG iceberg. WP:N is a site-wide standard, the flexibility in different topic areas comes about through what sources are considered appropriate for meeting the GNG. The editors in the medical area may require the highest journals in medicine as sources for notability, while the film project is just fine with weekly celebrity magazines. And the benefit of aiming for GNG coverage is that now you actually have a useful encyclopedic article, instead of just a reference work. --MASEM (t) 17:06, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
My two cents: I totally agree with the above sentence, but I want to point out that, if we talk of the concept of notability in itself, is much more relevant winning a significant award, being cited by peers or successors, originating a significant new concept etc. (and that should obviously be verifiable) than having a couple of significant articles on a magazine. Obviously, for a "good article" we need multiple not trivial secondary sources, but WP is an encyclopedia and not an exclusive selection of "good articles", and also a very short article could be suitable of inclusion, not only for "five years". The final goal for every article obviously is meeting the GNG, and it usually happens, but I find wrong the cocept that something is notable if it shows significant secondary sources and unnotable (or not worthy of a stand-alone article) if not. I haven't the "granitic" confidence that there are always multiple significant sources for every notable subject, and however even if they exist it's not so obvious that they'll ever be "brought to light". An italian proverb says "There is always someone who looks at the moon and someone else who looks at the finger that indicates the moon": I hope WP does not lose sight of the moon. Cavarrone (talk) 19:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Masem, I think we are going around in circles. You are simply mistaken, at least in my significant experience, about what information there generally is about AAAS or IEEE fellows from independent reliable sources. As far as the "walled-garden" effect, all SNGs get vetted by the community as a whole. When they get "wonky", the community steps in. PORNBIO is going through that right now. WP:ATHLETE has gone through it a few times. The system, more-or-less, works. To claim that it is unworkable flies in the face of current reality. Finally, as Cararrone notes, significant awards should count toward notability. Any system which doesn't do that is broken. Hobit (talk) 20:57, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Remember, we're talking about the academic; the IEEE is an independent source for that academic in the case of an IEEE fellow. I would consider any induction or election into significant academic boards like the IEEE, invitations to speak at important conferences, and other similar aspects all as independent secondary sources for academics. Since one needs such a history to become an IEEE fellow, that means an editor should be able to find these other acclaims and establish the notability of the academic via the GNG given enough time.
On the second point, the problem with NSPORT right now is that while the community vetted the initial version about 1.5 yrs ago, the various sports WProjects have added their own segments to it. I'd argue that about 50% of the criteria on NSPORT was not there on the community vetting. I'm of the personal opinion that all the SNGs just need a community vetting once in a while just to make sure these don't stray too far from a global consensus. The aspect that I'm claiming unworkable is the idea that we have less restrictive criteria for inclusion of topics for any field that avoids an aim towards the GNG and additional sourcing. Yes, the SNG system works and we're not going in that direction right now, but we need to be alert to prevent any one SNG from becoming so lax towards excessive conclusion. --MASEM (t) 21:42, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
SilkTork, when you first made the edits, I briefly thought about reverting them myself, then changed my mind. As Masem in particular points out, the relationship between SNGs and GNG has been a very tricky one, and when WP:NSPORT came into its present day compromise existence, a huge number of pixels were spilled trying to convey the idea that "presumed" notability is a matter of convenience at AfD, as opposed to the idea that SNGs can actually show that a person who fails GNG is notable. It may be difficult, in a practical sense, to find the sources to establish that a subject passes GNG, but passing an SNG should mean that we believe such sources are likely to exist, even if they are difficult to track down (not that such sources don't matter). But when I read SilkTork's revisions, I could not find anything that seemed to me to have changed the meaning, with respect to those (convoluted) concepts, so I left the edits alone. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:40, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Dream Focus is absolutely correct. No matter how many pixels have been "spilled trying to convey the idea that "presumed" notability is a matter of convenience at AfD, as opposed to the idea that SNGs can actually show that a person who fails GNG is notable", that idea has not ever carried consensus support. In fact, it seems to be completely invented. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:42, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Since you quote me at such length, I guess I should point out that I was OK with SilkTork's edit and I was also OK with it being reverted, so I hope you don't think that I am completely (or incompletely) inventing anything. As for the uneasy lack of consensus as to just what the SNGs are here for, you are right. There's no generally accepted consensus, just an ad hoc spirit of go along to get along. But I do think that I fairly characterized the discussion that went into WP:NSPORT, whether or not anyone adheres to that discussion at AfDs. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:54, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
In reading the Pornbio discussion above I tried to think of an example where "Has a large fan base or a significant "cult" following." was accepted as evidence of notability for an entertainer and couldn't come up with anything. Can somebody provide some examples of articles that survived AFD purely because of this criterium? Yoenit (talk) 13:42, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
I started a new section on purpose, as I consider this a separate issue which has in principle nothing to do with Pornbio. With regards to wp:BIG, the way it was explained to me is that we need a reliable source to say the subject "has a large fan base or a significant "cult" following.". My question is if this actually happens in practice, without the subject also meeting several other criteria. Yoenit (talk) 15:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
It doesn't matter how big the following is, only the coverage. Same reason you have many Youtube clips with millions of hits but aren't "notable" per WP:N. WP:N requires significant coverage, and usually multiple sources (depending on the quality of the sources), and WP:BIG was written specifically to address this. Besides, someone who really does have a "huge following" is typically going to have some press coverage to allow them to qualify under WP:N. If not, WP:BIG comes into play, as does WP:V. Dennis Brown (talk) 13:45, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, this is basically the same discussion as above (SNG vs. GNG). The basic answer is that the relationship between the two isn't 100% clear and things tend to go on a case-by-case basis. Hobit (talk) 01:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Having subcategories for other types of "notability" tends to do that, muddy the waters. I"m not sure we need so many sub pages for notability. Either they are notable, or they aren't. IMHO, all the extra pages tend to raise the bar and end up with lots of pages here on people that really aren't notable or stand out, just had an article or two written on themselves. It is odd to see a professor who has published a great deal on their own get deleted at AFD because of a shortage of independent sources on easy to find websites, yet someone that was in a couple pornos gets included if one marginal magazine or website had an article on them. Dennis Brown (talk) 10:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for commenting, but this seems to have derailed into a general discussion about sub notability guidelines. I will repeat the question: "Can somebody give me an example of wp:ENT #2 being used to establish notability of an article, without the subject meeting any other criteria"? Yoenit (talk) 23:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
WP:Notability explicitly governs article creation as per These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not directly limit the content of an article or list. The notability guidelines are not supposed to govern article content once the article is created, article content falls outside the remit of the notability criteria. However, in the last week this alteration extended the jurisdiction of notability to article content. I have found no discussion that sanctions this alteration; it seems to be a unilateral edit that has profound implications for what content is permissable on the project, as well as put into it in direct conflict with guidelines that do govern article content. I am going to revert the alteration, and I suggest it be be re-introduced under WP:DUE if it is backed by consensus. Betty Logan (talk) 20:19, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Agree. There may be cases where it is appropriate to make such an exclusion, but WP:CRIME isn't really the right place for it. --FormerIP (talk) 20:23, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
If that facet of our content policies is going to be covered in CRIME, it needs to be more explicit that while N doesn't cover article content, BLP and NPOV do. Jclemens (talk) 21:02, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Agree with Betty Logan. BLP does not preclude mentioning any material as long as it is reliably sourced. Significant coverage in reliable secondary sources is the main guiding issue here.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)21:27, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes this is fine... I made that edit and didn't mean to be "suspicious"! Another editor had added basically similar material, an editor objected on the grounds of the way it was worded, and I just re-worded it with a "how's this"? Herostratus (talk) 02:44, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry about calling it a "suspicious" edit, it implies you had underhand motives which I don't think was the case; the sentiment is clearly a good one designed to protect subjects from specious reporting. My mind was elsewhere at the time, because the revised guideline was at the heart of a contentious debate, so you had editors acting on the new interpretation and other editors thinking they were misinterpreting the guideline. I then discovered this revision which seemingly came out of nowhere. I actually regretted wording it as "suspicious" much earlier in the evening, but by then I had already link to it from the discussion where it was being misinterpreted so I didn't want to break the link. I think your alteration is actually worthy of further discussion, but in the context of article content rather than the notability guidelines. Betty Logan (talk) 03:20, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
It's alright! I'm sure I've made plenty of edits elsewhere that are suspicious and haven't been called out on them, so it all comes out in the wash. We should be leery of any changes to policy pages. And I agree with your points. I guess the point of the addition was that it'd not be a good idea to add someone to "List of Infamous Murderers" before an actual conviction, for instance. But I think that WP:BLP covers this already. Herostratus (talk) 04:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
For archival purposes, let me take the heat away from Herostratus. I was the editor who made the addition. Herostratus had been kind enough to have reworded the grammar. But I completely agree with Betty's viewpoint. Like I mentioned, this is just for archival purposes. WifioneMessage08:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
There isn't enough clear support below to justify getting rid of WP:PORNBIO altogether, but I think that's the one option that has the most consistent support. Unfortunately, consensus just isn't clear yet. Were a single proposal for improving WP:PORNBIO to garner enough support to drown out other improvement proposals, I would guess that those who support removing the guideline would agree to it as a compromise. --Aervanath (talk) 22:35, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Previous discussion: Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)/Archive 2011#Pornographic actors/actresses
I closed the RfC on PORNBIO today, and noted that there is strong consensus that the guideline is problematic. A significant number of people felt that the guideline should be removed completely, while others felt that the guideline should be improved. The attempt above (now closed) to improve the guideline by shuffling the awards does not go anywhere near what is required to satisfactorily address concerns and bring the guideline in line with GNG and general expectations. While PORNBIO is a subsection of Entertainers, it is not clear if the guideline is suggesting that the criteria for pornographic actors are in addition to WP:ENT, or are separate. Before attempting a rewrite of the guideline, it would be helpful to consider the purpose and value of having a distinct guideline for porn actors. Why are porn actors to be considered differently or separately to actors in other genre? SilkTork✔Tea time18:00, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Porn actors are generally less notable than actors in other genres due to the lack of media coverage pornography receives. There are many highly prolific porn actors with awards and large fan bases who come nowhere near to passing GNG. Porn actors therefore need a separate less-inclusive guideline. Many of those arguing for PORNBIO to be deprecated appear to either be against the additional criteria in general or have the mistaken belief that PORNBIO aims to make the guidelines more inclusive for porn stars by providing addition criteria to WP:ENT. Epbr123 (talk) 18:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
To expand on that. Much of GNG's main statement is based on WP:V, which is a core policy regarding inclusion of material. That is, the material must be verifiable to reliable sources. For the material to be regarded as a standalone article there needs to be "significant" coverage in those sources. Reducing the need for "significant" coverage based purely on "lack of media coverage" is unlikely to meet support. There are many topics, including the local garage band, which have a "lack of media coverage". "Lack of media coverage" would be an inappropriate rationale for creating a specific guideline.
I would suggest that if there is an identifiable difference between porn actors and other groups of low notability entertainers, such as local bands, non-headlining stage actors, etc, who get little media coverage, that should be used as the basis for a guideline specifically on porn actors. SilkTork✔Tea time19:28, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
A difference between porn actors and other groups of low notability entertainers is that they can have a "large fan base" and make "prolific contributions to a field of entertainment" without being notable. Top porn stars are less likely to meet GNG than top stage actors, bands, etc. Epbr123 (talk) 20:25, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Just to make sure that a specific guideline for porn actors is needed: If it is felt worthwhile to have a standalone article on a porn actor due to a "large fan base" and/or "prolific contributions to a field of entertainment", then isn't that covered in ENT? What is required is information on what is specific about porn actors that requires a separate guideline. How is a "top porn star" defined? Wouldn't a top porn star - (Linda Lovelace?) - meet GNG? SilkTork✔Tea time01:24, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Where did I say a porn actor should have a standalone article due to a "large fan base" and/or "prolific contributions to a field of entertainment"? Porn actors need a separate guideline because it is too easy for them to pass ENT, ie. to have large fan base and be prolific. That's about the fifth time I've said this on this page. Epbr123 (talk) 01:38, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I have been misunderstanding you. I was reading your statements simply as arguments in favour of having a guideline for porn actors. I have gone back and it appears to me now that while you are saying that porn actors need a guideline, you feel the guideline should be written in a restrictive manner. And this is because even though porn actors may have a "large fan base" and/or made "prolific contributions to a field of entertainment", they may lack media coverage. Is that right? If that is so, then I agree with you, though I am still not clear why this would only apply to porn actors, and not to other entertainers. Is "large fan base" not a valid criteria for any entertainer? If there are reliable sources which deal in significant depth with an entertainer due to their large fan base, then is the field of entertainment relevant? I am not clear, essentially, on why porn actors are being treated differently - either positively or negatively. Why do we need a guideline to specifically include or exclude porn actors? I think if we can find a reason why we need to treat porn actors differently to other entertainers, then we are on the way to rewriting the guideline appropriately. SilkTork✔Tea time02:49, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
To put it another way, pornography is the only field of entertainment where fame doesn't equate to notability. Consider the problems that will be caused at AfD by removing PORNBIO. We'll get people saying "this porn actress passes ENT because she's been in four hundred films and pictures of her are all over the internet", which will actually seem a convincing argument to inexperienced users. Arguments like "this stage actress passes ENT because she's been in four hundred stage plays at my local theatre and pictures of her are all over the local papers" will seem less convincing to an inexperienced user. However, the most important use for PORNBIO is defining which awards are "well-known and significant" enough to pass WP:ANYBIO. If no other entertainment field has guidelines about awards, then WP:OTHERSTUFF applies. What are the benefits to removing PORNBIO, as it seems to me like a solution in search of a problem. Epbr123 (talk) 12:28, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
I've been watching this discussion for a long time without getting involved, and I think Silk Tork has asked a very good question in terms of pinning down exactly what we might need (or not need) here. I note in Epbr123's example, the second actress is described as being "local". Let's say, instead, that it was a touring company that went far beyond being local, and there were lots of internet photos. In that case, it would be less clear that the actress was not notable. How, then, would the criteria need to be different between the porn and non-porn instances? Offhand, it comes to mind that a huge amount of the online porn business uses photos interchangeably in ways that other areas of entertainment might not. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:06, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
I am looking at the criteria for porn actors, and most can apply to all entertainers. "Has won a well-known award..."; "Has received nominations for well-known awards in multiple years..."; "Has been featured multiple times in notable mainstream media..." Crieria ENT 3 and PORNBIO 3 are the ones that might be difficult to merge, especially with Epbr's concerns about the ubiquitous nature of some porn actors. Isn't the assumption that reliable sources are establishing the notability not Wikipedia editors? That Editor Foo has seen hundreds of images of Porn actor Foo on the internet does not make Porn actor Foo notable; a reliable source making a comment about the images would be required. Images without comment by a reliable source would only establish that the person exists, it would not establish notability - that is my understanding. Promotional images, as in images appearing on websites with the aim of getting people to buy a subscription to a porn website, would apply to other entertainers. An actor may appear in multiple adverts, so their image appears all over the internet. We could add to ENT that promotional images by themselves don't establish notability, and that would cover all actors, including porn and rep. And we could make clear that appearing in multiple films is not by itself notable - it requires independent comment in reliable sources about these appearances that establishes notability. SilkTork✔Tea time17:53, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Even if it's true that we shouldn't treat porn actors differently, there's a case to be made for not deleting PORNBIO. The case is this: if you delete PORNBIO, then we are thrown back on WP:ENT -- and that will mean many more porn actor bios, because essentially every person who appears in a few porn productions, even in very minor roles, will rate an article.
Why is this? Because WP:ENT is, or can be interpreted as being, quite liberal. WP:ENT allows for "Has had significant roles in multiple notable films... or other productions" or "Large fan base or a significant cult following" or "Prolific... contributions to a field of entertainment". "Significant" and "notable" are in the eye of the beholder, as is "large fan base" and "cult following"; Porn productions do not take a lot of time to produce, so the actors are in a lot of films, so "multiple" and "prolific" are usually a given, while ""other productions" allows for videos on internet pay sites. Or at least all of these points can be advanced.
Now suppose there was person who appeared as the office secretary in the Romanian Commissioner Roman films, but with only a few lines answering the phone and such, and no other acting credits of any kind. Well, "Romanian noir crime films" is a "a field of entertainment", "being on screen" is a "contribution", and five is "multiple" and arguably "prolific", while "notable" is subjective. At any rate, these points are arguably true. So this person, with a lifetime credit of 20 speaking lines in some obscure Romanian films, would arguably rate an article per WP:ENT.
Except, if someone tried that, the response would be "Don't be silly, this is not what is meant". Because nobody cares that much about Romanian crime films. Nobody watches Romanian crime films 14 hours a day or plays and re-plays their favorite scenes and obsesses about the actors. Nobody masturbates to Romanian crime films or fantasizes that the actors are in bed with them. In other words, nobody is really really really "into" Romanian crime films. So this issue does not come up.
Porn's different, because sex is different. As the saying goes, sex trumps everything. So if I understand the situation aright, these arguments can and apparently are advanced by sufficient numbers of editors to create a problem.
Is this right, am I getting this right? Because if this is the situation, what's called for is reform rather than deletion of PORNBIO. Herostratus (talk) 19:21, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Comment Answering to the SilkTork question, Is "large fan base" not a valid criteria for any entertainer?... I think it is one of the more vague and problematic criteria of the whole guideline, as having a large fan base without any other artistic/creative merit does not make anyone notable. IMHO this criteria should be deleted or at least rewritten, as it actually suggests that a lot of reality-show partecipants or any "YouTube artist" who is basically unknown to the public and the media but who has a large following on some social networks are suitable for an article on WP. - Cavarrone (talk) 07:53, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I take your point - though wouldn't that depend on a Wiki editor making their own judgement inappropriately? People using the criteria to support their own judgements would be inappropriate - a Wiki editor creating an article on a "YouTube artist" simply based on the hits the video has received is WP:Original research. However, if a reliable source has written significantly about a "YouTube artist"'s large fan base, then that would be an indication of notability. That by itself may not be enough for an article, but it's a valid starting point in indicating notability.
Perhaps we are looking at this through the wrong end of the telescope? Debating the finer points of the individual criteria is quite small compared to the importance of how people are using the criteria. We indicate that the criteria by themselves are not enough, but we don't make that clear enough. I have brought in some wording on "rule of thumb" used in other notability guides, as that seems quite helpful (and improves consistency between notability guidelines). Perhaps, though, we could go further in explaining how people are to use the criteria, and that an editor isn't supposed to be making their own judgement? SilkTork✔Tea time11:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
I suspect that telling editors not to use their own judgment is easy to say and easy to ignore, but I know what you mean. Speaking very tentatively, I might suggest that this discussion, so far, is going in the direction of saying that PORNBIO could be improved by focusing on the ideas that: (1) secondary sources are needed to establish notability, and (2) appearing in a large number of online primary sources does not contribute to establishing notability. Thoughts? --Tryptofish (talk) 16:47, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
These ideas are more appropriate for the GNG/General notability guideline than for a SNG, and point 2 is quite obvious, in which part of Wikipedia is written (or suggested) that appearing in a large number of online (or "offline") primary sources could contribute to establishing notability? WP:BASIC still says that "Primary sources may be used to support content in an article, but they do not contribute toward proving the notability of a subject" and there is no need to point out it further. - Cavarrone (talk) 17:15, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, that makes good sense – if not GNG, then ENT. I think one of the ideas under discussion here is to make some porn-related improvements to ENT, and then dispense with PORNBIO. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:28, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Comment - The entire notion of PORNBIO should be eliminated. Pornographic actors and actresses should be held to the same standards as all other actors and actresses, which means ultimately that they should pass General Notability Guidelines by being the object of multiple pieces of independent, published reportage. There should be no "low bar" Special Notability Guideline" whatsoever allowing porn actors an "easy in" to Wikipedia. The current situation is ludicrous where long-term, career mainstream camera operators and movie industry professionals fail to meet muster at AfD, not to mention mainstream journalists, while every Biff and Buffy slimes in, usually with vapid bios and glossy promotional photographs. The situation is unencyclopedic, no matter what one thinks of porn — and I'm fine with it, in its place. Carrite (talk) 18:35, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
3) Has been featured multiple times in notable mainstream media.
How's that? #3 is really redundant and maybe needn't be be included. It's possible that AV Open (a Japanese award) should be replaced by the Pink Grand Prix (also a Japanese award). One of those, but not both, at any rate.
The advantage of this is that retails PORNBIO, thus addressing the problem that deleting it and falling back on WP:NACTOR would allow almost all porn performers in. At the same time, it tightens up PORNBIO considerably, addressing the objection that it's too lax.
Might I suggest that Hall of Fame inductees be added among the award winners (unless that is a blindingly obvious "comparable award")? Otherwise, I think this seems like a reasonable approach. — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk05:46, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
It's not blindingly obvious, it would need to be added. Are you referring to the XRCO Hall of Fame? That's the only one that I know of. I suppose I'm OK with adding that also, and I edited the above to include it. Are there others? Herostratus (talk) 06:09, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
AVN and GayVN also have halls of fame. #3 refers to appearances in mainstream films, TV shows etc. rather than coverage in mainstream sources. The rationale for this is that supposedly only a top porn star would be able to make the crossover into mainstream entertainment. Epbr123 (talk) 18:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
About the first two criteria, on the basis of which rationale did you decided these awards (avn, gayvn etc.) are more notable than other awards (xbiz, pink grand prix, venus etc.)? How is it possible that XRCO is notable in its Hall of Fame and not notable as standard award for best actor/actress etc.? And instead AVN is notable as standard award and not as Hall of Fame? And finally let me say, the sentence "It's possible that AV Open (a Japanese award) should be replaced by the Pink Grand Prix (also a Japanese award). One of those, but not both, at any rate" is a little absurd, as Pink Cinema and AV Cinema are two separate industries, with different actors, different directors, and different contents (Pink Cinema is NOT hardcore). I agree not all the awards are notable and could be useful indicate which are notable, but it seems you are interested in merely minimize as far as possible the number of eligible subjects, without great care in analyzing which awards are really important and which are not... Cavarrone (talk) 20:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
I just wanted to note that none of the discussion since my vote in the November RFC has persuaded me at all, and I remain of the opinion that PORNBIO is of absolutely no value at all to the encyclopaedia. There is no reason why porn stars should have separate notability criteria, and the general entertainer guidelines are entirely sufficient. PORNBIO is perceived as a joke whose main effect on the encyclopaedia is to permit "biographies" that comprise pure kayfabe and are missing such basic biographical details as the performer's real name or date of birth. These pornstar "biographies" by and large make a total mockery of our BLP rules and would violate the basic principle of verifiability if it wasn't for the fact that they are, in fact, not about actors or (more often) actresses but the fictional characters they portray. I feel we need to deprecate this guideline and then start a massive bonfire of the material that relied on it.—S MarshallT/C20:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
Almost all of these people would largery pass multiple WP:ANYBIO and WP:ENT actual criteria. With or without PORNBIO. Epbr123 wrote it at least one hundred of times. Cavarrone (talk) 22:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes... indeed we can also decide to delete and incorporate PORNBIO in WP:ENT, but IMHO first of all we should do (small) adjustments to WP:ENT#3 and delete WP:ENT#2 (as said above, "having a large fan base" without any other merit is not, in itself, a sign of notability in any field; above SilkTork replied me that, if we have significant coverage in support of the subject, it may be good, and that's true... but if we have coverage we simply don't need any "additional criteria of notability"). Cavarrone (talk) 23:21, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
The need for PORNBIO has already been explained by three separate people in this thread. Can people please read the whole discussion before deciding to take part, so we don't have to keep going round in circles? Epbr123 (talk) 00:41, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Epbr, about me, is not my intention rounding in circle. The need of a separate guideline for pornographic actors, different from other actors, is caused by the fact that otherwise some criteria of WP:ENT could be extensively interpreted up to allow the inclusion of any pornographic actor on the face of the earth. This is out of discussion. Well, maybe I'm wrong, but my humble opinion is that this problem is not so insurmountable as it appears, maybe would be enough a few adjustments in the formulation of actual NOTACTOR criteria to make it appropriate. And, to be clear, I consider criteria 2 of WP:ENT as wrong also outside of this specific discussion. Cavarrone (talk) 01:37, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
You're right that an alternative to keeping PORNBIO is to modify ENT. However, we still need to have criteria that clarifies what awards indicate notability for porn stars. Losing this criteria would cause a lot of arguing and inconsistency at AfD. Epbr123 (talk) 01:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Cavarrone is exactly right. The point Herostratus raises isn't exactly difficult to overcome. We could just add to WP:ENT that if we don't have a third-party reliable source that gives us basic biographical details (say, a real name and a date of birth), then we simply don't have good enough sources to include a biography on Wikipedia. If we do have third-party reliable sources that give us a name and a date of birth for a porn actor, then I see no issue with writing an article about them. But I think that rule would get rid of 90%+ of our pornstar "biographies".—S MarshallT/C01:50, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Porn stars generally aren't very keen on having their real name's in articles, so we shouldn't bring in a rule that encourages it. Epbr123 (talk) 01:58, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely right, Jezhotwells. Epbr123, please link us a biography of anyone other than a porn star that doesn't list the subject's real name.—S MarshallT/C02:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
the fact that someone uses a stage name may not be used as a pretext to argue that he/she is not notable. The use of stage names is a regular convention of adult industry, and your supposed rule would eliminate 99% of biographies, including those biographies which are supported from several reliable sources, such as this. Or otherwise, it would trasform Wikipedia in something infamous like Porn Wikileaks. And about "some biographies of anyone other than a porn star that doesn't list the subject's real name": Shai Baba, Mr. Niebla, Kaho, Lord Gordon-Gordon, La Diabólica, Comrade Artemio, Murasaki Shikibu, Longinus, Nortt, Nari Kusakawa, Arkas, Magister Wigbold, Monster Clown, Merton, Aengmu, Markus, Tsuchida Gozen, the "The Athena Painter", Blue Demon, Jr. Cavarrone (talk) 02:18, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I support the position that we don't need a separate criterion outside WP:ENT. And if there isn't enough to source a real name or basic biographical details, then there isn't enough for notability. We do not need to fill Wikipedia up with articles that are never going to get beyond a stage name and a list of films. Cusop Dingle (talk) 07:33, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
There is nothing reasonable in this position. Should we delete Plato or Socrates articles as we don't have biographical details about them? And as the exemples I posted above, we have tons of articles about people of which we don't even know the real name, mainstream actors, illustrators, spiritual figures, politicians, painters, athletes, notable criminals, etc.: in any field. Stop jokes, please.... Cavarrone (talk) 09:12, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Requiring decent sources for biographies is pretty far from being a gross BLP policy violation, you know. Thanks for the list of inadequately-sourced biographies to delete, Cavarrone, I'll start tagging those now.—S MarshallT/C16:49, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Some of those biographies are FAs. How does forcing an article to include the person's real name make the article adequately-sourced? This is a bizarre interpretation of WP:V and WP:BLP. Epbr123 (talk) 19:19, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I did not suggest that every biographical article must contain the subject's real name so no need to discuss this complete red herring. I have consistently suggested that if we do not know any basic biographical information about someone, so that all we know is their stage name and the names of the porno they have appeared in and they do not pass the GNG, then there is no case for including them and no need for a special policy. Clear enough? Cusop Dingle (talk) 19:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
No joke. PORNBIO is a special case for people who do not satisfy general notability guideline but have appeared in porno. If someone if not the subject of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" to the extent that basic biographical details are unavailable, then I say that starring in a few porno flicks does not merit an encyclopaedia article. Cusop Dingle (talk) 18:08, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
What I think might be ideal is a rule that says something like, "If we can't find a real name or a date of birth, then that establishes a presumption to delete." But that presumption has to be rebuttable, because Cavarrone does have a point: it's true that there are entertainers who deserve articles even when we don't know their real name or date of birth. In other words, I think want to deprecate PORNSTAR and replace it with a rigorous, objective version of WP:ENT that has a clause about not knowing real names, but the clause needs to distinguish between Homer and Sappho the Greek poets on the one hand, and Homer Missile the masked wrestler and Sapphic Sally the pornstar on the other.
I suggest we say that if we have neither a real name nor a date of birth, then the article is deleted unless the subject is covered in a printed encyclopaedia or biographical dictionary.—S MarshallT/C19:29, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Why are you keen for articles to include real names and date of births? Aren't there other criteria we could use that are more relevant to the person's notability and aren't so BLP violating, such as requiring a certain amount of info available about their actual career? Have you read WP:BLP#Presumption in favor of privacy? Epbr123 (talk) 19:40, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
The reason for it is to establish some kind of qualifying criteria before it's appropriate to have a biography of a living person. Not "he was in a group porn scene and AVN who the porn company advertise with gave them a collective award for it. You can see him just there, third on the left behind the donkey", but, yanno, someone independent and reliable actually taking enough note of him to write the kind of biography that can serve as the basis for a proper, well-sourced Wikipedia article. My position is that if that information is already in the public domain then it's appropriate for us to repeat it, and if it isn't, then there's clearly insufficient sources to have a biography at all, so the article should be deleted. Before you try to dismiss this idea, please bear in mind that other experienced, longstanding users are showing up to agree with me about this.—S MarshallT/C20:06, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
It's not always appropriate to include real names, even if it is reliably sourced. BLP states "Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources". Not all reliable sources are widely published. BLP issues aside, your idea wouldn't work as porn stars' birth dates are widely available, so wouldn't lead to less-inclusive criteria. Epbr123 (talk) 20:33, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
If you're basically trying to say that people should only have articles if they pass GNG, I don't necessarily disagree, but see the thread below. Epbr123 (talk) 20:50, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
As linked by Epbr, this proposal spectacularly clashes with WP:DOB. And anyway, I still can't see which is the connection between the use of a stage name and the concept of "notability". People are notable for the things they do, not for the name they're born with. Cavarrone (talk) 20:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
The connection is that if someone is so far from passing the usual notability guidelines that we do not even know their real name or other biodata, and if no-one has troubled to discuss their work either, then we have to seriously question whether we need to, or indeed, can, write an article on them. Cusop Dingle (talk) 21:05, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
What if reliable sources on someone's biodata do exist, but aren't easily available, such as someone from a non-English speaking country or from the pre-Internet era? This is one of the main purposes of these guidelines. Epbr123 (talk) 21:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
If sources exist, they exist. The purpose of these guidelines is to justify the writing of articles about people who would not otherwise qualify as notable. Ease of access to sources seems rather irrelevant. Cusop Dingle (talk) 21:32, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
One of the two main purposes of the additional criteria is to indicate whether a subject can eventually meet GNG once hard-to-access sources are found. Read the thread below if you want to learn more. Epbr123 (talk) 22:49, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
What I see in that thread is a discussion about whether or not that might be so. It is not supported in the guidelines themselves. Cusop Dingle (talk) 22:56, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
To keep this from being another undecipherable RfC result, why not keep it simple and propose one change at a time. I would suggest starting with the changes that it would be easiest to get consensus for, such as (1) removing the 'nominations' criteria from "Pornographic actors and models" or (2) excluding group awards. Kaldari (talk) 03:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with your "method", and I suggest starting from point (2). I just note about point (1) that the multiple nominations criteria that is a standard for any kind of biographical (and not biographical) article, and that is "hard" not presume that someone who is nominated several times and in multiple years as performer of the year, best actress, best starlet is notable in its field. Otherwise we had people who very largery pass ANYBIO and do not pass a sub-SNG, and it would happen just for one category of people, and without an adequate rationale. A bio-SNG must not be discriminatory to a category of people, and must maintain a minimum level of consistency to ANYBIO. About point (2), the whole discussion started from a RfC about group awards and it is a problematic point also in ANYBIO, ie as I've recently seen in an AfD there are awards as "Best ensamble cast" that could include an indiscriminate number of people, also a couple of hundreds, and that are far away from indicating a (presumed) notability. So, I agree that excluding (or at least limit in their weight) group awards from PORNBIO would reach an easy consensus, and I'd also add to ANYBIO#1 something like "Group awards may not be sufficient". Cavarrone (talk) 07:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
The original RfC was quite simple, but still led nowhere. To get a decipherable RfC result, we will need to urge participants not to start any off-topic debates on deprecating Pornbio, or deprecating SNG, etc. Epbr123 (talk) 15:49, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
On the contrary, I think we need to start with a straight-up RFC on whether to retain or deprecate it. If there's consensus that it should still exist, then there might be some point in deciding what it ought to say.—S MarshallT/C22:31, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
I can't see how that RfC would be any different to the original, which failed to get a consensus. Anyway, deprecating Pornbio isn't an option until we can agree on a sensible way to modify ENT. Epbr123 (talk) 23:17, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Useless proposal, even if we deprecate PORNBIO we would find the same criteria we deprecated, larger and stronger, in actual ANYBIO and WP:ENT. Clarifing, if you deprecate criteria 1 & 2 of PORNBIO you will have the same criteria, in a larger form, in ANYBIO#1, if you deprecate criteria 3 of PORNBIO it would return in WP:ENT#3 and again in WP:ANYBIO. Not considering how problematic would be criteria 1 & 2 of WP:ENT (it was wrote so many times)... and I've not yet read valid arguments against this simple "finding of facts". Instead of solving a problem it would result in tons of problems. - Cavarrone (talk) 23:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Considering how difficult is been so far to reach consensus on a simple change to PORNBIO, making the required changes to both ENT and ANYBIO may be harder than you think. Epbr123 (talk) 13:50, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Suggestions for future discussions
I can tell you that the above is likely to be closed as "no consensus for anything". To avoid that in the future, one way would be to make separate threads for the various ideas advanced above like "abolish all PORNBIO criteria", "porn-industry awards do not count towards WP:ENT notability on Wikipedia" or whatever else you think needs proposing. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 18:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Qian Zhijun/Little Fatty debate
Hi! There is a debate over whether Qian Zhijun (actor) is now notable enough for Wikipedia,.
Please see: Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Qian_Zhijun
Especially for people who know Chinese, it is appreciated if you review the noticeboard post!
I have been reverting non-notable children named in articles, especially about schools. This is being challenged at Frisch School with the edit summary including "...the "children" included are not irrelevant people, and they were consulted before inclusion."
I have a real concern from a child protection perspective that we should not be giving out the names of children and the school they attend. Firstly the children fail every notability criteria, their names do not add to any encyclopaedic value, their names are ephemeral - they will be different children involved in each successive year. The argument that they have given consent is not relevant - in many societies children cannot give informed consent until they are 18 and we cannot know the ages of children named in articles (even if they said they were 18 we could never know the truth of the assertion). My question therefore is whether children who are not in any sense notable can be mentioned in articles. Before I wade in again , I would value any other views from more knowledgeable/ experienced editors. Thanks VelellaVelella Talk 12:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, people don't have to be notable to be named in an article that already exists, but if people are going to be named then that should be backed up by a reliable source about the subject as per WP:WEIGHT. Betty Logan (talk) 12:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
My issue with the Frisch School article isn't so much with child protection issues but with the fact that there is no earthly reason to name these children in the first place. They're not notable people and they hold positions that usually change every year. Too many school articles include the names of teachers and pupils who are really completely non-notable. You wouldn't generally write an article about a company and include the names of its executives, except maybe for the chief executive if it was a really notable company and a viable independent article could be written about them, so why do it for schools? The problem is that the most prolific editors of these articles are often pupils at the schools themselves and like to write puffery about their school and include the names of their friends and pupils they look up to. It's certainly not encyclopaedic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Ignoring notability, I would say by both our BLP policy and general stewardship to privacy of children (whether they're editors or not), that we can only mention the names of children attending a school if that is stated in a reliable third-party source. Without sources, they should be removed on sight. --MASEM (t) 14:21, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Am I missing something or are there others who'd find a notability guideline for White-collar workers particularly useful.
I occasionally come across articles about motivational speakers, authors of business books, and various consultants of this or that "business solution". In some cases, a judgement of notability can be made under WP:AUTHOR. However, I'm often forced to fall back on WP:ANYBIO or WP:GNG, but they're so general that I'm left not really knowing how to proceed.
I'm not requesting a full Wikipedia:Notability (business people) guideline. Just a short bullet list of agreed criteria would be useful. Having said that, I would like to see some sort of clarification of what constitutes a reliable source in this field. There's so many business publications, both general and industry specific, that, unless a source is blacklisted, all I can do is assume it's reliable and hope for the best.
For business persons, we simply will have to go by GNG or BIO. I've thought about it much in the past. It's safer, cleaner to go the GNG/BIO way. WifioneMessage13:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Could you elaborate. I ask because, when I first came across Wikipedia:Notability (people), I was surprised by the absence of such a guideline. The various consultants, keynote speakers etc for whom such a guideline would cater, are businesses. They advertise, sell their services and pay taxes just like sole-traders, partnerships and corporations. They can and will spam WP just as readily as any other business. However, they are not clearly covered by WP:ORG. In other words, there is a difference between "John Smith" and "John Smith™" that isn't fully accounted for in current guidelines. What we want to write about is John Smith but, often, all that appears in the article is John Smith™. Therefore, to me, the absence of such a guideline is inexplicable. However, if you foresee difficulties or disadvantages of some sort, I'd be very much interested to know. ClaretAsh14:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
In sole proprietorship concerns, the brand Jim Collins will be considered equivalent to the man Jim Collins. We shouldn't be differentiating the two as technically, if there is no difference between the two for the reliable sources, there is no difference to us. A motivational guru who sells his business through his name will have the double advantage of being rated as per the coverage of his brand. One reason why names like Blue Ivy Carter are trademarked, copyrighted and the stuff is because of this - the name of the person defines the [future] brand and vice versa. However, the moment a Michael Porter sells his consulting through the Monitor Group, you'll have enough reliable sources to consider whether we should have separate articles (or merged articles or no article) depending upon the expanse of coverage in reliable sources. Jack Welch versus Jack Welch Management Institute. Stanley Kaplan versus Kaplan Inc. Reliable sources coverage defines whether we have one single article or separate articles... and so on so forth. In summary, I feel we're pretty comfortable following GNG, BIO, ORG to handle these issues and do not need discrete sections on this topic. Do give your views too in case you think I'm going wrong in my understanding. Kind regards. WifioneMessage16:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I am wary of the instruction creep involved in creating yet another notability guideline, and I am inclined to agree with Wifione's analysis. ClaretAsh, can you explain more about why you think that WP:GNG is inadequate for businesspeople. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 19:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I see Wifione's points and agree. However, I think s/he might have misunderstood some of what I wrote but that was my fault for inadequately adding to the middle of a paragraph I'd already written and saved. What I was trying to suggest was that, when some self-promoter opts to create a page about themselves on WP, they're not writing about themselves, they're writing about their brand (their image). It's the difference between an encyclopedia entry and a press statement. That being the case, and it also being the case that some of these self-promoters operate as businesses (e.g. business consultants, professional speakers etc.), I guess what I'm really proposing is that WP:ORG be extended to apply to them. That might be simpler than the instruction creep inherent in a new guideline.
As for why I think GNG et al is inadequate for the type of article I mentioned above, the short answer is that it doesn't elaborate with examples. Looking at WP:ORG#Primary criteria, for example, I see sections on "Depth of coverage", "Audience" and "Independence of sources", each of which elaborates, sometimes with examples. It's fine to point to the general notability guideline but I've only been here a year. I don't know about the various discussions that decided that this type of source is reliable or that type of of coverage is significant. We have additional guidelines because it is sometimes difficult to determine how significant is significant. Of course, the obvious argument here is that, if I'm not able to make such a judgement about an article, then I shouldn't be editing/prodding/AfDing it. However, if I'm the first (or only) user whose path a bad article crosses, then its clearly up to me to do something. Extending WP:ORG (assuming that's better than starting a new guideline), will make it a bit easier to judge an article's quality and act accordingly.
BTW, I'm sorry for taking so long to get to the point but I tend to develop my thoughts while I write rather than before. ClaretAsh11:36, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for that explanation, ClaretAsh. I think that I now have a better grasp of your concerns, but pls correct me if I have misunderstood something :)
It seems to me that you have two overlapping concerns:
That there are a lot of self-promotional business biographies
That the use by some businesspeople of eponymous companies may mean that their biographical articles are better assessed against WP:ORG
The first one does not of itself seem to me to be a particular problem for businesspeople. Many self-promotional biographies have been created for other types of biography, and we seem to have little problem applying GNG principles to weed out those which are just link-farms to self-published material or regurgitated press releases.
Your second point prompted me to look more closely at WP:ORG#Primary_criteria, and I agree that there is a lot of guidance in there which would be relevant in these cases. However, nearly all of that section is in fact general guidance abut how to apply WP:GNG, and very very little of it is specific to organisations.
So it seems to me that the best solution would be a more radical one: to take the WP:ORG#Primary_criteria, and apply them to all topics. I don't know whether that will be best done by placing them in the same section as WP:GNG, or by creating a new standalone page of guidance ... but it seems to me to be much better than having some universally-valid points hidden away as if they were a special case. It also seems to me to be much better than creating yet another type of specialised guideline, because the more specialised cases we create the less that any editor is likely to know about how to assess the notability of any given topic. GNG is a remarkably effective tool, well founded in the core policy of WP:NOR, and I think that proposals for specialist notability guideline usually arise either of a desire to create end-runs around GNG, or (as in this case) because GNG is not well-enough explained. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 14:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
That sounds like a sensible idea. Anything that makes the job easier would be an improvement. I was going to add to it by suggesting some sort of "Examples" subpage but I think that would attract far more editing than each of the articles whose notability is in question. ClaretAsh05:48, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Gabriel Medina
Gabriel Medina is a Director of Photography and Camera Operator from Vancouver, BC. He has been immersed in the film industry his entire life, beginning his career in Mexico at the tender age of 8 as an actor, where he performed in numerous commercials, films and Mexican television. At the age of 22 he moved to Canada and turned his focus to the technical side of film. After studying Independent Filmmaking at Langara College, he proceeded to camera operate and DOP for a variety of award winning short and feature length films, such as "Locked in a Garage Band" (Feature, DOP), "Throw Away People" (Feature, DOP), “Neutral Territory” (Feature, B-CAM, 2nd UNIT), "Everything and Everyone" (Feature, A-CAM), "Afternoon at Gudrun" (Short Film, DOP), “Wait For Rain” (Short Film, CAM OP), “The Hostage” (Short Film, CAM OP), and many others. He has also worked in the camera department on a large number of music videos, commercials, and feature films.
He is an Associate Member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers, and also runs his own production company, Red Eye Motion Pictures. He is enthusiastic, resourceful and passionate about filmmaking, and has the eye and craft needed to bring ideas to life using light and motion.
There is too little coverage of this person in the press to create a good article. Also it is rarely in the interests of a subject to have an article about them because Wikipedia is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". It might make sense to work on their IMDB posting instead. TFD (talk) 06:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Clarifying "local" for WP:Politician
This guideline divides officeholders into two categories: "Local" or "Statewide/Provincial". In the US especially, "local" is poorly defined. Some "localities" are larger than many "states". New York City, for example, has something like 15 times the population of Wyoming.
It seems like we distinguish between large metropolises (whose leaders are always public figures) and small towns with 'truly local' representatives that are unlikely to be public figures. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Generally local from what I understand it to mean is, do they appear in newspapers for cities other than the one they serve. If they only appear in their local newspaper then no matter the size of the city they aren't likely notable. -DJSasso (talk) 19:51, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
For small cities, that's how I see it too. A tiny town, few professional journalists, not enough sources to work with.
The 'bug' comes when we use "local" to mean 8 million people. If your city is larger than most nations, 'local' isn't really 'local'.
For example, Israel has a population smaller than New York City. We would never insist that someone be covered 'in media outside of Israel' in order to be notable. (And this holds true for any other ~8million nation, not just Israel). --HectorMoffet (talk) 13:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Proposed addition for clarification regarding a person "inheriting notability" from notability of their work, and regarding the meaning of “co-creating”
Resolved
We have this wording –
"The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of… multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.”
This appears to some to contradict WP:NOTINHERITED. I repeatedly see arguments to delete in AFD’s where a person who co-creates a notable artistic work that “that has been the subject of… multiple independent periodical articles or reviews”, but who has not themselves as a person “been the subject of… multiple independent periodical articles or reviews”, citing WP:NOTINHERITED to delete an article on that person.
There is also often a deletion argument based on a work of art being so bad as to not be considered a creation at all by some editors. For example, a camera operator in a recognized work of cinematic art such as Vadim Yusov is clearly a co-creator, but a camera operator for a reality tv show such as Jesse Fleiss (a hack camera operator compared to Yusov) who has to make spontaneous decision at the critical times of real improvisation, in order to increase ratings, is not, because their product is essentially garbage, yet recieves more significnt coverage as a work product that that of the great artist cinematographer.
Both issues have arisen once again in the AFD for Jesse Fleiss. There is an argument that reality television is so bad that a camera operator is not a co-creator, as he would be in a work of cinematic art, even though the reality tv show would be compeletely different with a different camera operator reacting to sponteneous real world events in a different way. Such camera operators direct themselves to the sponteneity of the reality part of the show, and need not even be a good camera operator to have a hit creation. It was argued at the AFD that such camera operators are no more co-creators of cinema than a printer is a co-creator of a novel. It is difficult to argue that a reality tv camera operator, who is essentially a hack, is a "co-creator", since their skills may be so poor and the creation so artistically worthless, but WP is an encycopedia and not an art review journal, so a camera operator for notable bad art inherits the notability of the work just as much as if the work was good art.
I therefore propose that following be added both to WP:CREATIVE and WP:NOTINHERITED, so that the incessant arguments for deletion stop once and for all by having clear language.
“Notability for a person who co-creates a work or body of work can be inherited from the notability of their work product.”
”A person is a co-creator of a work if the work would be significantly different in visual, aural, or conceptual content without that person’s particular contributions at the time of creation. These are sufficient but not necessary criteria for being a co-creator.”
We need to be clear what we are doing with these criteria which come into play in the absence of notability in terms of the Wikipedia:Notability policy that "if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article". This is "to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics", but it is also the inevitable counterpart of Wikipedia:Verifiability, that "It must be possible to attribute all information in Wikipedia to reliable, published sources that are appropriate for the content in question". If a person fails the WP:GNG because of absence of sources then it may not be possible to write an article on them that satisfies the required of verifiability. So in summary, I am against expanding the scope of these exemptions, or at least, counterbalancing with a condition that It must be possible to write an article on the person in question satisfying the requirements of Wikipedia:VerifiabilityCusop Dingle (talk) 18:17, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
While it is perfectly understandable applying WP:CREATIVE to directors and authors, I have rarely seen applied this guideline to cinematographers, never on camera operators. The parision between Vadim Yusov and Jesse Fleiss starts from wrong assumptions: Yusov is a multi-awarded cinematographer, Fleiss is just a camera operator. And anyway we have common sense to distinguish what is worth to mention in an encyclopedia and what is not. And this is the case. Cavarrone (talk) 18:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Cavarrone, then the language of this policy needs to be clarified to have consistent application, and to not waste editor time arguing about application of WP:Creative, i.e., to explictily state that camera operators and cinematographers are exluded (camera operators in relaity television act as camera directors since they are self directed in following interactions with unscripted events to increase ratings). PPdd (talk) 03:11, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
My example of Yusov is a bad one given his notability independent of his work that you cite. I picked my own favorite cinematographer as an example of the extrement opposite of Fleiss. My point is that argument as to whether a reality television camera operator is a co-creator is valid, but needs to be done on a case by case basis, and not just dismissed because the work product, reality television, is garbage as art. Sometimes a camera operator on reality television is clearly a co-creator, especially when they create a distinctive style that causes the show to be commented on in secondary sources, even if their own name never appears in secondary source coverage. PPdd (talk) 00:59, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Proposed addition to clarify definition of "co-creator" in WP:CREATIVE
Resolved
Proposed addition to
"The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews."
Add the following:
"Cinematographers and independent Camera operators in reality television series are not considered co-creators of the work or body of work."
This proposal is based on the overwhelming delete vote here. There is no reason to repeat an AFD with the same arguments for another cinematographer or independent camera operator, or to have an inconsistent application of the meaning of "co-create" in WP:CREATIVE. PPdd (talk) 03:23, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Oppose: False problem, WP:CREATIVE is enough clear. Looking at the AfD, at the above discussion and at past discussions, it seems you are the first and only editor to argue that a reality show-camera operator could pass the WP:CREATIVE criterium. Camera operators almost never have "a mayor role" in creating an artistic work, and Jesse Fleiss is not an exception; easy test: you will never find a reliable secondary source that refers to him as creator/author of the shows he worked in... Cavarrone (talk) 08:23, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
What is your source for saying that camera operators with discretion as to what to shoot "almost never have a major role in creating a film work"? PPdd (talk) 02:39, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. I see the point, but we don't want to get down to this level of detail, we don't want to encruft our rules with detailed instances more than is necessary. I think it's pretty obvious that "co-creator" means something like a co-author when there are two authors of a book, that sort of thing. I don't think very many people think that it would apply to a cameraman or set decorator or gaffer or whatever, and in the AfD cited no one did except for one lone person. If it comes up again just point to that AfD as precedent or something, or just shoot it down again. It just isn't likely to come up that often, I don't think. Herostratus (talk) 08:01, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Resolving a logical inconsistency between WP:CREATIVE and WP:NOTINHERITED
We now have
"3.The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, THAT (not "who") has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews."
1. Some editors argue "that" refers to the (a) work (co-creation), not to the (b) person (co-creator). So #3 says it is sufficient for a person to be s notable that their work got significant coverage and so is notable, i.e., notability of a work is inherited by the co-creator. In this case, the language of WP:NOTINHERITED must be modified for clarity.
2. Other editors argue "that" refers to the (b) person (co-creator), not to the (a) work (co-creation). The person themself has to be the subject of the multiple articles etc., i.e, the person must already be notable. In this case, the "criteria" #3 adds nothing at all, since the person already has to be notable by coverage of the person, and coverage of the work adds nothing, and is not a "criterion" at all. It should be deleted since it adds nothing.
We cannot have it both ways and be consistent. Either #3 says notability of the co-creation, by coverage in sources, makes the co-creator notable without the co-creator having coverage. Or the co-creator has to be independently notable by coverage of the person, in which case #3 adds nothing to establish notability of the person, who must be independently covered and is thus already notable. It is not a "criterion" at all, and is entirely irrelevant.
I am so far merely pointing out an inconsistency, not proposing a resolution of it. So far this is not a proposal calling for "support" or "oppose". We do not vote on matters of logical inference.
Here is one proposal to resolve the inconsistency, and to clarify things. If it is "opposed", I invite other proposals to resolve the inconsistency. But merely "opposing" the following proposed wording, without suggesting an alternative wording for resolution of the inconsistency, leaves the logical inconsistency in our policies and guidelines.
Proposal for resolution of inconsistency (and call for alternative proposals for resolution)
A. Deleting #3 entirely, since it adds nothing because the co-creator already has to be notable by sources on the co-creator, not just on the co-creation.
Or
B. Adding the following to clarify this -
"WP:CREATIVE applies to creation of any notable thing, not just to a work of art. A person is notable if they are a significant participant in the co-creation of anything notable by Wikipedia standards, even if the co-creator would not otherwise be notable. In other words, notability is inherited by a co-creator of a thing, by virtue of notability of the thing created. WP:NOTINHERITED does not apply to inheriting notablity from one's own creation."
Discussion and positions on first specific proposed resolution
Note: If my specific proposal is above "opposed", then we still must come up with an alterative proposal if we are to resolve the inconsistency. We must not merely "oppose" my suggested resolution. Please discuss "That" v "who", and the other issues raised above reagrding inconsistency, ambiguity, and/or irellevancy, and propose alternative resolutions, in the sub-section below this one. This is for discussing and taking positions on the specific proposal.
Note, the following comment was striken after some of the comments below, and was replaced with a more clear statement of the point I am making above.So if a person does not receive significant secondary source coverage, and creates something that is of little value, they are still notable if their creation is, according to WP:CREATIVE. I would have thought the language of this guideline would already be clear, but apparently many editors have difficulty understanding the difference between "sufficient" and "necessary", which is not to belittle their other skills at editing, just that this clarification would be useful to such editors. It is common, even at a university, for people not to understand the difference between "necessary" and "sufficient", or not to be able to reason from logic. This creates unneeded argumentation that only serves to point out this fact, and helping in this understanding by clarifying language is good. This proposal is based on my experience of a number of AFD's in which the value of the thing created as art is debated, or the notability of the person independently of their co-creation. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jesse Fleiss for one of many examples of this, in which the delete discussion focuses on whether or not reality television is art or not, and on whether Jesse Fleiss hismelf received significant secondary source coverage. It should have focused ONLY on whether he was a significant co-creator (e.g., arguing that a camera operator is not a significant co-creator is valid), and on whether the body of work received significant secondary source coverage. It turned out that he was not a significant co-creator of the body of work, but if he had been a significant co-creator, this article would have been deleted solely because he himself received little or no secondary source coverage, or because the film form (hack reality television) was not considered to be art. By these arguments, because he himself was not the subject of secondary source coverage, and because the body of work was disliked as an art form by many editors, the article would have been deleted because the language in WP:Creative was not clear enough for those who could not understand the distinction between "necessary" and "sufficient", or reason well from elementary logic. PPdd (talk) 00:32, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - Notability is not about whether we want to write an article, or even ought to, it starts from whether we can. Verifiability requires us to have "reliable, published sources that are appropriate for the content in question". If there are no such sources, then we cannot write an article about the subject however much we think one ought to exist. So a notability guideline that declares that as subject is notable irrespective of the existence of sources cannot stand. The "exceptions" to the GNG are about interpreting the word signficant in "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". The proposal does not address these issues. Furthermore, it gives no reason why creative co-creation should be given such a privileged position. If a co-creator is not referred to in reliable sources, we cannot write an article on them; if they are described as co-creators but there is not significant material about them as such, then they can be cited as co-creators in the article on the thing so created. A mere list of some of the things that a co-creator is mentioned as having co-created is not a reliably sourced article, since that would be original research by way of synthesis, and, perhaps more importantly, not encyclopedic. An article merely listing the things that a person has been recorded as involved is not a balanced view of their oeuvre as a whole. We look to independent reliable sources for that, not our own efforts. Cusop Dingle (talk) 07:44, 7 March 2012 (UTC) Added the "oppose" to make my position clearer. Cusop Dingle (talk) 19:31, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Comment - Your addition doesn't "clarify" things, it "changes" things, making people who would now not be considered notable (as a Wikipedia standard) suddenly notable. The creators of a company, sporting club, ... are often not notable, certainly in the vast majority of cases where the company or club in itself is barely notable. Often, nothing more than a name is known about these people (at least from reliable secondary sources, primary sources may of course contain more info). Let's say we can find out who the creators were of MFM 92.6 (random article). Why would that make those people notable? Fram (talk) 08:21, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree that Fram's example of a "barely notable" company would clearly not tranfer notability to the co-creator. But the criteria as it now stands in this guideline in WP:CREATIVE bullet point #3, quoted above, is that notability IS inherited if "significant or well-known work". Note the words "significant" and "well known". That means that notability is only inherited by a co-creator if their work is significant or well known, and not if it is just "barely notable". PPdd (talk) 20:09, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - I agree that this is a real change, and not for the better. I am not sure what the proposer's discussion about "sufficient" and "necessary" is intended to reference. I think that WP:NOTINHERITED is intended to apply to exactly these situations, where no article is needed for the creator, since the totally of her fame, if any, is in her creation, and her mention in that article is sufficient, and a separate article about her is neither necessary nor appropriate. And any such article about her would be likely to be thin on the ground for lack of significant coverage in reliable third party publications. That is why we have subsidiary guidelines like WP:BLP1E and the broader discussion at Wikipedia:1E. There are also redirects that lead from names of people to their creations. If Margaret Mitchell had not written Gone with the Wind it is unlikely that Wikipedia would have an article about her, but because of her creation, not only did the book receive significant coverage, but she did as well, and she has an article. That is not true of all creators. --Bejnar (talk) 18:18, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Reply to Bejnar. Sufficient refers to the criteria that if a person does not get significant coverage of themselves to establish notability, such as be repeatedly being mentioned in passing with a reliable fact about them (which can be used as a source to fill out an article after notability is established, but does not itself establish notabity), it is still sufficient to establish notability that their work is majorly notable. But just "barely notable" is never sufficient. WP:CREATIVE gives criteria for the work being what I am calling "majorly" notable, i.e., "the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews". That is, when a work is a topic so notable that someone makes a film or writes a book about it, or it is in multiple and independent sources, it is majorly, not just barely, notable, and this notability is thus inherited by the co-creator under criteria #3 in WP:Creative. PPdd (talk) 20:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - Let's maintain "notability is not inherited." This proposal would lead to many new articles for persons lacking multiple reliable and independent sources with significant coverage, created by friends or relatives of otherwise nonnotable persons who are claimed to be "co-creators" of something that is notable. Someone' s ancestor was a "co-creator" of Mount Rushmore, because he operated a jackhammer chiselling on it, or he hammered into shape or riveted copper plates onto the Statue of Liberty, or was an ironworker or engineer of the Empire state building, or helped plan or dig the Panama Canal. The participation might be verified by some big book listing everyone who worked on the project, with no significant coverage in any reliable and independent source. If someone was a major contributor to the creation of something notable, then there is likely to be adequate coverage in multiple reliable and independent sources. If such references cannot be found, then we should be spared articles based on assertions of inherited notability as "co-creators" just because they operated a camera or a boom microphone on a TV show, or poured concrete when Hoover Dam was built. There will always be people who were basically a "pair of hands," a flunky, a gopher or a workman, some fungible hireling, whose friends, or descendants might wish to create an article for on the basis of their "co-creating" the notable thing they helped with. A "camera operator for TV shows" is a skilled worker, but so is a crane operator or welder building a major bridge. Movies have tons of credits for workers, from camera operators to gaffers, drivers, and accountants. They do not all need or deserve articles just for being in the credits. Besides the highly notable things I mentioned above, there are many barely notable things which scrape by with only a few adequate references themselves, and the main creators only get a bare mention in references, let alone their "co-creators." A bare mention documenting someone as a creator or co-creator of a barely notable work should only justify mentioning them in the main article about that work. Edison (talk) 20:53, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Comment - The arguments opposing are not making sense to me. Why have
"3.The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.",
if it is also necessary that the person has to be independently notable without this? The quote implies notability is inherited.
It says "that has been the subject of", not "who has been the subject of..." If the person has to be notable independently of their co-creation (i.e., notability is not inherited from the co-creation), then the entire quoted expression adds no new criteria at all, so is redundant and should be deleted. Comments? 18:24, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
As I said above, the general notability guideline is inevitable given our requirement that it be possible to write a verifiable article at all. The special guidelines are more about interpreting the term "significant". If a subject fails the GNG completely, in the sense that there are no sources, then it will be impossible to write an article anyway, however much notability the subject may inherit. Cusop Dingle (talk) 19:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Reliable secondary sources that cannot be used to establish notablity, can be used to fill out an article, such as government licencing records. These could not be usable to establish notability, which is done the the significance of notability of the work, but can be used to write an article once significant notability is inherited from a major work. PPdd (talk) 21:16, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Discussion of inconsistency/ambiguity/irrelevancy and other proposed resolutions
If my specific proposal is opposed, then we still must come up with an alterative proposal to resolve the inconsistency, not merely oppose my suggested resolution. Please discuss "That" v "who", and other issues raised above, and propose other resolutions. PPdd (talk) 19:55, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Alternative proposal "That" -> "Who"
An instant resolution to the ambiguity is to replace "that" with "who", which would then be a requirement that the person be notable by standards of secondary sources on the person, and give criteria (which are redundant as already being stated elsewhere, but at least it resolves the logical inconsistency). Without this, adding criteria for notability of the co-creation adds nothing to establiching notability of the person, which is the very purpose of WP:CREATIVE bullet point #3. (note that I oppose this proposal, but merely state it as a resolution to the inconsistency resulting from the amiguity. I think a person should automaticaly be notable even without much secondary source coverage of them, if their work is highly notable, and possibly be considered notable if their work is moderately notable.) PPdd (talk) 20:02, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - as a change to the content not the presentation of this criterion, and a change not for the better, as tending to allow inherited notability override the need to verify our articles. I don't see the ambiguity - or at least, it seems clear to me that "that" in "... a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews" refers to the work not the creator: hence the assertion that this is achange not a clarification. Firstly, who rather than that would be required to refer to a person; secondly, works rather than people are the normal topic of "reviews". For example, we have an article on Junius, even though we don't know who he is apart from being the author of the Letters of Junius, because the latter are notable. If the only thing in the entire world that we knew about Junius was that fact, we would still find it hard to write an article about him, because there would be nothing verified. We are able to write a longer article becase Junius, as it happens, is notable, but only by virtue of being the author of this work. Cusop Dingle (talk) 20:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
I oppose it for the same reasons as you, and only propsed it to resolve the following ambiguity, inconsistency, or irrelevancy problem. The ambiguity is in saying "notability is never inherited" in one breath, then saying if a work is so major that there is a book or movie made about it, or it is multiply and independently reviewed, then this makes the co-creator notable, even if they are not independently notable, so notability is inherited. This is an inconstency with WP:NOTINHERITED. On the other hand, if we are requiring notability of the person under standards not in bullet point #3, then why have bullet point #3 at all, since it adds no criteria at all. So there is no single, consistent interpretation that does not produce either
1a. ambiguity a. - You and I are in agreement about "that" referring to the work, not the creator, but the Jesse Fleiss AFD shows at least some editors interpret "that" to aply to the creator, and need some help with logic, since they then essentially argued that bullet point number 3 NECESSARILY requires a book or movie or multiple independent sources on the person, not just the work.
1b ambiguity b - Co-creator is so vague that some might think a gaffer in a movie, or one of many camera operators in one film, might be considered a "co-creator". That is the current film industry standard and those who made it would take this position. At the extreme opposite end is that only the director of a movie is the creator, and the camera operator (e.g., Sven Nykvist, who shot Tarkovsky's Sacrifice, had a camera inside the camera since Tarkovsky did not trust him like he did Vadim Yusov, so some might say the great Nykvist was a mere camera operator and not co-creator on this one particular film, while others would argue vehmently. This ambiguity needs at least partial resolution, which is suggested in my proposed wording. (Another aoplogy is in order here. It is developing that I am making one proposal to resolve more than one ambiguity, and maybe these should be split into separate subsections and threads.)
2. inconsistency- A logical implication (and not all WP editors have training in basic logic, and even less readers do, if a work is so majorly notable that it has a book or movie about it, or has multiple independent reviews, then #3 makes the creator notable even if there are not multiple things about the creator, but merely many reliable, but passing, references to construct an article from. As Fram notes above, it does not do so for only a "barely notable" work. So
"NOTABILITY IS INHERITED by the works's creator from their MAJORLY NOTABLE WORKS (as defined in bullet point #3), but NOTABILITY IS NOT INHERITED from BARELY NOTABLE WORKS".
In fact, I would propose at a minium this as an addition to counter the inconsistency. Reading the AFD of Jesse Fleiss, we can see that at least some editor read WP:NOTINHERITED to mean that a very major and very well known work does not confer notability on the creator, i.e., that criteria #3 in WP:CREATIVE is being ignored, and so needs clarification in light of WP:NOTINHERITED.
3. irrelevant - If an editor makes the interpretation (as many did in the Jesse Fleiss AFD or associated user talk pages, that the person MUST have multiple sourcing, in addition to their work meeting criteria #3 of WP:CREATIVE, then why have #3 at all? PPdd (talk) 20:45, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Another propopsal re Inheriting notability from one's majorly notable creations
WP:CREATIVE bullet point #3 clearly says that a person is notable if their work is significantly notable, and defines standards for this. In spite of this, there is repeated AFD citation or WP:NOTINHERITED by editors arguing that "notability is never inheritied". While I believe there is already consistency in a strict reading of these guidelines, the fact is, most editors do not do such a carful reading, casually cite WP:NOTINHERITED, vote to delete an article, and never come back. Articles on creators of significantly notable works, who are not otherwise notable, especially stub articles on the creators of the singnificantly notable work, are thus deleted in the AFD just because there is not clarification.
I prose the following to fix this -
"Notability is inherited by the works's creator from substantially notbale works by a creator, but is not inherited from works that are not substantially notable. "Substantially notable" can be established by having a book or movie about the work, or multiple independent reviews of it. In such cases, it is not necessary for the person to have any substantial coverage as a topic themelves.
The point is to avoid the countless AFD discussions with editors all over the map on interpreting WP:NOTINHERITED as making bullet point #3 in WP:CREATIVE have not substance. PPdd (talk) 20:57, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
That would resove the issue in that it would remove the apparent inconsistency and result in a more strict WP:NOTINHERITED standard, but that is not the only possible resolution, and it would completely change the guideline in application to creators of a significantly notable work. Removing the bullet point would mean that a person who creates a significantly (not barely) notable creation would no longer inherit notability from that significantly notable creation. The currently inherit notability in a proper and logical reading of our policies and guidelines. The main problem is that most editors do not do a proper reading, superficially read "notinherited", and delete that which the bullet point three says to keep. PPdd (talk) 02:40, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Someone who claims to be a scientist, although they might be considered fringe, is notable if they are widely cited or considered important in the community of all scientists. Of course, that might include being widely cited for the purposes of refutation. Cusop Dingle (talk) 17:48, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Suggesting a Rule of Thumb
I've been going through orphaned articles. Too often, I find an article about a person, but there is no article about whatever the person is supposed to be noted for. Examples: An actor who appeared in one film, but there is no article about the film; the head of a government agency that is not article-worthy; an entrepreneur who founded a company that does not have an article; an academic whose school's article does not mention the department he is in. So, I would like to propose the following rule of thumb:
If the subject of a biography is noted for something that has no article, write an article about that thing first. Then see if it's still necessary to write an article about the person.
It might be phrased better than I have done here, or more succinctly as in "Don't create orphaned articles about people!" but I think this should part of the guideline somewhere. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that having such an article automatically makes the person notable, but if there is no such article, that would be a dealbreaker. Listmeister (talk) 19:02, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
What if the actor gets a lot of coverage, but the film doesn't? Seriously, nothing wrong with being orphaned. Maybe one day it'll have something to link to, and if not, it doesn't really matter at all. DreamFocus23:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Medals will be an example of this. I would consider that every Victoria cross recipient is notable, but the incident for which they were awarded the medal might not yet have an article, especially if it was an obscure military skirmish from over fifty years ago. One thing to remember here is that the pedia at present is massively skewed towards recent events and certain subjects that interest the editors we've acquired in our first eleven years. Another thing to remember is that directing volunteers is akin to herding lolcats, if someone wants to write an article about a notable sixteenth century resident of their village it is entirely possible that they don't want to write the article about the battle, book or invention for which that person is renowned. So there are plenty of articles yet to be written, and it would be overly bureaucratic to insist that they be written in a particular order. ϢereSpielChequers11:39, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
Please post EXACTLY what you want to change it to, and get a strawpoll before editing the page
I see the page has been locked now for edit warring. The current version is what was there before, only with a bit extra in there saying Nominations and awards in scene-related and ensemble categories are excluded from consideration. I'm against that, for reasons stated previously. Anyway, no one can be expected to read the long discussions back and forth and keep track of it, nor can you expect everyone to keep coming back here day after day as things drag on. After you are down discussing whatever, then do a strawpoll to see if there is consensus, to make it easier to find and for people to participate. DreamFocus23:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
No. This is not a page that needs permanent full protection, procedural rules and seniors to micro-adjudicate on every discussion.
There has been a little non-harmonious editing. There’s been a few more reverts than is preferable. Please consider Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary.
In my opinion, Morbidthoughts & Hipocrite have been editing towards a middle ground. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz & Erpert, while editing in perfectly good faith, have identifiable non-central positions. I suggest that Hullaballoo Wolfowitz & Erpert restrict themselves to 0RR, and everyone else restricts themselves to 1RR. If you find yourself restricted, consider that it is very easy to establish on consensus on a specific edit, and when two or three agree to a reversion, there is always someone else willing to do it. But it is important, in a several-party discussion, to have some specific edits to focus the discussion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:24, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Its easier to gauge consensus with a strawpoll, instead of people just editing the page back and forth until someone give up arguing with them, or less people are around to notice. No changes have been made in that area in months, it all reverted, other than one administrator adding a "disputed tag" after arguing in an AFD and its deletion review the right of people to ignore guidelines they didn't like, and delete something anyway. DreamFocus20:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes. If multiple edits are reverted, a strallpoll can be helpful. However, strawpolls are simplest and easiest if they are phrased in support (or against) a defined edit. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:36, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Splitting section about porn entertainers?
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This discussion is withdrawn. Obviously, there won't be any supporters of this proposal, but let's await for further proposals of PORNBIO.
After all talk here about notability of porn entertainers, I am proposing a split of WP:PORNBIO into a new page and then addition of {{failed}} banner in the proposed page to indicate a failure about this guideline about people directly and explicitly related to pornography. I must tell you specific case: I have merged Adam Bristol (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) into A Young Man's World (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) because he did only that film, in spite of accolades for his sexual performance in that film. Those guidelines may have been somewhat helpful in the past, but right now I am proposing that PORNBIO guideline be history. --George Ho (talk) 21:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose I suspect that completely eliminated PORNBIO would work out very poorly in terms of the discussions we'd be left with at AfD. I'd rather see us find some consensus here, even if it is not one I'm that happy with. We have made some progress, we have a rough consensus that's sticking on group/ensemble awards. What's left? --joe deckertalk to me21:59, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose The discussions these past few months indicate there is a consensus to have some version of PORNBIO, the question is how to write it. — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk22:00, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose The specific case you made (Adam Bristol, an actor nominated for some minor group awards) is already addressed by the current version of PORNBIO, that appears to have some consensus. As long discussed, eliminating this guideline would let us with two specific guidelines, WP:ANYBIO and WP:NACTOR, that would result more inclusive and more vague than PORNBIO. Cavarrone (talk) 22:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
PORNBIO: yes or no? (maybe)
I have closed Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)/Archive_2012#Improving_PORNBIO as "no consensus", because that's what there is. However, I didn't see anybody convincingly argue that it was fine the way it was. Nobody's happy with it as it is. So, it seems to me that a compromise solution could be reached. I think those who support removing WP:PORNBIO altogether and just using WP:NACTOR for pornographic actors would compromise if enough support coalesced around one particular improvement to PORNBIO. Likewise, those who support keeping a separate guideline for pornographic actors would compromise on a single version if the alternative were to delete PORNBIO completely. So, I think the way forward is for people to focus on their second choice. That is, in future discussions on this, say what you would most like to happen, but also say what you would be willing to accept instead. Otherwise, it's just another ride 'round the carousel.--Aervanath (talk) 22:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Well the problems of using WP:NACTOR have been discussed before. I think there is resistance to that from both those who favor a specific PORNBIO guideline and those who would prefer it be removed. While I recognize that "No Consensus" usually results in the continuation of the status quo, I would question whether text that has no consensus for inclusion and is routinely ignored in deletion discussions can be fairly marked as a guideline. Eluchil404 (talk) 01:52, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
PORNBIO, PORNBIO #1 in particular, is under focaas today at WP:DRV.
Some of the AVN awards are routine promotion. The awarding body is presumably hoping that by conferring these awards, further coverage/publicity will be stimulated. For some of the awards, this appears to not succeed. If no independent source reports the awarding of the award, then the award has not generated independent coverage as we require, and it is not indicative of wikipedia-notability. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:55, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
I think that is an excellent solution as the conferring of an award is supposed to be shorthand for their being coverage out there. SpartazHumbug!11:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't think this would help much. A lot of these awards do have an independent source, eg. [5], so the proposal won't go far enough at tightening pornbio. If you want to cut down the awards, restricting pornbio 1 to Best Actor/Actress or Performer of the Year awards would be better. Epbr123 (talk) 11:30, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Is xbiz a reliable source? The reference is just a listing so we couldn't possibly use that as a source for notability. Generally we expect detailed coverage to counbt for one of the two sources. I was kinda expecting us to use more mainstream sources for this determination which would allow this SNG to fit more closely to GNG and BLP. SpartazHumbug!11:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Any Additional Criteria that required the passing of the Basic Criteria would be rather cyclical and redundant. If there's consensus that porn stars should only have articles if they pass GNG, then so be it, but WP:NACTOR and WP:ANYBIO will have to be amended to specifically exclude porn stars. Epbr123 (talk) 12:13, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Assuming that xbiz is acceptable as an independent source (I would err towards accepting), the content of that link needs to be divided into the prose preamble and the reproduction of the full list of awardees. The full list of awardees must be dismissed with respect to notability, because the list, or any copy of the list, is primary source material. It doesn't say anything. Mere copying does not transform primary soruces to secondary sources. There is no creative content generation in copying. So, all that counts is the preamble, and indeed, for all the subjects named in the preamble, the source contributes evidence of notability. There was discussion of some subject winning some awards. The failure of the journalist to directly comment on other subjects winning other awards actually speaks to the non-notability of the other subjects and other awards. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:52, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
A disadvantage of the proposal is that an AVN Award for Best Actress, for example, would confer notability in some years but not others, depending on what a journalist decides to mention in the preamble. Epbr123 (talk) 02:01, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
For the sake of consistency, it would be better to find those awards that are often mentioned in preambles and use them as the indicators. Even better would be to find the awards that best correlate with a person passing GNG. However, your proposal is better than the existing guideline and many of the other proposals, so I'll go along with it if it helps to finally reach a consensus on this. Epbr123 (talk) 07:29, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
The last time this came up was just 24 March 2012. And its been brought up time and time again over the years. There is no consensus to delete it, so why keep trying? You are notable if you have won an award which is accepted as significant in your field, have made what is considered a significant achievement in your field, etc. We have the sub-guidelines to show that things can be notable by means other than just the general notability guideline of getting significant coverage in reliable sources. You need to have this separate from the rest since otherwise people will argue that pornographers and their awards don't count and AFDs will just drag on endlessly. If any want to eliminate pornographic articles altogether, go to the Village Voice or wherever, and make a proposal there. DreamFocus20:28, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I think the disputed tag goes too far. Its not that the PORNBIO guideline is entirely unwanted. It's that some AVN awards are poor indicators of the existance of suitably sourced material to build a biography. A single award out of the blue for "Unsung Starlet of the Year" for example, seems a less confident indicator than a string of nonimations. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:22, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
I support the suggestion to tighten the criteria for inclusion. I think that this issues could be clarified as follows. awards are useful indicators for notability only in as much as they select works of enduring importance. — if the award fails to seperate good actor/movies from and bad ones then the award is a false artifact and insignificant for establishing notability.BO; talk18:06, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Here's a summary of some of the proposals made so far in these discussions:
Delete PORNBIO and let the notability of porn stars be judged by the more inclusive WP:ENT and the vague WP:ANYBIO.
Delete PORNBIO and amend WP:ENT so that porn stars are excluded
Delete PORNBIO and fix the inclusiveness of WP:ENT in general
Require that porn star articles meet GNG by deleting PORNBIO and excluding them from WP:ENT and WP:ANYBIO
Replace the current PORNBIO criteria with a requirement that the subject's real name and date of birth can be sourced
Reduce the inclusiveness of PORNBIO's awards criteria by limiting the awards to the more notable AVN Awards, and maybe a few others that represent various genres and nations
Limit the awards to those for individuals, rather than for scene awards
Limit the awards to those for Best Actress/Actor
Limit the award wins to those that have been independently reported
I would not create further confusion in this mass of suggestions, but at this point I would mention even my idea, that is adding to PORNBIO#1 and ANYBIO#1 criteria something like "Group awards may not be sufficient". Citing myself: "the whole discussion started from a RfC about group awards and it is a problematic point also in ANYBIO, ie as I've recently seen in an AfD there are awards as "Best ensamble cast" that could include an indiscriminate number of people, even a couple of hundreds, and that are far away from indicating a (presumed) notability"... Cavarrone (talk) 19:38, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
While I'd view it as more of an interim step than a long-term resolution, I've altered the language in criteria 1 and 2 to more closely reflect the pattern of outcomes in AFD and DRV discussions, as well as the discussions here. I would personally prefer even more restrictive language (and in general would endorse Morbidthoughts's past proposal to eliminate nominations from the criteria), but believe this change will be helpful in moving the general process forward, so we can end the otherwise interminable cycle of discussions about the theoretical issue of how and whether to apply guidelines exactly as written even as community consensus evolves. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:57, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
You should change the language after such a consensus is met. Right now, it's still under discussion (meaning there is no "resolved" or "please do not modify it" notice here). That said, I reverted it. ErpertWho is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?07:36, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
NO. This is a wiki. Pages should be edited directly See WP:BRD. If you disagree directly, then it needs to be discussed. There is already a significant amount of comment above. There is so much, that it is not obvious as to what exactly any single peron means in the context of the others. Direct edits focus the discussion. If you disagree with Hullaballoo's edit, your should preferably, if possible, improve on his edit, or if you disagree entirely with his direction, say right here and now what iti is about the edit that you disagree with. There is ample evidence that many people consider PORNBIO to be out of date. It therefore needs updating. Often, it is surprising what little change is required to reach a consensus. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:51, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Let's be clear - PORNBIO #1, and probably #2 is currently an invalid argument at AFD. If it gets made, it will likley be ignored by admins who are aware it's depreciated. If you want a specific guideline for pornstars, you need to bow to the consensus that being awarded one of the self-serving "awards," is not enough to write a bio. Failure to do this just means that everytime someone says "PORNBIO" in afd, people are going to say "disregard that vote, pornbio is depreciated, the only reason the link works is because of partisans." Hipocrite (talk) 11:50, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
PORNBIO is only as depreciated as AfD participants decide it is. Closing admins have only ignored PORNBIO once in the past six months, and that was in a borderline AfD. Would you be satisfied with Hullaballoo Wolfowitz's proposed change? Epbr123 (talk) 13:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
With all due respect, I am really getting frustrated with people just ignoring my points. If you don't agree with me, that's fine, but when I say something that argues in a certain direction, it seems like other users take a WP:IDONTCARE approach and then just repeat what they've already been saying. Let me clarify:
@SmokeyJoe: Yes, this is a wiki, and yes, anyone can edit it. But one person, much less a non-admin, cannot just take it upon himself to change a guideline the same way s/he would change a regular article (and it's still a guideline, whether you want it to be or not; just look at the template at the top of the page...and actually, I just noticed that Hipocrite tried to do that as well).
@Hipocrite: The points you mentioned in PORNBIO are not invalid, and for the umpteenth time, PORNBIO is not depreciated. Why? Because as I just mentioned above, this discussion is still open, thus meaning that no consensus has been met yet. Where on WP:CONSENSUS does it state that consensus has been met before the discussion is closed?
Editors aren't "ignoring" your points. They're clearly and expressly rejecting them as invalid, often providing detailed policy-, practice-, and guideline-based explanations of why you're wrong. This interminable string of don't-change-anything-without-consensus-and-you-can't-have-consensus-whenever-I-disagree posts is tiresome, tendentious, and increasingly likely to be treated as WP:POINTY disruption by the community. You should have paid attention to the rather overwhelming sentiment against your arguments at the Brgitte B DRV, particularly DGG's. Insisting that people are "ignoring" your reports, when they make detailed responses that you happen to disagree with, is certainly discourteous and a departure from the facts. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:02, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Erpert, what are your thoughts on what should happen to PORNBIO? Isn't HW proposed rewording a fair compromise between those who want pornbio deleted and those who want to keep it but can't decide how to tighten the awards criteria? Epbr123 (talk) 20:14, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
I believe HW's proposed change would more accurately reflect what already happens at AfD, and I support that as a step in the right direction. In the larger picture, my preference would be to develop a guideline that has more direct and objective guidance. Without meaning to equate the two groups of people in any way, the practical matter of determining notability and sourcing is analogous with, say, contestants of Miss Universe and Miss World--figure a few hundred contestants each year. While many contestants get easy-to-find mainstream coverage, many don't, or not coverage that's easy to find. We're happy in those cases, with the barest sourcing, to have a stub that describes someone as Miss Mali 1957. Secondary sourcing is often hard to find, in some cases with such contestants people have relied on captions placed by a single photographer, just to provide some hint of a secondary source. Harmless in the cases I've seen, but really, it seems far more sensible, and reliable, to simply allow Miss Mali 1957 to be sourced from official pageant data and call it a day. And that provides a certain consistent level of coverage, which is nice. Prominent porn awards seem analogous, although affecting perhaps a much smaller number of biographies. I'd guess that a handful of AVN (and similar) awards probably should rise to this level--probably more than the two awards suggested at (8), but not a ton more, and limited to individual awards, leaving me to think that an SNG based on some combo of (6) and (7), perhaps allowing (9) as an alternative, would be sensible. --joe deckertalk to me15:11, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
My objections are not substantive? Why? Because you don't agree? How is "you should change the wording after a consensus is met" not a valid reason? Just because you don't agree doesn't make it invalid, you know. And as I said before, since there is no "resolved" or "please do not modify it" notice here, the discussion is still open. But of course, since it's me, you probably don't care. (You didn't seem to mind when Cavarrone did it, now, did you?) BTW, changing a guideline by using an essay to back it up isn't the best idea. ErpertWho is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?17:38, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Erpert, no, I find few of your comments substantive. I find you to post comments tending to empty rhetoric. You are disagreeing, but you are not speaking to the detail of what you agree or disagree with. You have been doing this here, at the recent DRV, and the preceding AfD. You are probably getting frustrated that most people are tending to ignore you? I don’t not-care about you, dislike you, or even much disagree with you except to say that you are not saying very much of substance.
Do you think that PORNBIO is perfect as-is? Do you think that an AVN award for best unsung starlet is a suitable basis for an article? Do you not respect, or not understand the statement: “direct coverage in independent secondary sources”. Are there some awards that indicate notability more confidently than others? I say the unsung starlet award on its own does not. Others say none of the awards do and the whole PORNBIO guideline should go? What exactly do you want to happen? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:53, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm going to have to chime in and say I don't agree with HW's definition of the term significant to include "the nature of the awarding organization" because I know how he interprets that. He likes to argue in the AfDs about whether an award is valid or legitimate when the proper criteria is notability. The awarding process could be corrupt as far as I care but as long as independent sources care to report on it, it's a sign of ntoability. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:28, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
That, is a pretty productive post. An even more productive post would be a suggested wording that you think is clearer to interpret. Even more productive again would be an edit to the guideline showing what a better descriptive, more easily interpreted guideline would look like. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
I personally think the guideline is fine as is, but since most people don't think so, I'll respect the consensus for that. But what there isn't a consensus for is how the guideline should be reworded, and because this is a guideline, a consensus should be made here for the new rewording before the rewording is actually done. Why, exactly, is there objection to that idea? (Side note: not once did I bring up AfD or DRV in this entire discussion, so I'm not exactly sure why other users are.) ErpertWho is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?06:58, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Erpert, you risk making it easier to simply strike the entire PORNBIO section. It is not hard to make the case that it doesn't, and never did, have consensus support from the wider Wikipedian community, and if attemtps to update it are blocked "solely due to no consensus", then we start to hear a lot of "no consensus". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:57, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Smokey, you can lecture us about productivity all you want but the fact still remains that any substantive change to the guidelines should reflect consensus. That means the burden is on the people wishing to change the guidelines to establish consensus for the changes. I have told you what I have a problem with and why. You go ahead and try to address the problem instead of empty lecturing rhetoric about productivity. Morbidthoughts (talk) 08:12, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Sorry Morbid, I guess I came through way too critical, when I didn't mean to criticise you at all. All my focus was on Erpert's twice reversion of HW's productive edit. Right now I want to reinstate HW's edit and proceed from there, but I don't want to revert again. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:33, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
OK, I underestimated your objection. "Has won a significant award, taking both the nature of the awarding organization and of the award category into account." I thought you could reword the underlined part, to give a better definition of "significant". I'd prefer to require specific mention, not listing, in any reliable source even of not entirely independent, of the awardee receiving the award. Or am I too pro-GNG? The alternative is to delineate significant/prestigious AVN awards from less significant/prestigious awards. Are you inclined to go in either of these directions? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:53, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Another problem is something that HW has alluded to, is that I believe in eliminating all nominations as a sign of notability, basically removing the 2nd criteria of PORNBIO and the respective part of ANYBIO, as being a more objective criteria than debating about certain award categories. It may seem drastic but it would eliminate the supermajority of the the problematic porn articles. On your amended proposal, if we do try to implement a definition of "a significant award", this definition must also apply to anybio. I don't want porn singled out. Is someone who won the academy award for best makeup really more notable than some porn awardee when neither would have reliable sources covering their life or career on a general level beyond an award win? Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:13, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Agree. The question would seem to be: "Which of the AVN awards are 'well-known and significant'?"
For any award based criteria, I think that any single award should be considered a contributing indicator. Probably, two contributing indicators should be a minimum? Is any award, even well-known and signifcant, in the absence of anything else, no other nominations, no distinctive contributions, no individual featuring, a defintive indicator of wikipedia-notability? I think not. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't think we're ever going to reach a consensus here about which awards are significant enough, especially with many people wanting pornbio removed altogether. HW's proposal allows us to have a period where AfD voters can decide for themselves which awards are significant, and if the outcomes are fairly consistent, we could later use that to make the criteria more objective. Epbr123 (talk) 10:58, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Letting AfD !voters decide which porn awards are significant is pretty much the cause of the whole conflict, I think. The decision of which awards are important should be made at the actual guideline, not on an AfD page. And if a consensus for that hasn't been reached (which I also notice), so be it, but that also means rewording shouldn't happen until such time when a consensus actually is met. And I'm sure there are a number of people that would just like porn removed from Wikipedia, but, well, that's too bad. Nothing is ever going to be removed from Wikipedia simply because people don't like it.
Just chiming in to note that I'm mostly happy with the current criteria, and I want to in particular flag the problematic nature of using AVN specifically as a guide. I'm concerned that this will result in bias, as AVN is typically not very inclusive when it comes to trans/queer stars. There are a number of porn figures that have a particular significance to the queer and trans community/communities that may not have AVN awards (unfortunately I can't research this or provide sources because I'm at work, but maybe someone can check into it). For example Jiz Lee, April Flores, Drew Devaux, James Darling. Whatever standard is ultimately agreed upon, it should be one that recognizes queer and trans porn actors that have a significant following, as well as other stars that might not be as recognized by mainstream awards (actors of color, fat actors, etc.) Avory (talk) 13:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
This was a good change that reflected the discussion in the talk page and solved some of the worse problems with WP:PORNBIO. I think it should be restored. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:51, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
As I mentioned before, my only real issue with the change is that it actually makes the guideline provide less guidance. Any suggestions for how to resolve that? (Or, alternatively, do you think it's not a problem?) Cheers, --joe deckertalk to me01:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
The problems I have are roughly:
AVN awards are commercial promotion of the industry with a hundred of awards and some hundreds of nominations every year and they shouldn't count as a significant award on it own,
having one group award or one scene award shouldn't count.
multiple nominations should only count for significant awards.
The current text uncritically recommends a promotional award, the new text provides better guidance.
It's also more in line with current community consensus, seen in Briggite B's AfD and DRV, that notability criteria has become more strict in later years and that WP:PORNBIO needs to be made more strict.
Also, while AVN awards are "well-known", they don't show notability on their own. This has been said many times, I think. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
I moved this section up because there were two conversations going on about pretty much the same thing, which was getting a little confusing (and I also just noticed that "PORNBIO" was misspelled in the heading, lol). But to respond to your concern, Enric, yes, some people have argued that AVN Awards do not show notability on their own, but few people have agreed on that as far as I've seen. What most users do agree on is tweaking the guideline, but exactly how to tweak it is where we seem to be stuck. For example, winning a "significant" award is all well and good, but who's to say which awards are significant and which aren't? As far as awards in general, the most notable ones usually seem to be AVN, XBIZ and XRCO (and in some cases, AEBN, F.A.M.E. and Feminist Porn). Then again, even that notion is debatable, considering all the options in Category:Pornographic film awards. ErpertWho is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?17:39, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Enric, you seem to have misunderstood the specifics of my question, let me try to ask my question again. I agree that AVN awards do not always evidence notability, nor is there any general sense that they do at AfD. It is my guess that the highest top-level individual awards at AVN *are* generally considered to give notability. What I am asking is that we add to HW's improvements additional examples/guidance/etc. that set a line that helps us consistently distinguish the two cases, and moreover, to note additional award sources (XBIZ?, I dunno, this isn't a subject I'm deeply familiar with) whose top-level awards might also be examples of notable awards. With regard to elaborating on HW's proposal, do you have any concrete suggestions, and/or do you feel that such elaboration would be/would not be helpful? --joe deckertalk to me21:33, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
(By the way, I agree with "having one group award or one scene award shouldn't count", and "multiple nominations should only count for significant awards".) --joe deckertalk to me22:21, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
I have amended pornbio so that group awards are discounted, as there's clearly consensus for this minimal tightening at least. Epbr123 (talk) 13:44, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Let's be clear, however - this is not enough. This guideline, as written, does not reflect practice, and as such is depreciated, regardless of the protestations of a tiny few. Hipocrite (talk) 15:21, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
"A tiny few"? You're the only one that seems to be arguing the other way (btw, the word is "deprecated", not "depreciated"). And Epbr, I'm not sure there is a consensus on group awards not counting; I've only seen two users even mention it. Personally, I think group awards should count, but if consensus results in opposition for that idea, I'll abide by it. ErpertWho is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?17:14, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Maintaining the status quo is not an option. If those wanting to keep pornbio won't compromise and agree how to improve it, pornbio will soon end up deleted. Epbr123 (talk) 19:03, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, a "tiny few." Further, I will instruct you not to further belittle my spelling. It is incivil and rude, and should not be repeated. Hipocrite (talk) 19:09, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't like the arbitrariness of discounting group awards when there are individual scene awards that may even be less valuable. I have a counterproposal then that HW has been advocating for a long time. Eliminate scene awards/nominations. However as a compromise and also to make consistent with ANYBIO, eliminate the multiple year nominations requirements. I will be on board with this. The proposed criteria would look like this.
1. The person has received a significant award such as an AVN award, or has been nominated for one several times. The significance of an award/nomination is based on the notability of the awarding organization and of the award category into account. Scene-related awards are disqualified from consideration.
That is the bare minimum that I would consider. I also suggest that to remove ambiguity, it read "such as a major AVN award," to avoid the majority of industrycruft awards they dish out, apparently, like candy. Hipocrite (talk) 19:20, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Not necessary. The majority of the "candy" they hand out are scene-related or movie-related awards (that doesn't apply to the performer's count). Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:25, 25 April 2012
Actually let me outdent this and copyedit the proposal so that it actually makes sense.
1. The person has received a significant award, or has been nominated for one several times. The significance of an award/nomination is based on the notability of the awarding organization such as AVN and the award category. Scene-related award categories are disqualified from consideration. Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:34, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Arbitrary break: discussing Morbidthought's draft
First, let me say that I'm okay with that wording. If we can get consensus for it, it provides enough guidance to help matters. Were I to modify it myself, I would be tempted to add a clause noting that the significance of an award can be evidenced in part by third-party coverage, and a statement that suggesting that individual awards are generally of higher significance. But perhaps neither of these statements are necessary, perhaps they are obvious enough. --joe deckertalk to me19:55, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
The first clause may be unnecessary because the criteria takes into account the notability of the awarding organization. Maybe I should make it "notability of the awarding organization/awards" if it's not that obvious but I think think adding awards at the end would just make it circularly confusing? The second clause is unnecessary because I don't think there are any group awards outside of scene awards. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:02, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
I really don't understand why individual scene awards or group awards should be omitted. Also, the problem with the second sentence of the possible new rewording is that we would have to come to a whole new consensus over which award organizations are considered notable and which aren't (because as I said before, Category:Pornographic film awards has a lot of entries). ErpertWho is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?06:04, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Scene awards are treated to be of lower importance than general performance awards or movie awards by the industry and are often shared which is a current criticism of PORNBIO. Second, we don't have to come to any consensus now over which specific awards organization/ceremony are considered notable enough. That can be determined by the general notability guidelines and argued at the afd level. The amount of reliable third party coverage that a particular awards organization or ceremony gets determines its level of notability. It's not that difficult. Morbidthoughts (talk) 06:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
She received a nomination for her acting, not for her scene. If one acted in only one porn film but still received the AVN best new starlet award (which I guess is one of the bajillion of self-serving awards that this industry gives itself), that would apparently be notable under this proposed guideline, though it's not clear that reflects practice. Hipocrite (talk) 12:12, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Strawman, Erpert. The porn award for best actor or actress (and supporting) are tied to a specific movie and are not excluded under the proposed criteria. If someone had actually won an award for Best Actor based on a few lines so be it. That is still not a scene award. Again people are confusing the legitimacy/validity of an awards with its notability. Hipocrite, knock off the industry self-serving comments because it doesn't matter on the basis of notability and smacks of "I don't like it". AVN are part of the industry in the sense that they report on it and promote it. The ESPY Award and MTV Music Awards are just as "industry self-serving" yet no one questions their notability. Morbidthoughts (talk) 14:57, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
I think you are wrong. Look at WP:MUSICBIO, self-serving awards do not count towards notability in music articles. WP:ACADEMIC requires "a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level". WP:AUTHOR doesn't even mention awards. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:54, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
No, you are mistaken. At no point does MUSICBIO actually define what is a "significant" award nor does ACADEMIC define what is prestigious. You have to take these awards in its context. Who determines most prestigious academic awards? Academics. Same with music awards. Musicians and music critics determine their significance and selection. With respect to porn awards, porn critics. Dismissing them as self-serving is another form of "I don't like it". Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:39, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
They're examples, not exclusive and don't actually state what makes them so significant or prestigious. ACADEMIC even bases examples of prestige on the notability of awarding organization. I didn't include examples in the PORNBIO because the clear consensus was that not all AVN awards (the most "prestigious" of porn awards) will satisfy notability concerns. Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:58, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
I second the Morbidthoughts proposal, as it makes the guideline more consistent with ANYBIO and it adresses the main part of the problems that were raised on these discussions. Cavarrone (talk) 20:17, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
I do too, I think it would be a reasonable step, and it seems to me to have (some nits here or there aside) rough consensus as a step in the right direction, even if it does not have (nor, do I expect, will anything have) consensus as the one true way. --joe deckertalk to me23:06, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
So most people are good with removing scene awards? If anything, I would keep those and then remove group awards -- I'm not even 100% cool with that idea, but to me it makes more sense than the former. A lot of categories seem to be based on scene awards alone, and those appear to have a better chance of having third-party coverage than group awards have. ErpertWho is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?07:00, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
Both scene awards, and group awards, on their own, are inconsistent with the notion of the person being notable enough for a stand-alone biography. The heart of wikipedia-notability is that others have written about the subject. If all there is is a scene award or a group award, not other awards, no other nominations, no commentary with respect to winning the award, then there is nothing about the subject individually to justify an individual biography. A scene award or a group award may be reasonable contributing evidence of wikipedia-notability, but on its own it is not sufficient.
If a BLP has a single weakly significant award, then BIO1E applies and the BLP should be merged and redirected to a list of winners of the award. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
The awards are notable even for scenes and groups. They get coverage in the porn industry, which considers them notable awards. The scenes for pornography are what the films are known for, everything but the memorable sex scenes just nothing but filler. Its the reason why the films exist and why people watch them. DreamFocus08:25, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
Erpert, I don't get what you are thinking. Awards are not third party coverage.
Dream Focus, I accept that the awards are notable. They can have their own articles. They can list the awardees. But notability is not inheritable. If the scene is judged notable, it doesn't mean that everything in the scence is independently notable, although it does contribute evidence. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:10, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
How can a sex scene between two people be notable, without the people being notable? The scene award is for their performance. They don't have any special affects or whatnot to judge. Just the sex. And winning any notable award, makes you notable. Third party coverage is not the only way to establish notability. That's why we have subject specific guidelines. See WP:NOTABILITY. DreamFocus09:30, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
What was is about the scence that made it notable? Was it something intrinsic to the people? If yes, they are probably notable. If no, probably not. Is there evidence that the award was for performance? If there is such evidence, it sounds like there is actually real coverage. Winning any notable award, doesn't make you notable - it is a fair indicator, but it is the independent coverage that demonstrates notability. Thirds party coverage is the essence of notability in almost all cases, and this is because under WP:NOR, if there is no coverage, there is not content beyond database information, and we are not a database. We have subject specific guidelines because indicators, and general rules, make it much easier for us to make decisions. I am familiar with WP:N. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:56, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
My position: I oppose any consideration of "nominations" for awards, and I oppose taking into consideration anything sourced to publications that are themselves part of the industry's promotional machinery. That includes such "magazines" as AVN or industry websites such as xbiz. Only things reported in reliable mainstream sources, such as general-purpose newspapers, count. The arguments I've seen above from several people, about how these AVN awards are no more industry-internal than Oscars or MTV awards, just show how incredibly far off the tracks this whole debate has gone: sure, Oscars too are organized by the industry, but that's not what makes them notable; what makes them notable is that mainstream media report about them. Fut.Perf.☼11:24, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
And how are the Oscars not part of "the industry's promotional machinery"? Also, as I said much earlier in this thread, porn isn't featured in much mainstream media because porn isn't shown in mainstream theatres. A pornographic actor being featured in mainstream media is only one of the points in WP:PORNBIO. ErpertWho is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?05:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
It follows from a common-sense understanding of the fundamental criterion "reliable sources that are independent of the subject". If the proposed notability of a subject is entirely due to their activity in a commercial industry, then an industry-internal evaluation mechanism, which naturally judges purely on the basis of that industry's standards of commercial marketability, never fulfills the criterion of "independence". As I said, this is different from awards such as the Oscars, because, even though they too are run by the industry, their evaluations are validated by the massive independent attention from truly independent outside sources. Fut.Perf.☼11:40, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
I've never agreed with that level of scrutiny on the independence of sources. I don't believe there is project-wide consensus to explicitly spell that out in our guidelines. I'm not talking about the independence of industry awards. I'm talking about the scrutiny applied to niche publications. Morbidthoughts (talk) 17:55, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Agreed with Morbidthoughts, and I doubt a sentence like "Niche publications tend not to be independent" could be minimally applicable on a large scale. There are tons of niche subjects (ie minor or less "popular" sports, or specific scientific and academic subjects) that are quite ignored by mainstream sources and in which niche publications are the best (if not the only) way to have some reliable, significant and detailed sources. Cavarrone (talk) 18:20, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Cavarrone, "Niche publications tend not to be independent" is a reasonable statement. The smaller the niche, the more likely that the editor and publisher are promoting their own business, or attempting to sustain the business of their sponsors. Take care to not confuse purpose of reliable sources. Yes, niche sources are most likely to be the most reliable and detailes sources, but in demonstrating notability, it is not reliability of facts to look for, it is evidence of wider interest. The precise facts are best references with primary sources. Notability is best demonstrated with a reputable publication making commentary, and this commentary need not be reliable in terms of the fine details. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:54, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Uh, no. We aren't looking for evidence of wider interest. That has never been a requirement. We aren't here to just cover mainstream interest. And even major mainstream newspapers give coverage to their major advertisers, or things produced by companies with the same parent company as them. Most game review shows and magazines refuse to give less than three out of five rating to any game made by a company that is a sponsor, no matter how horrible it is, and are more likely to cover games from those that buy ads. We still use them as reliable sources and proof that something is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. If you believe a magazine or whatnot is owned entirely by someone promoting their own products, then take it to the reliable sources noticeboard for discussion, and if this is proven, then it won't be a reliable source anymore. DreamFocus03:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Of course we look for evidence of wider interest. It is a question of how wide. You are more or less right about game magazines (I think you exaggerate just a little) in that we use them to demonstrate notability. I think that if they review all games regardless of brand, then it is wide enough. We do, however, reject press releases masquerading as reviews. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
This is the point. Masquerade press releases or articles with some conflicts of interest, in niche and mainstream publications, are not reliable. Neutral articles, in niche and mainstream publications, are reliable. I found the generalization "niche = not independent" unacceptable.Cavarrone (talk) 08:10, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Which is no problem, as long as those niche publications are independent of commercial interests with respect to promoting the subject in question. With academic niche subjects there's normally not an issue. WP:Notability says "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", where "independent" is linked to WP:Independent sources, which explains: "a source that has no significant connection to the subject and therefore describes it from a disinterested perspective. Independent sources have editorial independence (advertisers do not dictate content) and no conflicts of interest (no potential for personal, financial, or political gain from the publication)." I find this pretty clear and pretty easy to follow. Fut.Perf.☼20:07, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
No, I think we are just being cautious and maybe overly polite. It is you asserting in other places that PRONBIO is guideline and guidelines have concensus, and that there's no concensus on how to proceed, while it is you doing most of the reverting.
I see clear consensus on these points: (1) It is not agreed that not every AVN award is sufficient demonstration of notability; (2) It is not agreed that nominations for awards in themselves are sufficient demonstration of notability.
The need for updating PORNBIO is demonstrably clear. The guideline has nearly no credibility at AfD or DRV. People are asserting PORNBIO criteria to no effect. Nominators are nominating pages that have sourced commentary and are predicatbly kept. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:41, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
About 2, it depends. A long string of noms in major awards/categories for best acting/best performing is a even stronger evidence of a presumed notability in a specific field than a "one shot" award. And a sub-ANYBIO guideline should be consistent with ANYBIO (that is what the Morbidthoughts and even the HW proposals do, making this guideline closer to ANYBIO). Cavarrone (talk) 08:10, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Don't think we are not heading consensus, Erpert. We know there is clear consensus to tighten PORNBIO. We are debating how. At least 4 editors (including me) have agreed to my proposal. 2 editors believe it is too tight. 3 editors are advocating for something stricter. Policy/guideline-making is not simply a YES/NO deliberation but is viewed properly on a spectrum. As of now, the middle position is strong and the status quo is being rejected. Morbidthoughts (talk) 05:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Morbidthoughts, where do you place me in that I'm curious? It's not what I would have written, but it is certainly an improvement. I'd like to implement it and then talk about polishing. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:04, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
I support Morbidthoughts' proposal. Like SmokeyJoe, I thinks there's consensus to implement it now and we can then talk about further improvements after. Epbr123 (talk) 11:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Smokey, I hadn't counted you since you hadn't been explicit with your support. With Epbr123, we are now at 6. Now what needs polishing? Morbidthoughts (talk) 11:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
I can generally support Morbidthoughts' proposal, but there are devils in the details. There's a strong, well-established, cross-subject consensus that simply winning an award from a notable award-giver doesn't demonstrate that the winner is notable -- that's why ANYBIO prescribes the more restrictive "well-known and significant" as the general standard, and why other guidelines use terms like "major" and "prestigious". While MT's comments in this discussion are consistent with this consensus, I think the way the draft is phrased would encourage some editors to argue otherwise. MT didn't like my draft's use of "nature" and substituted "notability," but that opens the door to other problems. How would using a phrase like "nature and stature" instead be?
I also think, more generally, that we should add language (like that in WP:ACADEMIC) underlining the point that it is possible for a performer to be notable according to this standard, and yet not be an appropriate topic for coverage in Wikipedia because of a lack of reliable, independent sources for biographical information on the subject. (That's almost a direct quote.) This really isn't anything more than a restatement of BLP policy and general language in WP:BIO, but it's one of the points where AFD discussions have tended to degenerate (not just porn-related ones). Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 16:38, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
For reasons I've already stated, I'd keep it at "notability" because it is less subjective than debating over prestige, well-known, nature, or stature. People understand the GNG. The more notable the award organization is, the stronger the award. Morbidthoughts (talk) 14:32, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
There's no consensus that "notability" should be the only criterion here, particularly since ANYBIO as well as other SNGs use more restrictive language. I think the draft language I proposed earlier has as much if not more support on this point, and is more consistent with consensus practice. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 18:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
I've therefore taken a stab at a modification for the points we have consensus on, using broad language from ANYBIO on some points where we need to reach consensus on more precise language. I also believe, reflecting FPAS's point below, that we need to add qualifying language about the applicability of BLP/BIO standards, even when the SNG may be technically satisfied. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Hullaballoo, as you certainly have in mind some specific/hypotetic cases, to be more concrete, could you make a factual example of an award that would be permitted by the Morbidt. wording and not by yours? At first glance the Morbid. wording seems to me more objective and less disputable. Cavarrone (talk) 20:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
A couple of examples come to mind. The "International Escort Awards", which at one point some editors argued counted for notability, are given/sponsored by Rentboy, which meets the GNG (the awards themselves were AFD'd a year of two ago). There's a Japanese award, whose name escapes me right now (a Rick Perry moment?), given by a notable broadcaster to its own programming. There are a batch of trade shows which might meet the GNG, but whose awards often depend mostly on who's willing to show up and promote the show (something common to trade shows in many industries, of course). There are a couple of notable strip club chains whose awards are in practice limited to performers who work for them. As I've probably said before, I don't think any SNGs use a standard like this, for good reason, and we shouldn't make an exception for this field. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
How about if we required that the awards themselves have to be notable, not just the awarding organization? Epbr123 (talk) 22:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm still skeptical of the notability of those hooker and porn award examples using the GNG. By significance, I never meant that to be equivalent to notability, as in the meeting the wikipedia threshold for inclusion = significant. Just that the more coverage the awarding organization or the awards as a collective gets, the more significant. I'm not sure what the baseline of significant enough notability should be but that's what the AfDs are for. Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Just a procedural note: Wikipedia policy texts must be descriptive of existing consensus. We cannot create a new rule here simply on the basis of what three or four people agree about on this page. Rather, it must be shown that any new wording proposed is in line with what is already an emergent consensus out there, e.g. in recent AFD discussions. I quite agree there is such an emergent consensus out there that the guideline needs to be changed (or removed), but I don't see how Morbidthoughts' draft is significantly closer to that project-wide consensus than the old wording. Fut.Perf.☼06:47, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
If we based this just on recent AFD discussions, there isn't clear consensus that the guideline needs to be changed at all. Relatively few AfDs have resulted in PORNBIO being rejected, and whenever it is rejected its due to the same four or five voters. Epbr123 (talk) 07:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
If there isn't consensus out there, it means there isn't consensus for the guideline to exist. Guidelines must be supported by active, positive consensus of the community, not merely by a lack of consensus for some alternative. Fut.Perf.☼08:56, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't see a lack of consensus, not here nor out here, about the pornbio guideline's criteria that are not related to awards. The concerns are about the two award-related criteria, with a specific reference to some AVN award minor categories. That is what we're trying to adress. Cavarrone (talk) 10:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Future Perfect at Sunrise has two things incorrect:
2) For the umpteenth time, if there is no consensus on how to change the guideline (for example), that doesn't mean the guideline shouldn't exist at all. Why do you think articles are kept when an AfD results in "no consensus"?
We don't base guideline/policy making on just AfD discussions. Those afd panels just inform the decision-making process that is done here on this talk page. We have clear consensus that PORNBIO has to be tightened, not eliminated. We also seem to have consensus on how to go about it roughly. Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:35, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
The "RV no consensus" stuff is now old. There is basically consensus here, and certainly consensus in the wider world that group awards are not notable enough for inclusion. Anyone saying differently needs to demonstrate this. Hipocrite (talk) 19:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
I still believe you jumped the gun there, Hipocrite. Introducing terms that we didn't discuss like "leading" and implementing "several". Now people are going to think that they need to be nominated for several awards each year, which goes against what we had discussed as a group. I call for implementation of what we had discussed and agreed to since it's almost a week into this point. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:19, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
I was merely reimplmenting the changes, ex the order modification, done by SmokeyJoe. If someone believes that specific words need to be revised, they are welcome to edit the guideline. At this point, however, to reinclude scene awards is unfathomable. Hipocrite (talk) 20:30, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
No one is reimplementing the scene awards but your edit also does not make the exclusion of scene awards clear. There are scene awards with only one participant which many people might regard as "personal" awards. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:35, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Personally I think the solution lies in the Wikipedia organisation moving porn out of wikipedia and into a separate wiki. That way the people who think the massive value to the internet world of a wikipedia for porn can have their desires met and also the people who want to keep porn out of wikipedia can have their desires met.Dan88888 (talk) 11:12, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Also, Dan, there are already other wikis entirely devoted to certain subjects, and their guidelines aren't nearly as strict as Wikipedia's. I'm not sure if there is a porn-related wiki on Wikia (also founded by the Wikimedia Foundation), but I think I've heard of something called Wikiporn. Basically, if something is notable, there's a place for it here. Everyone is not going to like every subject anyway. ErpertWho is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?17:28, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not censor. People have been trying to eliminate all sex related articles, not just porn, since the beginning. I can't find the exact tool at the moment, perhaps its somewhere on Wikipedia:Statistics mixed in with all the rest, I don't know, but there is something that shows the top 100 Wikipedia articles by page views. Sex related articles (positions and activities) are always among the top articles viewed. Anyway, if you want to discuss this, go to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), since that's the place for it. DreamFocus08:20, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
There should be NO special exemption for Porn; all biographies should be force to meet GNG or standards for regular film. If that in practice means a reduction to John Holmes, Seka, Ron Jeremy, and others of that magnitude, that's exactly the point. Carrite (talk) 13:57, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Another proposal
I can't believe this guideline hasn't been fixed yet. Are you guys just going to drag your feet until kingdom come? I would suggest:
Remove the nominations criteria completely.
Change the awards criteria to exclude scene awards and group awards.
Otherwise, I would support deleting PORNBIO completely as it doesn't have consensus in it's current form (judging by the endless conflicts it continues to generate). Kaldari (talk) 19:01, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I felt that we were close to making a change with fairly decent consensus, just 2 threads above this, in an active thread, which more or less encompasses half of your proposal. Could you live with that? Maybe reply up there? --joe deckertalk to me23:03, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Multiple years
Apparently, along with the widely agreed upon tightening, we also agreed to remove the requirement for "multiple years" of nominations to the industry spam awards. I don't remember agreeing to this. Does anyone else? Hipocrite (talk) 20:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
It was clearly omitted from the original counterprosal. No one raised the omission as a red flag and others have commented that the counterproposal was more in line with ANYBIO (which was the intention). If you had a problem with its omission before, you should have mentioned it. I'm not even sure if I had counted you as agreeing to the original counterproposal but we had 6 editors who had agreed to it. If I did, then apparently we had only 5 people agreeing to this. This hammering out process is why PORNBIO should have only been updated once we hammer out the final agreement. People are not agreeing to a consensus. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:28, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
I had not thought this controversial, merely a clarification/gloss on the "several times" language, in accordance with the old standard. I didn't think we intended to loosen the guideline to allow multiple nominations in the same year to demonstrate notability. I don't read ANYBIO that way, although "times" isn't the clearest terms I wrote "over" multiple years rather than "in" multiple years to prevent the argument that the "several times" requirement had to be met in each year involved, rather than collectively, which I'd somehow thought was the problem. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:05, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
The third post above the arbitrary break explained the original counterproposal, "I have a counterproposal then that HW has been advocating for a long time. Eliminate scene awards/nominations. However as a compromise and also to make consistent with ANYBIO, eliminate the multiple year nominations requirements. I will be on board with this." Some of us stressed the importance of being more consistent with ANYBIO in ongoing negotiations. Morbidthoughts (talk) 21:18, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
As I said, I guess I didn't read that the way you intended. ANYBIO isn't terribly clearly written, and "nominated for one several times" can easily be read as requiring multiple nominations for the same award. I think that's too strict a reading, but I also think that "several times" doesn't translate to "several nominations in the same award cycle." When people refer to a college hoops coach having had his team finish in the top ten "three times", they don't mean finishing in the top ten of three different polls for the same season. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 22:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Not that this will help much, but I'm not stuck on this either way. I can imagine cases (someone hypothetically getting an AVN for best director and best actress) in the same year, even for the same film, I might be willing to consider as independent contributions toward notability, or ones in which someone got fairly overlapping awards that I wouldn't consider independent at all. I suspect the "multiple year" requirement is an attempt to get at that distinction without writing a few hundred pages of "ifs, ands and buts", and that's fine, even pragmatic. I wouldn't oppose, for this, either way. --joe deckertalk to me22:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
The multiple years requirement was an arbitrary cap put in because of all the scene categories each having 10+ people nominated which multiplied eligibility under the old old PORNBIO. Eliminating the scene nominees fixes the need for that arbitrary cap. Morbidthoughts (talk) 22:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
It was a bad attempt. At the time I wanted to eliminate nominations from consideration all together (which is my true position), but ANYBIO stood in the way so we went for that compromise which from what I remember was disputed enough that someone brought an RfC attempting a rollback. Morbidthoughts (talk) 00:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
RFC for more feedback
A group of about 11 editors have been negotiating on how to tighten WP:PORNBIO since it was disputed (disputed version). While discussion was ongoing to reach consensus, several editors edited the guidelines page directly to reflect what their view of consensus was at that point. Edit warring ensued as refinements were being attempted and the page was protected. (protected version) I would like outside editors to review the versions and give their feedback in order to reach a true consensus for this guideline while the page is protected. Morbidthoughts (talk) 21:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
View from SmokeyJoe:
I was drawn to this discussion about a month ago on seeing at DRV that the WP:PORNBIO is still out of touch with Wikipedia standards.
The worst of it that everybody accepts that WP:PORNBIO needs updating, but there is a huge retiscence to allow active editing. ::It is as if sevearl editors view the guidelines as written in stone, and uneditable unless replaced by a new version already written in stone in talk page discussions. In this, they are failing the community in preventing non-entrenched positions to contribute.
The specific problems as I see begin with WP:ANYBIO, Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Any_biography. This section begins by asserting that a person is notable if they have (solely) "received a well-known and significant award".
This is immediately contradictory with BIO1E, Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#People_notable_for_only_one_event. No one award, alone, is a sufficient basis of a biography. Encylopedic content requires realibly sourced, secondary source material. A single award is not this. Data (birth data, place of birth, names and relatives, past job data) geta used to pad out the non-article, but is not "secondary source" material. The entire article is identical to what belongs at a movie database website. We are not a database.
I challenge anyone to point out a decent article has "received a well-known and significant award" in the absence of any direct coverage in seconday sources.
This problem is then carried into WP:PORNBIO, where a single award is presented as a first, sufficient threshold, with some dilution of ANYBIO's "well-known and significant". This is unacceptable. BIO1E carries authority, and at its loosest interpretation it requires a minimum of two events, which would mean at least two awards, in the absence of other stuff.
On another level, a problem with this is that it directs new contributors to thinking that criteria for inclusion are checkbox based. If <fact> then wikipedia-notable. This is the wrong mindset. To be worthy of inclusion, there must exist be prose material directly covering the subject written by others. To correct this misdirection, the subguideline section needs its points reversed in order. Coverage in mainstram media is the first and easiest way to establish notability, most consistent with the GNG. The other points are indicators of likely wikipedia-notability, testable by extensive source searches. "Unique contributions" are a strong indicator, with sourcing of the "unique" aspect very likely to lead to outside commentary. If true, there is something to say. Isolated achievements, a couple of awards, a string of nominations, at this stage in the absence of any direct commentary, are the lowest level of indicator, and so belong last on a list of indicators. These are the first points of notice from where you should start looking for decent sourcing. On their own, they have proven highly debateable, and frequently insufficient.
I think an immediate rewrite fixing the overall thrust is as I produced here, with further work on the detail to follow, and an edit to WP:ANYBIO /1 required, pluralising the lowest levels of requirement. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree that ANYBIO needs to be fixed. An example of a problematic well-known and significant award would be the Academy Award for Best Makeup. Click on some of those nominees and winners to look at the quality of articles v. sources. Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:44, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Comment This is still the backward problem that a cabal of editors at DRV are claiming that they are the community standard, when the guideline itself states, "This page documents an English Wikipedia notability guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow..." The real problem with our pornstar articles is not notability. These actors and actresses as a group easily pass the test of "attracts attention by the world at large over a period of time". Massively. The real issue is WP:V, which requires reliable material. Unscintillating (talk) 01:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Unscintillating, the notion that DRV regulars have their own biases is reasonable. But where do you want to take that idea. At DRV, I think that we are loath to overturn a clear consensus among participants at AfD on the basis of a subguideline that is criticised at AfD.
I can’t accept your notion that notability, wikipedia-notability anyway, is measured by “attracts attention by the world at large over a period of time”. Unless if by “attention” you “commentary in reputable (not blogs, not YouTube) sources” then I can’t agree. Without sourced commentary, which means the writer, in prose, is writing about the subject, then there is no sourced material for a biography beyond that which properly belongs in a database. Perhaps the guideline should mention the publically edited databases? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:32, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Regarding the entymology of that phrase, WP:N states, "Article and list topics must be notable, or 'worthy of notice'." WP:ORG states, "Notable means 'worthy of being noted' or 'attracting notice.' " The nutshell of WP:N states, "Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time...". So I've shifted the words in the nutshell definition from "sufficiently significant" to "attracts". Unscintillating (talk) 04:18, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
I didn't get a chance to comment at the DRV for Bridgette B, but what I saw there was a solid consensus that the AfD closer closed against policy. WP:N allows WP:IAR "exceptions", and the DRV closer claimed an allowance for the closing of Bridgette B as an "exception", but I see no sense that the people arguing for a close against policy thought that the case was an exception. I was much more impressed by the argument that we didn't know the topic's real name. Unscintillating (talk) 04:18, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Comment: I have to concur with SmokeyJoe. WP:BIO1E is a general, site-wide guideline based firmly in policy at WP:N and WP:NOT, and trumps all of this topical sub-guideline verbiage, much of which is clearly being WP:OWNed to favor inclusion of random porn "actors" who aren't actually notable. Not everyone who has sex on camera is Sasha Grey or Ron Jeremy, and WP is not Internet Adult Film Database II. That said, people winning major adult video industry awards are often covered for such in adult magazines/shows/sites, and that isn't any less reliable sourcing than a physics journal covering a physicist receiving a physics award (in fact, given the relative readership numbers...). The position that WP mustn't have any articles on pornstars (as someone or other espoused a subtopic or two higher up), is against WP:N, WP:NOTCENSORED and various other policies. If "the topic is distasteful to some" were a valid exclusion criteria, we couldn't have any articles on dictators or religions or music genres. The problem isn't that we have porn-related articles, it's that people are manipulating WP:PORNBIO to support inclusion of non-encyclopedic stubs that clearly transgress WP:NOT (namely, indiscriminate collection of trivial information as if WP were a database). — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib.07:25, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
ANYBIO's Award vs Awards
WP:ANYBIO /1: The person has received a well-known and significant awards or honors, or has been nominated for onesome several times.
I have reverted this change by SmokeyJoe as I believe its not as simple as it appears.
I agree that there's a lot of awards out there that, should the person win them, its basically a flash-in-the-pan, perfectly fulfilling BLP1E's concern and thus probably shouldn't be a cause of notability.
But at the same time there are awards given on lifetime achievements - like the Nobel Prize - that assuredly will highlight the work done by that person over many years in the sources that cover it. Now, I would fully expect for some of these awards that there probably exist sources beforehand that go into great detail pre-award-winning, but that's not a full assurance.
So Joe's change to require multiple awards is not exactly accurate. That said, I could see a clarifying statement, one on lifetime achievement-style awards which only need a singular win, but otherwise requiring multiple non-lifetime awards otherwise to avoid BLP1E. Alternatively, adding a clarification that a person only notable for receiving multiple awards for the same singular event are generally not considered notable per BLP1E. --MASEM (t) 13:36, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Masem. Yes, there may be some very special awards, but can you think of any that are awarded in the absence of any other notable contributions?
If we do agree that there can be awards that on there own establish notability, then how do we choose which awards these are? Perhaps awards for which the overwhelming majority of other awardees already have their own articles? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:54, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
That's why I put in the second option: it may be easier to qualify the award allowance with the caution on BLP1E than to try to determine a complete list of lifetime awards we'd accept as singular allowances for notability. --MASEM (t) 13:58, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
I don’t think we are talking about “flash-in-the-pan” incidents, but “out-of-the-blue” incidents. An otherwise unknown private person is named as awardee. No biographical commentary is made with the declaration. No third parties comment, except to repeat the announce inconspicuously among other awards and recipients.
At the moment, WP:ANYBIO/1 would only limit by the words “well-known and significant”. This is much lower bar than “given on lifetime achievements” (which, note, is plural). WP:ANYBIO isn’t in this guideline to let in Nobel prize laureates. We’re talking about the interpretation of “well-known and significant” by newcomer fan of something.
If there are other sources, then WP:GNG applies and WP:ANYBIO is moot. Therefore, we need to assume here that other sources don’t exist, don’t yet exist, or haven’t been found. Perhaps we could introduce a caveat, that WP:ANYBIO/1 doesn’t apply if there has been no secondary coverage of the awarding within one year of the award. We do want to balance WP:CRYSTAL against wanting to have the most up-to-date possible encyclopedia – WP:CRYSTAL applies to facts, not so much to source testing.
The change to require multiple awards is on the assumption that there are no other claims of notability. We could add something to that effect. My thrust here is that for demonstrating notability, two independent claims of notability required. The implication of a minimum of two is very strong at WP:N. WP:ANYBIO/1 should be requiring two awards, or one award and something else. Eg One award and a single known independent secondary source.
I think we have three options:
1) Leave as is. I don’t think this is viable as a single award in the absence of anything else fails WP:BIO1E.
2) Accept my change (for now). Assume that people will understand that some plurality of evidence of notability is required. Simply writing in the plural is consistent with WP:N, and avoids over-legislating.
I still fail to see a good reason to make the change that SmokeyJoe is advocating, so I guess I prefer option 1. Jclemens (talk) 06:54, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Yup. Option 1. No need whatsoever for the change. Common sense, as ever, prevails. If someone is knighted by the Queen, for instance, they are quite clearly notable. If they win a Nobel prize or an Oscar (as an individual) they are clearly notable. No further "evidence" of notability is needed. And incidentally, SmokeyJoe, you can't just add plurals to sentences without changing the other wording - it's appalling English. Also, you cannot take comments made in a discussion about porn bios, a very specific subject not of interest to many of us (which is why I haven't bothered contributing to it or even reading it), and apply them to biographies across the board. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:49, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I would argue that we likely should have a footnote on that specific phrase to remind people that this does not invalidate the issues with BLP1E, which is overriding guidance. As Joe states, someone getting an award that otherwise talks nothing about that person save for the actions during a specific event is not sufficient to merit an article here. To go from a single award to allowances for an article, the award should reflect larger accomplishments than just a single action. --MASEM (t) 13:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
So you're saying that the recipient of a Victoria Cross, who is generally notable only for a single action, should not be notable unless they've done something else? Long-standing Wikipedia practice and consensus would certainly disagree with you. As I said, our overriding principle is actually common sense. Recipients of major awards (and I mean major, not newt fancier of the year!) are eligible for articles on the merits of that one award even if they never do anything else in their lives to bring them to the attention of the world. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
To be completely fair, yes, the Victoria Cross is an example of an award given as a result of one event. But, remember, this is an alternative to meeting the GNG. A quick sampling of VC winners show significant coverage that may or may not result directly from being awarded the cross but does point to their career and not just the event their action that merited the cross. In other words, common sense says yes, any VC winner is likely going to be notable and doesn't fail BLP1E. At the same time, a local resident of Smalltown getting the Key to the City for rescuing a cat from a tree is not going to be considered notable. --MASEM (t) 15:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, but that is not a "well-known and significant award or honor" and anyone who argued it was would likely be laughed out of court. I really see no need to change the wording. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:46, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Given that there's a whole subsection dedicated to BLP1E considerations, I don't think the wording needs to be changed from its present "singular award" form, either. The VC pages are examples of how consensus works with all three parts: the award allowance, BLP1E,, and common sense. Unless there are major notability conflicts with other specific awards being the sole indicator of notability, I don't think there's a strong need to change this. --MASEM (t) 15:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Necro, not every Oscar winner/nominee should be automatically presumed notable. There are technical categories where only the win or nomination is ever reported by RS, and nothing about the person to justify his/her own article. For example, the Academy Award for Best Makeup. Click on some of those nominees and winners to look at the quality of articles v. sources. Morbidthoughts (talk) 00:57, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Now, I think I actually said individual awards. Take another look at that award and see how many of the winners are individuals! Neither did I say that all nominees are notable - the wording at the moment doesn't say that either. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Enough solo winners / nominees (multiple times) for someone to claim that is an individual award if it was not shared by anyone else. Morbidthoughts (talk) 08:33, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm roughly in agreement with Masem here. I note that we tend to balance BLP1E with awards at Wikipedia. I have never seen one of the roughly ten thousand national beauty pageant winners (from the Miss Universe and Miss World orgs) deleted on the basis of notability, despite the fact that many of those never received a single demonstrable mention, mind significant coverage, in secondary coverage. (I did see *one* deleted on pure verifiability grounds.) Nor do I recall BLP1E invoked in those discussions. (And I personally see no problem, with a one-line stub on the 1958 Oscar for Best Hair, the 1978 Miss Chad World, or the 2003 AVN Best Actress. *shrug*) --joe deckertalk to me18:55, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
I have to entirely support SmokeyJoe's reasoning and his pluralizing edit. For the one-in-a-billion case that someone won a massively important award like a Nobel or the Congressional Medal of Honor without there being any other hint of notability, WP:IAR exists for a reason. The passage needs to call for multiple awards, or people will use any minor, random award (I have a "Finished the Season with a 9 Average" award from VNEA; does that mean I should have an article here?) to push a notability claim. Masem, surely you cannot be blind the fact that WP:COMMONSENSE is less and less applicable the more and more people become WP editors, and more and more established editors quit? Common sense, as they saying goes, is not actually very common at all, and when you have an increasing level of mob rule combined with an increasing level of special-interst PoV pushing every day, it simply cannot be relied upon to materialize. Otherwise AfD would be dull and infrequently used. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib.07:32, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
Jessica Dykstra
About a year ago, I wrote a wikipedia article for a model named Jessica Dykstra. The article was deleted as she was not considered notable enough. She has since been signed to Frederick's of Hollywood, and is Sports Illustrated's "Lovely Lady of the Day." Does that change anything. I've included links to her Frederick's page and an article verifying that she was named "Lovely Lady of the Day." I also included the original deletion debate and my copy of the original article.
Being Sports Illustrated's "Lovely Lady of the Day" helps but not much. I'd recommend that you update the copy in your user space and continue to be patient. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:25, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I kinda thought the Frederick's of Hollywood thing was a big deal, too. I'd love more opinions. I'd love to see the article brought back.
Since you asked for another opinion, I pretty much agree with Quest. As for Frederick's, you'd need to show more than that she was signed (no notability simply for being an employee). As for SI, the "of the day" part tends to imply something non-notable (compare to "of the year"). Perhaps you could look for secondary sources that are non-promotional and that do not have a financial etc. interest in promotion, to establish that she meets criteria at WP:ENT. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
OK. My thinking with Frederick's is whereas Victoria's Secret is the New York Yankees of women's underwear, Frederick's might be the Red Sox. But if I'm wrong, I'm wrong; I won't argue it. --J.S.
Well, it's just that Wikipedia's rules state that notability is determined by coverage in secondary sources. So if the New York Times published an article about her being a model for FoH, then that would help. BTW, please sign your posts by using 4 tides in a row. For example: ~~~~. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:46, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Here's another thought. Is there a list of Frederick's of Hollywood models? Sports Illustrated's LLotD? If there is not, or if she is not on it, then she probably isn't notable enough. Look at it from the outside perspective. Suppose I'm researching models or the modelling industry. I go to the F of H and SI articles. If she is not important enough to the Frederick's of Hollywood universe or the SI universe to warrant a mention on their article (or a list linked from the article), then I do not need to look up Jessica Dykstra; on the other hand, if one of these articles does mention her (in a way that adds to the article and isn't just tacked on), then for research purposes, I need to find the article in question.
So, doing a little research, I go to the Frederick's of Hollywood page. Prominently listed in that article, "Many notable models have posed for Frederick's of Hollywood catalogs, including:", some of the names are blue-lettered, and some aren't. For consistency, unless there is a policy decision with stricter criteria about models, I see no reason why she (as well as the other models listed) shouldn't get her own article just for the F of H work. You want a secondary source? Sports Illustrated is a fairly prominent publication. Listmeister (talk) 19:19, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
There's a problem with that approach. I (or anyone) could go to a page about subject matter relating to a person who otherwise fails notability criteria and insert that person's name into the text. By your reasoning: instant notability. And, here, SI is not a secondary source, but rather, a second primary source. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:47, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
I copied Jessica Dykstra's discussion and pasted it at the bottom. She & I have started communicating as a result of my creating her article and the deletion of it and such. She texted me yesterday to tell me that she will be in an upcoming Michael Bay movie with The Rock and Mark Wahlberg and Dr. Bello with Isaiah Washington and Vivica. A. Fox. She will also be representing the U.S.A. in the Miss World 2012 contest. She has write-ups in Global Grind and the New York Times. Notable yet?--Johnny Spasm (talk) 11:27, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Based on that "Global Grind" link, I'd say no. What's in the New York Times? If it's an article focusing on her personally (as opposed to mentioning her name in passing in an article about something else), that would be what we are looking for. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:44, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
What about the fact that she is representing the U.S.A. in Miss World 2012? (By the way, this article uses the text from the Wikipedia article I created for her a while back)--Johnny Spasm (talk) 01:47, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, that link doesn't exactly impress me as a source, all the more so if it is mirroring Wikipedia. Do we have something from a more mainstream news source writing about the significance of her selection? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:03, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I've never heard of Global Grind before but they appear to have a professional staff and editorial oversight[6] which is usually the minimum requirement for reliability. I would say, yes, this helps. As for Beauty Mania, that just looks like a blog and is not reliable. BTW, you should integrate Global Grind and Sports Illustrated into the article in your user space. If this article is recreated and is AfD'ed, people will look at the current sourcing in the article, right now, you haven't updated yet. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:14, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I will update it. I didn't realize it was all that big a deal since the article isn't really "up." I'm not really getting a definitive answer here. Has she reached notability yet, and can her article be recreated?--Johnny Spasm (talk) 09:36, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
I just mean that you should update it before restoring (if you do restore it). I think it's border-line. Some editors might say she is notable, some might say she's not. To be honest, I'm not the best person to ask because I tend to be inclusionist. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:08, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm not necessarily a great person to ask, either. I created her page once. I certainly considered her notable then, otherwise I wouldn't have created it. I believe given the facts that she has since then signed with Frederick's of Hollywood, will be in a couple of movies, and will be representing the U.S.A. in the Miss World contest, her notability has only gone up. I don't, however, want to come off as defiant. I fear that simply recreating her page without mentioning all this here will look like that, and will get me banned (again).--Johnny Spasm (talk) 21:02, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
I think it is sufficient you wait a bit. When the films will be released, and when the Miss World contest will be arrive, surely with some additional coverage about her, she will be probably ready to be uncontestedly notable. Cavarrone (talk) 00:18, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
PORNBIO criteria regarding awards (straw poll)
The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The results of the poll are to exclude scene awards and ensemble awards from the PORNBIO criteria.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaldari (talk • contribs) 19:45, 3 June 2012
Exclude I see this as sufficiently distant so as to not establish any sort of inherent notability, although it in no way precludes notability demonstrated in other ways. --joe deckertalk to me20:11, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Exclude. I think we've already reached consensus on this point after Morbidthoughts's proposal a while back, and it's been followed in subsequent AFD discussions. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:37, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Weak Exclude - Single awards should be excluded. I'm not sure if multiple scene awards should be excluded though - however we treat multiple nominations, we should treat multiple scene awards the same way. Tabercil (talk) 19:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Weak support, but the wording is too strong. Scene awards are weak indicators of enduring notability for an individual involved. The number of scene awards matters, as does the significance of the individual in the scene, and what is it about the scene that makes the scene notable. Generally, if there is just one scene, would prefer to merge and redirect the bio to an article on the scene that was awarded. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:57, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Exclude as criterium, but... they should not count by themselves, but could be taken in count as enhancement and further evidence of nobility gained through the other criteria.Cavarrone (talk) 23:54, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Exclusion These scenes are basically the activity of the actors. An award given to a scene, is judging the actors within it as notable for their performance. DreamFocus10:37, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Exclusion per Dream Focus. For six years the criteria has been "Has won a well-known award such as an AVN Award", without exclusions. These exclusions violate the project's mission statement: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." (Jimbo Whales). — Becksguy (talk) 08:32, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Exclude - What does in effect is setup one big circle-jerk where the porn industry millions of little dumb criteria...Best Anal, Best Creampie, Best 3-Way, etc...is deemed "notable". This junk means absolutely nothing outside of their closed world. Tarc (talk) 00:45, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Ensemble awards should be excluded
Support exclusion - Ensemble awards may be awarded to actors in very minor roles, thus I don't think they adequately establish notability. Kaldari (talk) 18:53, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Exclude I see this as sufficiently distant so as to not establish any sort of inherent notability, although it in no way precludes notability demonstrated in other ways. --joe deckertalk to me20:12, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Partial exclude In my opinion porn star bios should be treated the same as mainstream actor bios - to do otherwise smacks to me of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The only concern I have with this item is that I know the Screen Actor's Guild has ensemble awards such as Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series - I used that award as the basis for creating an article for Kiernan Shipka. Ensemble awards count only if the award explicitly names specific actors; simply saying "This award goes to the cast of Debbie Does Dublin" is not good enough. Tabercil (talk) 19:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
The ensemble implies whole portion of one work filled with only sex scenes. It is not the same as more prestigeous SAG Awards. Whatever examples you presented has no relevance to how more shallow, pretentious, and anti-intellectual these porn things are, in spite of how sexy, raucious, titillating, and kinky porn is. In fact, Mad Men and Kiernan Shipka are opposites of how proposals must treat porn entertainers differently. I don't give Adam Bristol article the same treatment as Shipka, but I treat The Anchor Hotel and Mad Men fairly. --George Ho (talk) 19:43, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Weak support, but the wording is too strong. Ensemble awards are weak indicators of enduring notability for an individual involved. The number of ensemble awards matters, as does the significance of the individual in the ensemble, and what is it about the ensemble that makes the scene notable. Generally, if the person has received just on award for an ensemble achievement, merge and redirect the bio to an article on the ensemble. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Exclude as criterium, but.. they should not count by themselves, but could be taken in count as enhancement and further evidence of some nobility gained through other criteria.Cavarrone (talk) 23:54, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose exclusions As Tabercil pointed out, these sorts of awards are given to other media. Whether you are entertaining people by standing there saying clever lines a writer gave to you, or doing a physical activity which people watch far more intently, I see no difference. Notable in their field. DreamFocus10:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Exclude - Some tartlet who was #26 in the Best 30-Way Orgy is not deserving of any wiki-recognition whatsoever. Basing notability on group awards is too low for the low-hanging fruit of WP:PORNBIO. . Tarc (talk) 00:49, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Newcomer awards should be excluded
Oppose exclusion - These awards go to specific individuals who have had significant roles, so I think they are reasonable to include. Kaldari (talk) 18:53, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose exclusion - I consider these as significant individual awards in the field. There was no prior discussion of about excluding these categories so I am surprised to see this raised for the first time in a straw poll by someone who opposes its exclusion also. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose exclusion - While I'm sympathetic to the desire to prune the plethora of porn awards, this particular subset includes a relatively small number of awards, and my sense of it is that newcomer awards do tend to get coverage or mention fairly often. --joe deckertalk to me20:31, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose exclusion. I think such away may contribute to notability, with the weight given the award dependent on the awarding organization and its awards scheme. I'd also note that these awards are not equivalent to the "unsung starlet" type awards discounted in some recent deletion discussions. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:46, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose exclusion. Excluding it or not excluding it does not guarantee a stand-alone article. However, excluding them would make newcomers depend on other vague notability guidelines. --George Ho (talk) 14:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose exclusion per Joe Decker. The newcomer awards are the ones which seem to have the highest degree of interest within the industry - at least from what I can tell... Tabercil (talk) 19:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose the word "exclude" or "exclusion". A newcomer award is a weaker indicator, but we also want Wikipedia to be the most-to-date reference work. For a recent "newcomer", allow a stub-bio. After maybe a year, if there are no further sources providing coverage to support a proper biography, then merge and redirect to a list of awardees. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Support exclusion - Including nominations opens up a huge swath of borderline cases. If an actor has been nominated several times, chances are they have also been covered in reliable sources, so I don't think it's necessary for us to consider nominations. Kaldari (talk) 18:53, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Exclude single nominations, but neutral on multiple nominations, or, alternately, a rough formulation of the form of HW's comment below, which seems spot on. --joe deckertalk to me20:14, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Do not exclude from consideration, but do not write any automatic-inclusion criteria into the guideline. Nominations are given out quite profligately, and generally don't indicate notability, but the most significant categories from the most significant awardgivers should carry some weight, especially in conjunction coverage that might not clearly satisfy the GNG. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 22:17, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose exclusion per HW as a compromise. Current iteration calls for multiple nominations which should carry some weight. Morbidthoughts (talk) 14:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose exclusion. This part is too general at this time. It is not similar to above specific nominations. An amount of nominations depends on an amount of films and other contributions. This proposal is too soon to tell. --George Ho (talk) 14:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Weak support, but "excluded" is too strong. Nominations are very weak indicators. If there is a series of nominations for a person, then surely there has been time for independent sources to provide some coverage. If someone has recevied four nominations over two years, and no independent source has made any commentary, then the person is not notable. There is no reason for this criteria independent of the WP:GNG. However, if someone receives a dozen nominations, all published last week, then we should have a stub for the short term. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:08, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose exclusion, or better Exclude single nominations, not multiple nominations: a long string of nominees in significant/major categories (such as performer of the year, best actress/actor, best foreign actress/actor, best newcomer) is a stronger indicator of notability (here as in any field) than one occasional award. Obviously it depends from the significance of the award/category, but all the above proposed wordings, the actual MT proposal and the current strawpool too, seem clearly exclude from the count less significant awards.Cavarrone (talk) 23:54, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
It looks like there's a pretty good consensus for excluding scene awards and ensemble awards as criteria. New-comer awards are clearly consensus keep, and nominations look like no consensus. Any other thoughts on these? Kaldari (talk) 03:48, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Shall we archive this discussion and then remove the "disputed" tag? The exclusion of scene and ensemble awards is already included in the PORNBIO criteria. --George Ho (talk) 05:04, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Academics notability reverted
Many scientists, researchers, philosophers and other scholars (collectively referred to as "academics" for convenience) are notably influential in the world of ideas without their biographies being the subject of secondary sources. However, to be notable, their research or academic achievements should be well-known in their field.
I have reverted this final addition, I found it a little too vague and I'm not convinced it is necessary. Why the first wording should need this addition? Exemples? Cavarrone (talk) 00:10, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
I removed from WP:CRIME the recent addition "However, exceptions noted in WP:BIO1E apply". BIO1E is a separate guideline, and there is no reason why exceptions noted there should apply here. It wouldn't seem like very sound policy, for example, to decide whether criminals should have biographical articles based on whether or not they seek publicity. Formerip (talk) 12:01, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the removal. The point of the WP:CRIME sub-guideline is to determine the exceptions for crime-related biographies. Location (talk) 17:38, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Wrongly convicted
I have just commented at an AFD for a man who was wrongly convicted Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anthony Hanemaayer. Multiple people have cited WP:PERP but of course, he wasn't and isn't a perpetrator, and so isn't strictly speaking covered by the guidelines at all. WP probably should have articles on Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard, Steven Truscott and Donald Marshall, Jr., for example, (all famous Canadian cases, that I know of), but not others, such as the one at AFD. I think the key issues that would be a serious crime that has extensive coverage over a long period of time, and BLP1E applies, of course. These are basically the same as the criteria as for the victims (which is what the wrongly convicted are in a way, so seems appropriate). So I propose to add "and the wrongly convicted" to subheading with "For victims". What do others think? --Slp1 (talk) 21:59, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the principle of what you say, but I'm unsure about the best place to put it, since we aren't exactly dealing with victims in this case. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:25, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Well, I guess you could say they were the victims of the legal system!!
Since nobody has objected to the idea, and you agree in principle, I am going to make the change I was thinking of, and we can see if it takes or if people can think of a better way of noting it. --Slp1 (talk) 01:21, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry I did not see this earlier, but you can count me in agreement with the principle behind this. I don't think the wording is sufficient in that there are plenty of other people involved or associated with criminal events that might need to be considered:
Given that the number of articles likely to be created for victims far outweighs the number of articles likely to be created for people wrongly convicted, I think the section should go back to cover just victims or it should be reworded to state something like: "Any person who had a large role within a well-documented criminal event or trial." Thoughts? Location (talk) 15:58, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Would just adding the words "or having been accused of committing" to the first sentence of the guideline solve this problem? Formerip (talk) 17:02, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Something like what you have suggested might address the issue at hand: "A person who is notable only for being accused or convicted of a crime, or for being the victim of the crime, should not normally be the subject of a separate Wikipedia article if there are any existing articles that do or could incorporate the available encyclopaedic material relating to that person."
If there is a problem with this guideline, I think it may be a little deficient in dealing with the sudden "celebrity" of people arrested but not yet tried for some nationally reported crime. I don't think there is a big issue here dealing with those who have had overturned convictions. Strictly speaking, someone convicted of a crime who is the exonerated fails WP:PERP, so I think that was a legitimate cite in the aforementioned Afd. Location (talk) 17:33, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Alternatively, the lede could state: "A person who is known only in connection with a criminal event or trial should not normally be the subject of a separate Wikipedia article if there is an existing article that could incorporate the available encyclopedic material relating to that person." I think this would encompass all of the above, including those who have wrongly been convicted. Are there any objections to this proposal? Location (talk) 02:22, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
In the absence of objections, I've gone ahead with this change in that it addresses Slp1's concerns above regarding those who have been wrongly convicted and Joshuaism's concerns below regarding prisoners (i.e. alleged criminals). Location (talk) 20:26, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I think that this is part of a wider issue regarding prisoners in general and that prisoners other than criminals should probably get their own sub-heading. I've had questions about recent AfD activity regarding detainees at Guantanamo Bay and think it may be necessary to create a quality guideline for prisonersotherthanjust criminals. Thoughts?--Joshuaism (talk) 18:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Notable Scholar
There was a discussion on Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 35
Hi, there are 350 articles with the phrase "noted scholar". Some seem to refer to traditional academics mainly who are dead, but some do not. "Wayne G. Hammond, a noted Tolkien scholar said of the first two films that he found them to be "travesties as adaptations... faithful only on a basic level of plot" and that many characters had not been depicted faithfully to their appearance in the novel.[73][76]" What does "noted scholar" mean and should it be given to living scholars as an honorarium. My concern is that it gives undue weight to their opinion. This started as talk on the LOTR film trilogy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy Wakelamp (talk) 06:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
I find the use of "noted" in any article to be a useless piece of puff -- if the person is not notable, he should not have an article or be cited on a topic. Collect (talk) 12:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
"Noted Scholar" is a common academic term. It means that someone's work has literally been taken note of and has been found important enough by others to the extent that they regularily use it for referencing. E.g. see University of British Columbia: "Noted scholars will be individuals who are preeminent and of international stature in their field." De728631 (talk) 16:50, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I looked at the British Columbia reference. I don't think it applies, as it is more about a a program for visiting scholars called the "noted scholar policy" rather than what "noted scholar" means. I can't find a definition in wiktionary Wakelamp (talk) 05:34, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Definitions aside, the term itself is widely being used throughout all kinds of literature. Here's a search in Google Books for "noted scholar": [1]. De728631 (talk) 11:14, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Sure, it's used elsewhere. The issue is should it be used to describe sources in Wikipedia? I almost always remove it when I find it, as when I find it it's almost always used as a way of saying "obviously this person must be correct or really famous". It also gets used a lot in 'lists of notable whatevers' without any justification. The only question I see is if it is clearly used several times in reliable academic sources, can we use it then (we definitely shouldn't be using it without references using it)? I guess there may be a few unusual situations in which it would be reasonable to use it, but they should be taken on a case by case basis. But at the risk of being repetitive, we would always need reliable sources, to make the judgment ourselves would be OR at best, and in some circumstances pov. Dougweller (talk) 13:28, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Well said, I agree with that assessment. De728631 (talk) 19:01, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
I am not experienced enough to know. What do I need to add to the WP:ASSERTN ( assertion of notable) and Biographies of living persons:Notability_(people)? Wakelamp (talk) 13:35, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
I was surprised to find out that being the subject of a book is not part of the WP:ANYBIO guidelines. I couldn't find anything in the talk archives about this and thought it should be brought up. (Although my search is mucked up by the WP:CREATIVE guideline that if an artists body of work is a subject of a book they are notable... but if this is good enough for artists, should it not be good enough for anyone?) I'd recommend something along the lines of "The person is the subject of a book-long work printed by a notable and respected publisher (i.e. not self-published or printed by a vanity press)." Does this make sense?--Joshuaism (talk) 18:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I think that last caveat, ruling out self-promotion, is a critical one, but this idea does make sense to me so long as we include that caveat. It might also be necessary to define how the person has to be the main subject of the book, and not just someone discussed incidentally. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I think this would undermine the parts of WP:GNG and WP:BASIC that require multiple secondary sources to determine the notability of subjects. I prefer that notability not be determined by just one source. Location (talk) 19:42, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm face-palming for not having thought of that. You are right. If someone really is important enough to be the main subject of a significant book, then there is going to be at least one other secondary source. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:51, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. There might be a presumption of notability if someone is the subject of a book by a notable author, however, I would think that person would also be mentioned by other secondary sources if he or she were independently notable. Location (talk) 00:20, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
"The motivation for the crime or the execution of the crime is unusual—or has otherwise been considered noteworthy—such that it is a well-documented historic event."
I am wondering if there are any thoughts on modifying the wording of this or of striking it altogether. First, what crimes and criminal motivations are "unusual" is subjective. Secondly, the attempt to define "unusual" with a link to WP:EVENT means that all Wiki-notable events are "unusual"... meaning that all perps of these crimes are eligible for stand-alone articles, too. Thoughts? Location (talk) 00:20, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
My immediate thought is that I'm not at all sure we should get rid of this requirement, but I agree that wikilinking the phrase "well-documented historic event" to WP:EVENT does not make sense. I have a vague recollection of having let this issue slide previously on a "pick your battles" basis. Formerip (talk) 01:07, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply! Regarding WP:PERP #2 specifically, I'm not sure this is even necessary as I cannot think of any articles that stand only on the merit of a criminal having committed an unusual crime. The perpetrators of unusual crimes typically seem to be serial killers who generate an overwhelming amount of media coverage (e.g. Jeffrey Dahmer, the Green River Killer, the BTK killer, Richard Ramirez). I think "overwhelming amount of media coverage" (which is not the same as meeting WP:EVENT) rather than "unusual" is the key for PERP.
Regarding WP:CRIME in general, I agree with your earlier comments that this is less about notability and more about WP:CFORK. In accordance with WP:BLP1E and WP:BIO1E, a criminal event should be covered by one article. If it has overwhelming media coverage, then spin-off articles about the perp and/or victim(s) may be created. Where multiple criminal events are tied to one perp (i.e. a spree killer, a serial killer, a mass murderer), then the article should be titled after the perp. Not sure why the guideline couldn't say just that. Location (talk) 04:41, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
A recent AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Tylman (5th nomination) about a 16th century English mayor raised an interesting point. Our criteria for local politician is "received significant press coverage" (or general notability). But it is rather discriminatory towards historical figures from the times before "press coverage" existed. There are of course much fewer sources from those days, but if we have information that XYZ was a mayor of a town few hundreds years ago, I think this makes that person notable enough. Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here15:16, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
A trivial mention is a trivial mention. In my opinion, articles about mayors who have not received significant coverage should be merged and redirected to the appropriate town or city. Location (talk) 20:24, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Book designers (visual artists)
Am having a devil of a job helping an editor establish notability for a book designer, Rachana Shah.
By and large, book design is an unsung profession. The book designer rarely gets a mention whilst the author takes the accolades. Reliable, secondary sources have described or commented on the design (which is a key feature of Timbuctoo) and even if they do not name the designer, nevertheless that is credit to the designer for the work; just as comment about the prose adds credit to the author, whether or not the reviewer names the author. Surely, this description and comment in the media is, or should be, considered the equivalent of an artist having works featured in a public art gallery?
In my opionion, there should not be a systemic bias in Wikipedia against a whole class of visual artist. Help and ideas most welcome. Regards, Esowteric+Talk10:34, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure why there is reluctance to judge this one by the standards of WP:CREATIVE, other than it is unlikely that she would meet those standards in an AfD. In the aforementioned article, it appears as though only three of the sources are not primary sources. Of those three, the subject is mentioned by name in only one. In that article, she receives trivial mention in a discussion about her house, not her work. The issue here is not one of systemic bias, but rather lack of commentary by secondary sources. Some people and some professions are simply more "worthy of note" than others. Location (talk) 13:27, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I see no discussion about the addition of that. I went and changed it to make it specific. [7] Don't want anything said wrong which would be quoted in AFDs and lead to pointless arguments. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula went to AFD recently, one arguing he was notable only for one event. The overwhelming majority of people participating in that AFD determined he was notable enough to have his own article though. [8] I pointed out that he clearly passed WP:CREATIVE number 3, since his work was so well known around the world it got ample newspaper coverage. Even those famous for just one thing can have an article dedicated to them, if there is enough valid content to fill it. DreamFocus23:09, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Should the UK guidance be merged into this page, moved to a more general page and referenced from here or left where it is (with or without a link from here)? I'll place a note about this discussion on the talk page of the UK geography project page. If there is a central manual of style page for settlements then a link from there would be good too, but I've not immediately found one. Thryduulf (talk) 11:36, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Propose change to Creative professionals
What do people think about #3 in 'Creative professionals'?
3. The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.
This implies that any author who has a had book reviewed by multiple (say 3 or more?) periodicals is notable enough for a stand alone article.
Also, any creative professional who has played a 'major' role in co-creating a work that has multiple periodical reviews is notable enough for a stand alone article. A loose reading would include for instance, all the lead programmers for a computer game; the screen writers, editors, set designers, etc for a movie or play, the musicians and sound engineers for an orchestral studio album. The criteria as written is too loose, and doesn't reflect what has been happening at AfD discussions. I suggest that we get rid of #3 and incorporate "has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film" into #4:
4. The person's work or works (a) has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, (b) has become a significant monument, (c) has been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (d) has won significant critical attention, or (e) is represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums.
Here, the "person's work" could include works of art, music or books that a person has co-authored, and "won significant critical attention" would qualify the type and quality of critical reviews necessary to make a person notable. LK (talk) 06:05, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm ambivalent. I'm OK with the multiple independent reviews in periodicals, although I guess there's an issue if those reviews are from highly obscure sources. (Should there be a distinction between reviews of, for example, a music album, and reviews that specifically talk about the sound engineering?) It seems to me that there's a subjective editorial judgment involved in determining whether someone played a "major" role in co-creating something, or a less-than-major role. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm still ambivalent (not the same thing as supportive), but I reverted the changes after a third editor reverted a footnote that, in fact, was not what you had added. On that basis, it seems to me that there is some confusion about what's going on here, so I figure we actually do need some more discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:33, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, it's been more than a week, and we're the only ones talking. In absence of any substantive objections, can we let the change sit for a while and see how the community treats it? I'm going back to Cavarrone's version, since that may at least bring some attention to this issue. LK (talk) 10:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
If your work is notable enough to get reviewed in reliable sources, then you are obviously notable, be it a book, a painting, or whatever. DreamFocus15:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Note, the "silence means consent" essay is total nonsense. Just because few people noticed the discussion, doesn't mean there is consensus for one person to go and erase something like that. Did you check the archives to see previous discussions about it? And multiple means more than one, which is two or more, not three or more. DreamFocus15:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
You are notable because of what you have accomplished. How can the work of a famous painter or writer be notable but not the person who created it? That makes no sense at all. Many famous artists of the past didn't do interviews and not all have any real information known about them, but they are still considered notable because of what they were able to produce. DreamFocus17:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Which comes from putting out volumes of work, not a single work. In today's age, where nearly every major published book is reviewed, it is quite possible for an author come out of the woodwork, get a NYTimes Bestseller that is critically reviewed, but there's nothing beyond the author's name and attribution that we can talk about, ergo failing the presumption of notability. If all we can say about a person is "They wrote X", no bio, no interviews with the person, nothing else, that is not notability. --MASEM (t) 17:46, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Most books do not get reviewed in any reliable sources. This includes many bestselling novels, especially those of certain genres. They are notable whether you have content to write about or not. You can say the person is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, as long as there is something to write about, otherwise just redirect to the book they are famous for until something is found to fill the article with. DreamFocus18:15, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Right, they would not be WP-notable (appropriate for a standalone article), but they can have a redirect to the book that is WP-notable to talk about the author - this fits in with BLP1E. --MASEM (t) 19:04, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
What the guidelines require is significant coverage of the book, not necessarily of the author. I don't think a book is a "one-time event" and fits BLP1E. A book is read and reviewed on an ongoing basis and is not akin to an event that happens and is done. A person who has written one book which has been reviewed by multiple sources is notable per what we have now. A person who has written one book which passes a notability criterion such as the "textbook used at many institutions" would not. I am not disagreeing with your idea; just stating that is not what the current guidelines say. I am not against changing the language of the guideline. Churn and change (talk) 19:25, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm not saying its BLP1E (though arguably, the act of completing and publishing one book is a single event), the logic presented by BLP1E where if the amount of knowledge known about the person behind the "event" is small that a separate article is not warranted; the same can be true for any creative professional known only for one published work which may be notable. --MASEM (t) 19:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Any article can be merged/redirected if there is no content. But if there is enough information to put there, they should have an article. The current wording is fine. What someone tried to change it to is not. In the AFDs I recall participating in for an author who was nominated for deletion, despite having books notable enough to have their own articles, it ended in keep. Consensus is that they are notable. If someone has a bot to search for my name, AFDS, and the category of writer in the article page being nominated... hmm... or just all writers sent to AFD at sometime... that'd help prove what regular consensus is. DreamFocus20:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that if you use "the author of a notable book is notable themselves", that's inherited notability which we don't accept on WP. Certainly there are authors that have had one notable book that have brought attention to themselves (I would think JK Rowlings qualifies after the first Harry Potter book) but again, that's notability of the author due to GNG-type coverage, that happened as a result of the success of the book. The author needs to be notable beyond just being the author of the notable book. --MASEM (t) 20:27, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
"Notability is not inherited" concerns people related to someone notable, who haven't done anything on their own. You are notable because of what you create though. Totally different things here. DreamFocus20:39, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Inherited notability can be argued between any topics, not just people. The thing to keep clear is that we have the Wikipedia definition of notability and the English language version. In the English language, I would agree that the author of a notable work is notable themselves. But within WP-ese, where notability is equalivalent to having a standalone article, that is not a truism. --MASEM (t) 20:50, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
This is why we have the Creative professionals guideline, to show that they are notable if their work is. Long standing consensus is clear. I say keep it in. DreamFocus20:54, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
removed addition to long held version that happened without discussion
[9] If you create a book so notable Hollywood decides to make a film out of it, then obviously your work is notable. Also they don't do that unless the book is notable enough to qualify the author anyway, it sure to have at least two reviews in reliable sources out there. DreamFocus15:43, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Ambiguity of WP:AUTHOR #1
At time of writing (2012-11-16T1151-0700), the statement of Point 1 in WP:AUTHOR is syntactically ambiguous. It currently reads: "The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors." I'll spare you the jargon, and which syntactic theories admit the ambiguity vs not, and the iterations of "no, it sounds fine to me!, "oh, people can just tell what it means!" vs "NO U!!!"; and I'll simply suggest changing it to one of: ·"The person is regarded as an important figure. Or the person is widely cited by peers or successors." ·"The person is regarded as an important figure by peers or successors, or is widely cited by peers or successors." ...whichever it's supposed to actually mean.
Y'all can figure out which it is, and go for it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sburke (talk • contribs) (sorry, forgot to sign this when I posted it —sburke@cpan.org (talk) 21:41, 17 November 2012 (UTC))
They can be regarded as an important figure by textbooks, news media, the government's department of whatever that gave them a bunch of awards, or whoever. They can also be someone whose work is commonly cited by peers or others in that field. So either some are saying they are important, or giving them awards for being important, or their published research or work is cited in textbooks or whatever. DreamFocus19:17, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, that clarifies.
Can you cite someone who is not regarded as an important figure (good or bad) who is widely cited by peers or successors? The second half doesn't add anything to the first, and the first half basically says: The person is notable. Therefore the first half should be eliminated. Leaving us with: "The person is widely cited by peers or successors." If you want another point for DreamFocus's point, how about the general notability criteria: significant coverage in reliable independent sources. --Bejnar (talk) 03:20, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I get that semantic parsing and so forth is unsatisfactory, but in my opinion the clause exists as an "out" for someone on the bubble: "Look, the guy doesn't meet the normal GNG or BIO criteria. And he doesn't meet any of the other AUTHOR criteria (which are pretty strict). But he's not a nobody. Charles McGrath reviewed his book. George Will quoted him in a column. I think that qualifies him as "regarded as important", and there're enough primary and kinda-sorta OK sources to cobble together a brief article, so let's talk about this." I don't have a problem with that, myself. It's often good to have an "out" clause in life. (That's why the C switch statement has a default statement, and so forth). I don't have a problem with the statement as written. (I guess technically it needs to have "or both" tacked on to the end; otherwise it could be taken to mean that someone who's regarded as important AND is widely cited doesn't qualify, although hopefully that argument hasn't been advanced yet.) Herostratus (talk) 02:29, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes it is technically ambiguous, but in practice it "by peers" doesn't apply to the first clause. So add a comma before "or" and be done with it. Both clauses are necessary as they represent two paths to notability that can each be achieved separately. JJB 18:52, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm Ms. Glenda Salvacion Aborita Ricacho - My Official Name. I'm A Gold Loan Financial Consultant International since, January, 1994. Trans World Society Of Preservationist Company, Zurick Switzerland is the Big Company That I'm Working. I'm One Of The Top Ten Gold LOan Financial Consultant International. I'm A Bannking & Finance Degree Graduate With A Diploma. Had graduated in The One Of The University in The Philippines. Divine Word University where Former Mrs. Imelda Romualdez Marcos had graduated her College Degree. Former Mrs. Imelda Romualdez Marcos in My Hometown Mate in The Visayas, Leyte Location. My Managing Lenders Agent had hired me when I was working in La Jolla, CA. My Employers in La Jolla, CA The Architect & Designing Women had introduced me to The Big Company. I was hired of The Company because, of my skills and talents possesing Banking & Finance Curriculum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PrincessGlenda (talk • contribs) 19:06, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
However, since this appears to be a badly-written CV for a non-notable person, I wouldn't bother. Any article created will almost certainly be deleted. -- Necrothesp (talk) 19:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
If the princess is in fact as she says "One Of The Top Ten Gold LOan Financial Consultant International." then bad spelling aside, she could be notable. Just needs to find some WP:SOURCES Wikipedia considers reliable to cover her. DreamFocus19:22, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Proposed change: judges
The current version notes: judges....sub-national (statewide/provincewide)
The world consists of thousands of state/provincial courts. There may be tens or hundreds of thousand of these judges. If there is some notability, the particular judge could have a Wikipedia article. If there is only enough information for a sketchy bio, then the judge should not have a Wikipedia article.
Certainly national supreme court judges qualify for a Wikipedia article. In the U.S., maybe even appeals court judges. However, district court judges, which often don't cover a whole state (but may in smaller states) should not automatically be included. If the district includes a whole small state, the judge should be automatically qualify because they are a judge in a district that happens to include a single small state.
summary: a) remove "sub-national (statewide/provincial)", b) add at the end of the explanatory paragraph, "In the United States, Supreme Court Justices are considered national but District Court Judges are not automatically notable because of their title".
This is reasonable, except why district court judges? Often they will be for a district like "Western District of Michigan". That doesn't even cover an entire state. It is federal which means they work for the federal government. However, the federal government employs truck drivers and sharp shooters, but they are not Wikipedia material normally. Because of this, I believe that federal district court judges are not and should not be automatic Wikipedia article subjects. Of course, if they have notability for something they did or were involved with, certainly.
Reading the page again, judges with national office would be Supreme Court justices. I believe that federal appeals court judges should also apply as they cover multiple US states. However, federal district court judges typically cover parts of states, so are not even statewide (except for certain small states). Auchansa (talk) 07:07, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Comment. Judges should be in a separate section from politicians in any case. In most countries, judges are not elected and are the complete opposite of politicians. I would agree that only judges of national and sub-national high, appeal or supreme courts should be automatically entitled to articles. District judges, even if nationally-appointed, should probably not be. For instance, in England and Wales, judges of the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court should all be entitled to articles (which they actually all would be anyway, since all are knighted on appointment). Circuit and district judges should not be unless there is another good reason for them to have an article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:02, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose A, Support B: because of the parenthesis, "sub-national" doesn't automatically include all District Court judges, and we would hope they never do become inherently notable in the current climate. A particular US clause is helpful, but it might be even better to add "appellate" to the sub-national paren. JJB 18:52, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose changes I would note that District Court judges in the US are considered fairly high up the ladder. I would, moreover, suggest the issue is whether the material available on a given person is de minimis - and I would suggest the actual criteria for an article should include a requirement that more than that level of information is needed to have an article, and not just say "the person is notable therefore the article should exist". Collect (talk) 19:15, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose changes. Notability is determined by coverage in reliable sources, and there is a presumption that judges who are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate are likely to leave a trail of reliable sources at the national, state, and local levels. They serve until they choose to resign and their appointments and their decisions affect and/or are of interest to a relatively large numbers of people. This is not the case for most truck drivers and sharp shooters employed by the federal government. Location (talk) 20:08, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Being appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate is not as big as it sounds. President John F. Kennedy once remarked how he had a hard time appointing so many people because he didn't know that many people. One of the many positions appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate includes the Undersecretary of Commerce for Export Administration, along with many, many undersecretaries. All of these appointees are not that well known and, in fact, are unknown. Did you know that even Army officers, like those with the rank of Major, which isn't that high, has to be approved by Congressional vote? Imagine if every Army Major had a guaranteed Wikipedia article. I don't oppose District Court judges except to note that they are not national in scope but rather cover districts that are parts of states. Quite a few states have 3 districts. Auchansa (talk) 04:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Not true. Direct involvement of the POTUS and the Secretary of Defense in US military officer promotions doesn't occur until grade O-7 (brigadier general/rear admiral). Formal Senate approval is not necessary until grade O-9 (lieutenant general/vice admiral). Source. There are presently 678 US district court judges or equivalents. Compare that to 7,300+ US state legislators (424 in New Hampshire alone). State legislators are currently prima facie notable, so ... Oh No! It's Faustus37!it is what it is - speak at the tone05:12, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Must have been a change because some relative was not a general but his promotion was held up a few weeks until Congress could vote. However, this was several decades ago. Even if there are 678 judges, that number should not be considered a small number and therefore automatically included. The fact is that district court judges are not specifically listed as automatically notable but I sought clarification to state for a fact that they are notable or are not. The current guidelines for notability is simply nationwide or statewide judges. Auchansa (talk) 04:33, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Given that a state Supreme Court justice is considered notable, I'd argue for inclusion of US District Court judges based on the following criteria: (1) Any US District Court judge can theoretically overturn a state Supreme Court decision based on the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution; (2) Many states have only one US District Court. No state has more than four. ALL states, however, have more than four statewide constitutional offices. I will concede federal judges appointed to specific courts such as the United States bankruptcy court may not be inherently notable; (3) Given that all states have many more members of their state legislatures than US District Court judges, and most have more US House members, it's not hard to argue US District Court judges are at least as notable as state legislators, and indeed may be on par with US House members. Oh No! It's Faustus37!it is what it is - speak at the tone06:18, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
I would also add that even though the number of US District Court judges (677) outnumber those in Congress (535), I imagine that there is greater turnover with Congress since the judges are able to serve as long as they wish. If anything, I would exclude US Magistrate judges from the SNG. Location (talk) 08:08, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Two reasons this needs serious rethinking: The "they're notable because notable media outlets make them so, but said media outlets don't prove notability" paradox, and the fundamental disconnect many have here concerning objective knowledge vs. self-promotion. Businesspeople are self-promotional by nature. Duh. That doesn't doesn't disqualify them from notability in and of itself. WP:BASIC is horribly squishy, and in practice discriminates against both against businesspeople and creative professionals. Oh No! It's Faustus37!it is what it is - speak at the tone10:05, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't get the paradox. If reliable, independent media discuss these people, they're notable, period. What's paradoxical about that? I also don't see the discrimination. Can you elaborate? --Cyclopiatalk10:07, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
A recent example that comes to mind is the AfD for the freelance photographer Jana Cruder, both a businessperson and a creative professional. She uncontroversially contributed to several major US periodicals, yet her notability was denied basically because tertiary sources didn't write about her. Well, they can't all be Richard Avedon, now can they? If Man Ray faced an AfD in 1925, he would have been deleted too. Oh No! It's Faustus37!it is what it is - speak at the tone10:19, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
"She uncontroversially contributed to several major US periodicals, yet her notability was denied basically because tertiary sources didn't write about her" - Oh ok. Agreed a freelance artist who contributes regularly to major periodicals could be included regardless of GNG/BASIC criteria (provided there is verifiable third party information about her nonetheless). But this would be discussed in relation to WP:CREATIVE then. For businesspeople, I don't see the need to go beyond BASIC, unless perhaps we talk of "being CEO of a Fortune 500 company". --Cyclopiatalk10:25, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Like, say, a claim she had photographs published in Ladies' Home Journal, verified by, um, Ladies' Home Journal? The AfD on Cruder didn't buy that argument because that didn't qualify as "secondary." As for businesspeople, perhaps they published non-trivial books, or created non-trivial seminars, something like that. Would a run-of-the-mill CEO of a nondescript privately-held company qualify for notability? My vote would be no all day long. But what if he or she published several books, or toured the rubber chicken circuit? Then we're dealing with something else. Oh No! It's Faustus37!it is what it is - speak at the tone10:40, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Ok. I see (from your user page) we're both inclusionists, and we both therefore probably agree that we would prefer mere verifiability than the more POV-ish and restrictive criteria of notability. Therefore I agree with what you mean. I'm only quite dubious the version of notability you want to establish could fly here. --Cyclopiatalk10:55, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
You'd be right. :) Especially for biographical articles, high-quality sources are paramount. Blurbs ("X published Y in Z") might be verifiable, but do not demonstrate notability. Extensive biographical coverage of the person would, and is the only thing that would. SeraphimbladeTalk to me10:59, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think Faustus was thinking of a notability criteria like the ones laid in WP:ATHLETE, where the presumption of notability comes from achievements more than from the external sources. I think a version of this for creatives and businessmen could be reasonable too. --Cyclopiatalk11:04, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Keep in mind, those are presumptions, not "rules". Ultimately, if the article has insufficient sourcing, it must go, even if it meets one of the "presumptive" rules. In practice, that cleanup is difficult sometimes due to fans, but it always happens sooner or later. SeraphimbladeTalk to me11:14, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
The presumption only covers issues due to WP:NOT. In particular, if it's not verifiable, then it would go. But for notability criteria alternative to GNG/BASIC, primary sourcing or a single secondary one would be enough to satisfy WP:V. --Cyclopiatalk11:19, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Take it from someone who's done plenty of paid editing. If you really and truly want to address the matter on Wikipedia, a witch hunt will get you exactly nowhere. Instead, you specify this particular notability standard as much as you can. This and WP:CORP. Any COI and NPOV issues tend to sort themselves out over time, given the whole "Wikipedia can be edited by anyone" bit. Besides, any paid editor worth anything is a fool to blow those things off. Oh No! It's Faustus37!it is what it is - speak at the tone06:35, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Great reason for including the Wolves sides per season, crap reason for having an editor on J. Random Goalie for whom no significant reliable independent sources exist. Guy (Help!) 23:54, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Resolved