Centralized discussion on the notability of political candidates
No consensus defaulting to status quo. Which, of course, is not satisfying to nearly anyone, but, I'm sorry, I just can't find consensus here. The discussion before DGG's restatement wasn't really A vs B, it was really B vs "oppose both", which, I have to say, implies strongly the proposal could have been phrased better. (There was even one "support both" opinion (!), which would seem to underscore that point.) Later in the discussion and especially after DGG's restatement, it became clear that the "oppose both" people were really opposing B. All said and done, there were marginally more people in support of B, but not enough to call it consensus. So we are left with DGG's option C, no consensus whether or not routine election coverage suffices for Wikipedia:Notability. Though a few people do think that the status quo is fine, maybe they will be happy. --GRuban (talk) 22:21, 2 January 2019 (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.
This is a centralized discussion to address inconsistencies between Wikipedia guidelines and de facto norms governing articles on unelected political candidates. The basic question is: Should political candidates who have been the subject of multiple feature news articles by journalists be considered notable, regardless of whether or not they have held the equivalent of state-level office or only received coverage in the context of their candidacy? FourViolas (talk) 17:05, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
The current guideline standard seems to suggest that, barring some specific WP:NOT or WP:AVOIDVICTIM problem, such people should be considered notable.
WP:BASIC: People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject.[...] People who meet the basic criteria may be considered notable without meeting the additional criteria below.
WP:NPOL: The following are presumed to be notable: [...] Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage.[1] Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion.
References
^A politician who has received "significant press coverage" has been written about, in depth, independently in multiple news feature articles, by journalists.
However, a higher standard is articulated in widely-cited essays on notability:
WP:POLOUTCOMES: Candidates who are running or unsuccessfully ran for a national legislature or other national office are not viewed as having inherent notability and are often deleted or merged into lists of campaign hopefuls [...] Losing candidates for office below the national level who are otherwise non-notable are generally deleted.
WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Geographic scope: Non-winning candidates for political office are not accepted as notable just because local coverage of the election campaign exists in the local media where that campaign would have been simply expected to garner coverage.
As a result of this discrepancy between the guideline and essay standards, many articles on political candidates who have never held political office but who do appear to meet the general notability guideline are deleted under a local consensus that such people are not notable.
To achieve better consistency in our notability standards, one of two things ought to be done:
1) Statement A: Ordinarily, only politicians who have assumed the equivalent of U.S. statewide office should have articles. We should elevate the essay standard to guideline status in WP:NPOL.
2) Statement B: Political candidates do not require more or different kinds of coverage than other individuals to qualify as notable. We should affirm the guideline standard, rewrite the essays to make this fact clearer, and notify admins who close politician-related AfDs that the essays do not reflect community consensus.
Previous discussion on this issue, including in 2015, six months ago and last month, reaffirmed consensus for the guideline standard, but the essay standard remains in use in practice, as shown in the collapsed section below. Whichever conclusion finds consensus here, we should develop a concrete plan for implementing and publicizing the result, so that we don't have to keep having such discussions.
Extended content:
Examples of recent AfDs whose outcomes depended on this question
In the deletion discussion for Greg Cox, Sporting flyer wrote: " I've reviewed all the sources set out above and all of the sources in the article and none of them are about him, but rather routine coverage of his actions in his role local politician." Sporting flyer voted Delete. The article ended up being kept, but it was hardly a landslide.
In the deletion discussion for Sara Innamorato, E.M.Gregory nominated the article, saying, "Candidate for state legislative seat with no claim to notability before this campaign." In a subsequent delete vote, John Pack Lambert added, "unelected candidates are not notable" and Sporting Flyer said "Almost all political candidates will receive coverage of their political campaigns" (i.e., an argument that the coverage of the subject is routine because she is a political candidate). When FourViolas pointed out this inconsistency, E.M. Gregory said, "have you taken a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#Candidates?" The article was eventually kept in very short (two sentence) form and contains no information about the candidate other than her party affiliation and the margin of her primary win (i.e., two pieces of routine information). Other relevant information that might have been included was considered promotional.
The deletion discussion for the article on /Lawrence Rustem begins with Anarcho-authoritarian stating that the subject does not pass WP:NPOL; SportingFlyer sbsequently reiterates this. The problem is that passing WP:NPOL is not a requirement for a politician or any person, to be notable, and Emeraude attempts to point this out, offering the only Keep vote. Bearian's final comment is a reference to WP:ROTM, implying that coverage of the subject appears to be as run-of-the-mill (presumably because all discussion of political candidates can automatically be classified run-of-the-mill) and therefore not worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. The article is eventually deleted.
In the deletion discussion for the article on John Hollar, SportingFlyer begins by saying the subject is not notable because the non-primary coverage is too local, Bearcat votes to delete emphasizing that the subject does not automatically qualify on any of several grounds, and E.M.Gregory agrees by pointing out how small Montpelier is. None of these is an argument that the subject is not notable, only that the subject does not appear to qualify as notable automatically. The article is eventually deleted.
One of us (A loose noose) recently nominated three articles on unelected politicians for deletion (Bob Corlew, George S. Flinn Jr., and Kristin Gaspar), all of which were eventually deleted. In each, he began with the premise that these individuals did not pass WP:NPOL, were only political hopefuls, and therefore were not notable.
The list of completed politician-related deletion discussions can be read here, and the list of current discussions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Politicians. Any sample of these will demonstrate a similar pattern of reasoning.
Implications of statement A (elevating the essays)
On elevation of the Common Outcomes essay for unelected politicians, we would be clear that these individuals constitute an exception to the General Notability Guidelines. We can do this without making significant changes to WP:NPOL so long as we are also clear that it is possible for some candidates, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to qualify as exceptions if the coverage is so far above the usual that notability is obvious. We should probably develop with specific criteria for this case, and make clear why the standard is set this high for non-office holders. We could state that political coverage for candidates, as a category of coverage, is essentially "routine" and should not bear any weight in a deletion discussion even if it is independent, verifiable, reliable, in-depth, etc. Biographies of candidates published in newspapers would fall in this category, and will not count towards notability (whereas a similar biography on a non-political person still would). We could also emphasize the often-temporary nature of political candidacy, which may not last more than one election cycle and therefore (for candidates) should be discounted as lacking enduring significance, and we state the deeply promotional nature of political advocacy makes nearly all published discussions of a candidate's political platform moot. Lastly, we can concede that all of this will change the moment any such person actually becomes elected to state-level public office, at which point any of this information may be freely included in the person's automatically-qualified Wikipedia article.
Implications of statement B (affirming the guidelines)
On affirming that political candidates do not constitute a category of persons that require more or different kinds of coverage than other individuals to qualify as notable, we agree that the WP:NPOL guideline indicating that while a political candidate qua candidate will not qualify for an article "automatically", so long as there is significant coverage in reliable independent verifiable published sources and even if that coverage relates only to the person's candidacy, the person may still qualify as notable. Some editors will be concerned that this will open the floodgates to filling Wikipedia with "campaign brochures". This fear may be unfounded, however: even if these gates were opened, the subjects would still need to qualify as notable by having the right kind of coverage in the right kinds of sources. If there really are no good sources in any context, we can move to delete it. We would have to stop using the Common Outcomes essay and "failure to meet WP:NPOL" as deletion rationales; WP:NPOL might need to be reworded to make clearer that it is intended as a test of inclusion only, and failure to meet it only means the person doesn't qualify automatically but might still qualify if existing sources pass WP:BASIC). Admins who regularly close these AfD discussions would need to be made aware of the new standard. Articles previously deleted using these arguments might warrant re-evaluation.
Survey
Statement B (affirm guideline standard), as co-proposer. Notability shouldn't be a value judgement we get to confer or withhold from on high: it's just an answer to the question "is it possible to write a policy-compliant article about this subject?". Therefore, I approve of the standard set by NPOL#2: written about, in depth, independently in multiple news feature articles, by journalists. This amount of coverage will almost always contain enough material to make a useful, non-promotional page out of.
I also think Wikipedia should be a place where people can get useful, unbiased information about important topics, and I think that in democracies it's especially useful and important for people to be able to know the basic biographical information about the people they're voting for without relying on biased campaign websites or combing through old news stories. Collecting, summarizing, and freely distributing this information from reliable sources is exactly what Wikipedia is good at. This also creates a digital repository of metadata that could be very useful for future historians.
I'm sympathetic to the concern that this will fill Wikipedia with promotional "campaign brochures", but banning articles on unelected candidates doesn't solve that problem: it just means that only incumbents get to do this. The solution is to increase editorial attention to local politicians' articles, and possibly to declare politicians' press releases and campaign websites unreliable sources for describing their political positions, not to delete their articles. FourViolas (talk) 17:05, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Affirm (as other co-proposer). My thoughts are pretty well laid out here already. Am hoping other editors will have the "concrete suggestions" mentioned above. A loose noose (talk) 21:38, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Affirm per FourViolas. In my opinion, elected officials should be treated less harshly than unelected bureaucrats. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.)wumbolo^^^21:51, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose any change that would open the floodgates to a gusher of promotional political candidate campaign brochures masquerading as encyclopedia articles. The proper place to provide neutral coverage of an unelected political candidate is in a NPOV article about the political race, providing balanced coverage of all the candidates. This is the working consensus that I have observed at AfD for the eight years that I have been participating there. In all honesty, I believe that success of this proposal would be a catastrophe for the encyclopedia which would also allow for a flood of biographies of small town mayors, council members, mid-level business executives, local pizzerias, dental offices, florist shops and the like, all all based on press release generated predictable, formulaic coverage in local newspapers. I will oppose this change vigorously wherever it is proposed, as long as I am an editor. Cullen328Let's discuss it23:44, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose both I think the either-or presented above is incorrect, and I'd vote to affirm on those grounds alone, and I agree with the notion someone who is unelected can still pass WP:GNG - but I agree with Cullen328. I think the notability bar for candidates is significantly higher than what is being proposed, and I don't think any of the AfDs which were presented above were in error. WP:NPOL is fine as it is. What needs to be clarified is that many, if not most, articles for political candidates or local politicians fail WP:NOT. Any campaign cycle will receive a level of news coverage. Much of this political coverage isWP:ROUTINE. Furthermore, since it's the only thing they're notable for, many of these candidates fail WP:BLP1E, Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS, and if this is for a candidate running for office, many, many of them fail WP:NPOV. Furthermore, our current consensus tends to redirect the candidate to the election in which they are running. Finally, I want to note this RfC is very U.S.-centric, which I guess makes sense as much of the political cruft we have to wade through comes from the U.S.
I think the biggest issue here is I (and others) tend to use "fails WP:NPOL" as an shorthand way of saying "WP:NOT." Similar to sports SNGs, it's often easier to just follow the SNG than it is to make the full argument. But I would support adding a specific WP:NOT - maybe something like WP:NOTCAMPAIGN? SportingFlyertalk23:54, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
WP:ROUTINE, a guideline under WP:Notability (events), says it's meant to exclude wedding announcements, sports scores, crime logs [...] sports matches, film premieres, press conferences etc. To me, this seems to apply if there's only mechanical coverage like "there will be a debate next Thursday" or "the following candidates received such and such percent of the vote". However, it wouldn't exclude multiple in-depth, unique biographical feature articles, regardless of the fact that several such features are written "routinely" in the course of any election cycle—compare Olympic athletes.
WP:BLP1E is meant to protect WP:LOWPROFILE individuals who only flash into the news for a cycle or two. A political campaign is not usually a single event, but a sustained and active engagement with the public sphere and a process of legitimate and lasting public interest.
WP:NOTNEWS repeats that routine news reporting is insufficient, but I've already addressed that. It also says that unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event. As I said, my sense is that an electoral campaign is more than a single event, but I agree that anyone with the opposite sense could oppose articles for candidates only known for a single campaign on these grounds—although we'd then have to revert to a standalone article when a politician runs for something a second time.
And you didn't mention this one, but WP:NOTPROMO, which is sometimes invoked, explicitly says that an article can report objectively about [political propaganda], as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view, which should always be possible when multiple journalistic profiles are available. FourViolas (talk) 00:43, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with you about WP:ROUTINE and WP:NOTPROMO, as I've seen many articles become mouthpieces or hit-pieces for the candidate involved. (I would also consider local coverage of local government acts to be routine reporting.) We must also consider recentism: we get a ton of candidate articles during an election cycle, but they do not obtain lasting notability. Looking at United States House of Representatives elections, 1974, the losing candidates who have articles were notable for reasons other than the fact they ran for congress. SportingFlyertalk01:01, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Support Statement A It is clear that many candidates, even for statewide office, will receive local coverage that describes the individual's biography in enough depth that a Wikipedia article could potentially be written, but this is typically fleeting and often not in-depth. Simply applying GNG would allow far too many articles on marginally notable people for whom there was not even an expectation that they had a chance to win the office, an a lower profile office such as auditor at that. Short of more substantive out-of-state or non-news coverage or evidence of notability beyond simply having been a candidate, an article should not be expected. Any exceptions should be reasonably obvious; your example of AOC is beyond obvious for a poor comparison, especially as she doesn't even have a opponent and is in effect elected already - but she wasn't before the primary! I generally support the WP:POLOUTCOMES statement, though it may be too absolutist. (Members of state legislatures could follow the section there about municipal offices, as they are elected locally. Some people have made batches of articles about historic legislative members, despite the lack of sources beyond verification of their membership.) Reywas92Talk02:31, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I can't agree with either statement but I agree that WP:POLOUTCOMES should be the standard and someone whose only claim to notability is being an unelected candidate for office (including media coverage of that candidacy) isn't notable. This is consistent with WP:NOTNEWS and WP:ONEEVENT. We do, in fact, require that notability have some long term aspect, and people who satisfy the GNG because of a spate of media coverage in a short space of time relating to something which doesn't generate lasting significance aren't considered to be notable. Political candidates are almost always covered in local media coverage of the campaign but do not generate coverage after the campaign finishes, unless the candidate wins or they have some other source of notability (such as a wider political career). These people can be covered in articles about the election campaign. If a guideline is significantly out of step with practice then the guideline should be changed. Statement A also claims that "Ordinarily, only politicians who have assumed the equivalent of U.S. statewide office should have articles", which I don't think is a fair statement. Hut 8.510:55, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Comment I wanted to drop in a quick response to Cullen328 who said I believe that success of this proposal would be a catastrophe for the encyclopedia which would also allow for a flood of biographies of small town mayors, council members, mid-level business executives, local pizzerias, dental offices, florist shops and the like, all all based on press release generated predictable, formulaic coverage in local newspapers. I will oppose this change vigorously wherever it is proposed, as long as I am an editor. Ironically, we are proposing a reaffirmation of the existing guidelines, not a change to them! But I take his point: we need to keep out stuff that is based on things like a press release or a blog entry— but we aren't suggesting that the standards be changed to allow for such articles. First, we are only trying to clear up the situation with regard to unelected politicians (yes?), and second, if that pizzeria had been discussed in depth by multiple independent journalists, then... Well, then maybe it warrants a Wikipedia article after all, doesn't it? The point is, we (you and I) aren't supposed to judge what we feel or don't feel is notable, we are supposed to look at the sources, even for topics we can't imagine are notable, and if the sources for those topics meet our requirements, even if we don't think the subject is worthy, then we allow the article on that subject to exist anyway and we don't use our personal judgement to assess notability. We already make clear that press releases fail the independence clause— that is a red herring, no one is suggesting we start allowin them to count. But we are suggesting that there is a strong bias against unelected political candidates such that even those that would qualify for articles based on GNG are getting deleted as not notable for reasons not related to our guidelines. A loose noose (talk) 16:57, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Again, I don't think there's a conflict - just because someone passes WP:GNG doesn't mean that they will be notable. Wikipedia isn't a place you should be able to go to read candidate advertising, that's the pandora's box we're all concerned about - they should be a place you go to read about things which are encyclopedic, and if you were to look at historical congressional election results, many losing candidates are only notable because they ran for U.S. Congress once or twice, which consensus shows is not encyclopedic. Perhaps adding a specific WP:NOT would be the best thing to do here. SportingFlyertalk22:16, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
BASIC explicitly says People who meet the basic criteria may be considered notable without meeting the additional criteria below. If there's a consensus to the contrary in the case of politicians, there is a direct conflict and the guidelines need to be clarified. FourViolas (talk) 14:43, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
I don't see a contradiction; we also have WP:BIO1E which guides the coverage of otherwise nn individuals. Since a suitable merge/redirect target exists (the election page), the candidates can be just as successfully covered there, without a need for a stand-alone article. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:48, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose either (I think). The current approach works fine. WP:POLOUTCOMES provides sufficient guidance and is consistent with the current consensus on unelected candidates. They are subjects whose only claim to notability is being a candidate for office; they are not independently notable of the campaign and should be covered in the election page (with redirects to appropriate sections as needed). WP:NOTNEWS and WP:ONEEVENT also apply.
There are always exceptions, such as high-profile races where even the unelected candidate gets sufficient national coverage to ensure WP:LASTING notability beyond WP:MILL, or where winning a primary guarantees a win down the road. These exceptions are rare and are dealt with by existing policies and guidelines. (I'm still a bit unclear on what the proposal is trying to achieve, or what "Affirms" mean in this context. However, my comment is probably closer to A, meaning that unelected candidates are not presumed notable despite the routine coverage that they garner during their candidacy.) --K.e.coffman (talk) 16:48, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose both The current approach works, and broadly, unelected candidates should be redirected to the relevant election page or list or party hopefuls. I do strongly contend, that RS information about the candidate can be placed on the election page and these pages (election page or party list) can be expanded much more than they currently are. (Note, I plan to expand this comment in the future, as there are a few things that we should think about when dealing with political candidates.) --Enos733 (talk) 03:59, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Support Status Quo - There is a strong consensus at AfD as to what becomes of (fluff) bios of unelected politicians. Leave well enough alone. Carrite (talk) 14:50, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Comment For those supporting the status quo: do you agree that it represents a systematic exemption to BASIC's standard, People who meet the basic criteria may be considered notable without meeting the additional criteria below, or NPOL's assertion that [unelected candidates] can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion (with no mention of having to meet the PNC with sources independent of candidacy)? If so, why don't we need to revise these guidelines to codify the exception? FourViolas (talk) 15:08, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
To some degree, that is what articles of deletion is for - to discuss whether an article should be deleted. While the guidelines give direction to editors about what is or is not notable, the actual (formal) discussion about notability is in the deletion discussion. WP:OUTCOMES does a fair (if not better) job of trying to summarize consensus of those discussions. I know that there can be a desire to create bright(er) lines and more helpful guidance (and potentially limit what is considered for deletion), but respectful disagreement is a good thing. --Enos733 (talk) 18:04, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes, the status quo is a Special Notability Guideline "high bar" that subjects unelected politicians to harsher standards than normal use of GNG. I am a passionate advocate in GNG; however, using the Unelected Politician SNG is a sort of spam filter that works. Carrite (talk) 12:42, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose both I disagree with the interpretation present in this proposal that there is currently a disagreement between cited guidelines and essays. The cited essays reject "inherent notability", which I understand as the claim that some topic should have an article because it is important in the real world. Statement B says "Political candidates do not require more or different kinds of coverage than other individuals to qualify as notable." That obscures the real issue here, which is that politicians receive different kinds of coverage than other people, and so we must adjust our expectations of significant coverage and depth accordingly. If a businessman were interviewed on their opinions on immigration, I would ordinarily consider that extraordinary depth, but if a politician receives such coverage, I might dismiss it. Daask (talk) 19:55, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
And what, then if that businesswoman happens to be a politician, Daask? According to our current procedures, she pretty much gets deleted because she is an [unelected] politician. And that, as I see it, is the problem here, and is what we are trying to sort out. I do not think anyone will disagree with my assessment there, either! A loose noose (talk) 20:06, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
@A loose noose: If the person is independently notable from their unsuccessful campaign, they should be able to have an article, and I don't remember a time when it's been an issue. Maybe Eliot Cutler, but whether he would be notable apart from his candidacy was debatable? It's especially clear if the article passes WP:BIO and was created before they began campaigning. SportingFlyertalk22:33, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Not clear what oppose and affirm mean, so I'll just explain myself. Our standards require secondary sources, which in non-fringe theory means a source removed in time from the event and dependent on primary sources, which are not removed in time. We know that secondary sources pretty much always cover the elected candidates, so we grant exceptions to the occasional not-covered people, but since unelected candidates routinely don't get secondary coverage, why make any exceptions for them? Remember not to push fringe theories such as the idea that news reports are secondary sources, because that departs very significantly from the prevailing and mainstream views in this field. Nyttend (talk) 04:13, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
The definitions there don't help much either way, since they're evenly split. Wikipedia has never remotely held that contemporaneous newspaper accounts are primary sources, apart from a couple of editors with strongly-held fringe views at AfD whose arguments rarely persuade anyone else. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:24, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
I think this is what NPOL is trying to say by requiring news feature articles by journalists. An in-depth journalistic profile summarizing what is publicly known about somebody is the most common kind of secondary source about a politician, whereas a datelined report of a debate, rally, press conference, or speech would be primary. FourViolas (talk) 20:09, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
That is absolutely not what it does say, though. If someone wants to imply a far stricter definition of secondary source than the project has always used, they need to get a consensus to change it so that it says that. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:42, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
Re: An in-depth journalistic profile summarizing what is publicly known..., yes, that would secondary coverage, but the thing is that such profiles are rare and / or published in a local Smalltown Tribune vs Washington Post, for example. In the case of the former, it makes much more sense to cover the candidate in the page on the election in question, rather than creating stand-alone articles. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:55, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
My understanding is that a secondary source is a secondary source, as long as we believe that the Tribune has editorial review and makes an effort to check facts. Are you suggesting we make WP:AUD, or something like it, apply to people as well as corporations? FourViolas (talk) 19:07, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Please see my comment in the "restatement" section for my general thinking: [1]. In general, a candidate running for election is probably the closest we'd have of a biography being akin to WP:NPRODUCT / WP:NORG. Applying WP:AUD to unelected candidates may be a stretch, but not by much. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:09, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Any campaign worth its salt will have some sort of media/PR presence. We discount PR material in WP:NORG, and while there's nothing wrong per se with local secondary sources, the fictional Tribune quoted above will cover any local election indiscriminately - and also have a greater chance of being influenced by the campaign's PR wing. I'm starting to think strengthening WP:NOTPROMO for unelected candidates who are currently campaigning is the correct end result here. SportingFlyertalk09:39, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
I agree that there's a systemic sourcing problem, but I think the solution is to rely more on local coverage when editorially independent of the campaign, not less, while banning political WP:SELFSOURCEs, which are almost always unduly self-serving. Take a look at Phil_Scott_(politician)#Political_positions, which I've been working through: the real problem is sourcing to the politician's websites and press releases, which are always biased and selective, and any small-town journalism coverage is preferable, as long as it isn't reprinting or laundering a press release. This is usually pretty easy to tell: compare these two descriptions, from the same site, of the governor's role in passing a tax exemption [2][3]. FourViolas (talk) 16:44, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Support B: it requires an exceptional reason to invalidate GNG. As far as I know, NPROF is the only exception we have in theory. In reality, we get a lot of editors !voting as seen in political AfDs, where there's a higher standard for a subject because that subject is a politician. This is an understandable reaction to the mass of people trying to use Wikipedia to push their political agenda or promote an obscure candidate they have a COI with, but it's not the optimal one. The optimal one is to keep the articles, iff they meet GNG of course, and watchlist them to make sure NPOV is maintained. — Bilorv(c)(talk)18:22, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose both as well as the false dichotomy here. I don't think only those who have assumed state-wide office should have articles, and I don't believe that political candidates should be held to the same standards as all other individuals because what counts as "significant coverage" is field dependent. As Daask says above: politicians receive different kinds of coverage than other people, and so we must adjust our expectations of significant coverage and depth accordingly. If a businessman were interviewed on their opinions on immigration, I would ordinarily consider that extraordinary depth, but if a politician receives such coverage, I might dismiss it. I think we should clarify NPOL as to what constitutes "significant" coverage. As an example, local papers and news will routinely cover candidates and campaign activities in the region, I don't think that makes someone notable if they lose but it can be added to the associated election article. However if a candidate is being profiled outside of the geographic area they are campaigning, that's definitely significant because it's not written simply to inform voters about the election but because the candidate is thought by journalists to be newsworthy outside of the electorate. If it comes down to it, I'd be fine with B but definitely oppose A as too US-centric and for other reasons stated above. Wugapodes[thɑk][ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz]07:49, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose both I am largely sympathetic to the views of Cullen, Hut 8.5, K.e.coffman, and Wugapodes. The lack of a hard and fast rule is a feature, not a bug, and I don't believe that the imposition of one is likely to settle matters any (no matter which way it goes, someone will try to claim that THIS candidate is an exception to the rule at AFD). shoy (reactions) 20:10, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Statement B Currently, Wikipedia is far too stringent on what qualifies as notable. If this change is made, we will be able to expand the knowledge hosted here. There's no reason not to add people of whom have run for office but not won, so long as there's enough relevant information on them from acceptable sources. Using the method for Statement B, and reaffirming such, would allow us to vastly expand the range of what Wikipedia covers with valuable, high-quality information on notable people. SuperChris (talk) 11:49, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose both, support status quo - Having been a major-party nominee myself, I know that the coverage of candidates is routine, and comes closer to BLP1E than anything else. If they don't win or otherwise acquire actual notability, coverage of candidates is more news coverage of the elections, than actual coverage of them for their own sakes. --Orange Mike | Talk20:19, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
Approximately A. The initial could have been worded better, and some of the responses here seem a bit confused. The alternate wording proposed below is good: for unelected candidates, routine coverage of a political campaign is not considered to be sufficient for notability. GNG, and particularly NCORP, affirm the point of routine coverage. Coverage of failed campaigns is (commonly) very ephemeral. Once an election is over, most losing candidates would flunk the One Month Test, much less the Ten Year Test. Alsee (talk) 10:05, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
More B than anything, unsuccessful candidates especially for lesser office are basically WP:BLP1E, even if the event is an election that runs for some weeks. If, at the end, they go back to a job that is unlikely ever to gather any attention then merging to the election article is the correct course. We have no hope of maintaining compliant articles on people who were accountants for all but a month of their working lives. Guy (Help!) 21:01, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Statement B Though people standing for a single election should likely be covered in the article on that election, not as a stand-alone bio (assuming no other notability). Pretty much per WP:BLP1E. Hobit (talk) 03:04, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
Strong Support B. As so well stated by SuperChris. Bearing in mind Wikipedia's role as the #1 online encyclopedia, we do the reader a disservice by a rigidly deletionist NPOL. As matters now stand, articles about candidates having numerous RS refs that would otherwise meet N are being deleted at AfD. In the US, there are 50 governors and 100 Senators. As long as reliable secondary sources exist to verify a major party candidate's biography and positions on the issues for these high offices, we owe it to the reader seeking this information to provide it, instead of suppressing it as NPOL is now interpreted. JGHowes talk16:09, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
Support both - NPOL should be made a guideline, but there are other ways in which a candidate may be notable. John Glenn was notable before he thought of the senate & a failed candidacy wouldn't have made him non-notable. I don't see the dichotomy between the statements. Though B should be clearer about which guidelines are to be rewritten. Cabayi (talk) 10:56, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose statement A as inherently US-centric; weak support statement B. I'm wary of any guideline which tries to defer to analogies to U.S. equivalents, because electoral systems and elected offices in different jurisdictions don't line up. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christine Fong comes to mind on how we generally end up sidestepping the significance of the political role and evaluate the sourcing instead. Deryck C.11:21, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Interesting, as I was going to respond to someone else about how I actually view statement B as the more U.S.-centric of the two, as U.S political cruft really is the source of the conflict here, and statement B would allow routine political coverage which we've typically discounted. WP:NPOL already gives a notability presumption to someone in the legislature at a national or sub-national level. Also, someone like Fong, who has held an elected post, isn't an unelected candidate in spite of her election losses and would have to be evaluated on WP:GNG anyways. SportingFlyertalk11:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Support Statement A - Our guidelines should reflect our actual practices and it seems there is rough consensus at AfD to merge bios of failed candidates (who are otherwise unnotable) into the election articles. Kaldari (talk) 15:58, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Support Statement B with the understanding that failed candidates who are of marginal notability may still be merged back after the election.--Pharos (talk) 08:37, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
Strongly support B over A, but still prefer suggested restatement framing and its option that "routine coverage of a political campaign is considered sufficient to notability." Wikipedia should assume responsibility for the fact that it is one of the most influential sites on the Web, and recognize the implications of its approach to covering elections. Under the policy as it currently stands, Wikipedia coverage is strongly biased in favor of the incumbent. While articles about officeholders are kept, those about highly competitive challengers for positions as important as U.S. Congress can be deleted despite multiple national and even international news articles published over a period of a year about their candidacy. One of many examples of such an article is Max Rose (politician), a major-party challenger in a competitive U.S. Congressional race who has been the subject of articles in the Times of Israel, the Guardian (UK), the New York Times, and other major national periodicals. A few editors have been acting on a self-perpetuating "precedent" to repeatedly delete this article, see the deletion discussion and deletion review. We have specific critera for notability of academics, and I don't see why we can't have specific criteria that would make well-covered challengers notable. Including the articles about notable elections, such as "New York's Congressional District 11", seems more difficult to find on search than the names of the candidates. La comadrejaformerly AFriedmanRESEARCH(talk)17:46, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
Support B I don't think that challenger political candidates should need to pass a higher bar for an article than anyone else. If there are multiple independent, reliable sources, there should be an article. As an editor without much experience editing current candidate pages, I'd also like to note that the current local consensus is super confusing for editors new to the area. (The one caveat is that I do think that sourcing requirements should be especially stringent for current-candidate articles, since misinformation can be particularly harmful on current-election-related pages). Philepitta (talk) 00:21, 1 November 2018 (UTC) Also, adding point someone made elsewhere that I agree with: covering incumbents but not challengers is not NPOV, because it creates a bias towards incumbents. In the context of an election, challengers are often as notable as incumbents. So as long as there are independent, reliable sources (even if the sources are local) there should be an article about the challenger, because having an article about a marginally important candidate is preferable to having a systematic pro-incumbent bias Philepitta (talk) 21:00, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
That would also make Wikipedia more U.S.-centric, as in many elections around the world the party is more important than the candidate. We are not a web host. SportingFlyertalk21:12, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
There's a lot of variety in electoral systems around the world, and the US is certainly not the only country with a candidate-based election system. Even if it were, I think it is appropriate to present balanced coverage of notable candidates for any country; generally striving for coverage that is balanced across opponents that visitors are likely to have high interest in is not US-centric. Philepitta (talk) 23:01, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Support B. Political candidates should be evaluated on the same basis. If there are reliable sources that rise about the short, mundane, and truly routine coverage, then they should get an article, regardless of success in the election. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions07:44, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
'Second comment. We grant automatic notability to high-level officebearers because they virtually always get significant coverage in reliable secondary sources, and it wouldn't be helpful to leave out the occasional random one that gets skipped. Unsuccessful aspirants for such offices, no matter what their coverage in the primary sources, routinely don't get secondary coverage. And by the way, remember not to advance the fringe theory that a news report is secondary for the matters that it's reporting, because you won't find any serious scholars who advocate such a theory. Nyttend (talk) 02:29, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
This comment began as a vote, but someone reminded me that I've already voted in this discussion nearly a month ago. Sorry about that; I'd completely forgotten about the existence of this discussion, let alone forgotten that I'd participated in it already. Nyttend (talk) 21:00, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
Support B. Political candidates should be evaluated on the same basis. There is more rationale to allow an article here then delete it, as these people directly show the cultural environment and are more likely to have historical significance.Casprings (talk) 12:38, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
Strong Oppose proposal B or any modification of guidelines/policy that will make it even slightly easier to add to the already unacceptable level of promotional articles about candidates for public office that show up every election year, per Cullen328. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:47, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
Support B: General notability rules ought to be more consistently applied throughout. Stricter criteria for inclusion applied to political candidates is setting a bad, double standard. Moreover, I think Wikipedia better serves society and makes for a better informed public by having more content on political candidates, as long as information is well sourced and neutrally presented. Thank you.(talk) user:Al83tito 6:20, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Discussion
I don't have time to comment on the proposal right now but want to make a few "procedural" points. First, I agree that a widely-publicized RFC is necessary. Second, the mentions (which seem fairly thorough for people who have argued on both sides) were not pings, so notifications were not sent. Third, "elevate" v. "affirm" is very confusing; can we use "Statement A" v. "Statement B" voting instead? power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:09, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
I'm a little unclear about what problem the proposal is trying to solve. That too many political candidates' articles are being deleted, without regard to GNG? K.e.coffman (talk) 01:01, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I think it's a statement that NPOL imposes the hardest to reach requirements in terms of individual coverage, in that no level of coverage is sufficient without a significant challenge to meet (in terms of acquiring office)
For now, power~enwiki is correct regarding the scale this needs to reach. It's centralised, which is a good start, but worth dropping a link in a few specific places (projects, portals etc) that would have significantly interested parties.
This would be one of the largest scale "niche" notability shifts we could do - I'm only a moderate AfD participator and a good 40 AfDs I !voted to delete/redirect would now become straight keeps. It will also open up some major pandora's boxes while closing a couple of others.
Too tired atm to do the analysis both on pluses vs negatives, but more importantly, whether NPOL, as it stands, is a qualitative anomaly as vs other specific guidelines (and whether it is justified or not). — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
This looks like a classic "solution in search of a problem". The whole proposal ignores the simple principle that no SNG/guideline/essay/whatever can exclude a subject that complies with GNG. Take for example Arnold Schwarzenegger. A clearly notable actor long before he even thought of entering politics. The wrongheaded idea here would have him suddenly become non-notable the moment his name came up as a possible candidate for governor of California, and then instantly restore his notability the moment he won the election. NPOL currently properly points out that when the only sources about a subject are promotional (broadly construed) and routine coverage, that is not enough to meet GNG. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:05, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eliot Cutler for an example of an article which actually was recently deleted (although deletion was overturned) because, as Activist saw it, "candidacy in itself is perversely being used to discredit the actual notability of subject who clearly would be notable if they never imagined they might run for anything." FourViolas (talk) 16:59, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Is it understood and expected that adopting Statement A would require the deletion of thousands of existing articles about politicians who have been members of state legislatures or the equivalent, but have not held statewide office or its equivalent? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:40, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
@Dodger67: I think the phrase "statewide office" in the United States refers primarily, if not exclusively, to offices in which the electorate is the whole state, rather than a district or constituency (so governors, U.S. senators, elected state attorneys general, etc. – see List of U.S. statewide elected officials). Google results seem to confirm this understanding. Perhaps, for the sake of avoiding ambiguity, the statement could be clarified to reflect the wording of WP:POLITICIAN, which refers to "Politicians and judges who have held international, national or sub-national (statewide/provincewide) office, and members or former members of a national, state or provincial legislature" (emphasis added)? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 17:34, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Comment – I think notability should be determined beyond WP:MILL for political candidates who aren't elected. Here are some example AfDs to look at to help this discussion:
Comment Just had a re-read... WP:POLOUTCOMES reflects current community consensus at AfDs, so as written, Statement B would instruct closers to ignore current community consensus when closing AfDs. There seems to be a conflict here. SportingFlyertalk00:31, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Meant to convey that, if the discussion here finds a consensus for statement B, the POLOUTCOMES standard should not be taken to represent the opinion of the wider WP community overall, despite any WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to the contrary. FourViolas (talk) 00:54, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
WP:POLOUTCOMES wasn't carved in stone and handed to Moses on Sinai. If it conflicts with a guideline, it should be corrected, or the community should fix WP:GNG to say that it applies to everything except political candidates who have not held office. — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk01:04, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia has many SNGs that are either much stricter (corporations) or much weaker (sports) than GNG, depending on the circumstances. This is not different. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:18, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Comment. There is clearly no community consensus to support keeping any candidate who merely passes WP:GNG: short of continually having closers supervote to override consensus results, it's not gonna happen. Most candidates for public office attract a reasonable level of coverage during their campaigns - and then never will again. This particular consensus have avoided countless raging BLP issues with people who just weren't notable outside of the context of that one campaign. To use one example from the above list: Julia Salazar is now notable because she won, but if she hadn't, she'd be a non-notable rando with a Wikipedia article documenting a long history of questionable statements about her background, to put it lightly: I consider that keeping those out (and there are examples of this in just about every election ever) is a really good idea. On the other hand, I don't think a statement about requiring election to statewide office is helpful: not only does it not account, for example, for local mayors, but it also doesn't deal with the issue of actually-notable failed candidates like Eliot Cutler, whose impact on Maine politics in the last decade has been huge. I would be interested to see if wording could be found to address issues with notable unelected candidates (though I'm not sure it's remotely possible), because I do think at times we've had a tendency (at least in my part of the world) to assume non-notability if someone has ever made a failed run for office, and I feel it would be useful to reign that in too. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:18, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Another way to view this is that running for office is WP:BLP1E, and if that's the only reason a person has gained attention, we probably shouldn't have an article about them. WP is not a Who's Who of who ran for office. But if they have notable factors of their past, that's reasonable. Basically, the act of running in an election in of itself is not a factor that is notable by itself. --Masem (t) 04:44, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
The "E" in your BLP1E is left hanging. This isn't a plane crash or a monkey in a supermarket parking lot. This is an election. Please remember that, yes? A loose noose (talk) 07:53, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
It appears I'm coming into this discussion rather late and I haven't had the time to read all of the context surrounding the issue. To add to the above list by Redditaddict69, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Theresa Obermeyer and the subsequent DRV which overturned the AFD decision should demonstrate that this isn't quite as cut and dried as it would appear from the numerous XFDs and "holders of a certain office are categorically notable while candidates for that office are categorically non-notable" consensus I've come across lately. The Obermeyer article has seen recent activity involving gaming BLP and other policies to deny that reliable sources had a field day with her state of mental health in 1996, which included multiple mentions by The New York Times. Moving forward to today, within the small subset of content I watch, there has been an active effort to use Wikipedia's coverage of Alaska elections and related content to influence those elections, coming on the eve of said elections and while reliable sources are reporting that several key races are too close to call. I really don't have the time anymore to intervene every time such a thing happens. The latest thing which struck me as suspicious was the creation of Draft:Alyse Galvin as a biography-of-sorts, while Alyse Galvin exists in mainspace as a list entry only. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this serves our purposes, as opposed to this being an example of editors allowing themselves to be unduly influenced by pollsters, who in the days before the draft's creation were claiming that she was neck-and-neck with incumbent Don Young. Young's opponent 20 years ago, Jim Duncan, served in the state legislature for 24 years before that election. An attempt to create a draft on Duncan was buried and subsequently deleted. Galvin's accomplishments are pretty meaningless compared to Duncan, not to mention other past Young opponents such as Eben Hopson and Pat Rodey. The existence of this draft sends the clear message that Wikipedia exists to be a current events site or news site or popularity contest and not a serious information resource. Since it was created by an admin (one who has been very active at XFD pushing "holders of a certain office are categorically notable while candidates for that office are categorically non-notable", BTW), I expect to see the same double standard that already exists in draftspace, with admins using it as a holding pen for pet projects while casual users get their drafts deleted even while they're still working on them. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:23, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
suggested restatement
To clarify" by making this much simpler but with the same effect:
What this amounts to is rewriting NPOL along the lines of the very successful recent changes in NCORP, where we say specifically what is or is not acceptable for the purposes of the notability guideline. We would add a sentence saying one of these 3:
A) for unelected candidates, routine coverage of a political campaign is not considered to be sufficient for notability, or
B) for unelected candidate for state or national office routine coverage of a political campaign is considered sufficient to notability or
C): for unelected candidate for state or national office, it It is undecided whether routine coverage of a political campaign is or is not considered sufficient to notability DGG ( talk ) 01:13, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Personally, I think the current status is "C", and I think that is the least satisfactory way of dealing with it. Either A or B would be better, would avoid most AfD discussions, and would permit oa quicker resolution of the ones that are still unclear or challenged. My own preference is very strongly for B, as has been I think made clear my my comments at the AfDs. But even so, I think it would be better than the present situation to settle it one way or another. DGG ( talk ) 01:17, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I would propose something along the lines of "unelected candidates are not inherently notable, but can have an article if they pass WP:GNG. However, if coverage is routine or relates specifically to the election in which the candidate ran, information about the candidate should be included on the election page instead of in a stand-alone article." SportingFlyertalk01:24, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I agree with the gist of DGG's idea, but I feel like the "routine coverage" issue has been a mess at WP:NCORP, because it doesn't actually give much guidance: it stretches exactly as wide or narrow as the voter's deletionism and can be used to justify deleting basically anything within its purview if the voter feels like arguing it that way. To use an example from the long list of AfDs above: Eliot Cutler has had a huge impact on Maine politics, but because he's mainly notable in the context of his political campaigns, someone could (and this happens all the time with NCORP) argue that any coverage of his campaigns is routine. Conversely, it actually doesn't address well issues like Julia Salazar: someone who definitely received non-routine coverage by virtue of her scandals but had she lost wouldn't remotely have been notable beyond her campaign. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:26, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Agree that this would only be an improvement in practical clarity if we specified whether, for example, multiple biographical feature articles count as "routine". If they do, we'd also have to insert language into WP:BASIC to clarify, because this would be an exception to the general biographical notability standards.
I'd also worry that "routine" means different amounts of coverage in different contexts. Political biographers "routinely" write thousands of articles and dozens of books about every American Presidential candidate who makes it to the last few months of the primary elections; should we discount all such sources for the purposes of notability? If not, where is the line between this and regional newsweeklies writing up a few in-depth profiles of the local House candidates every two years? FourViolas (talk) 02:20, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I tend to fall on the side of Statement A if I had to make a choice. No matter where or when the election takes place, the site is inundated by supporters of Candidate X and staff for the campaign of Candidate Y trying to use this site to WP:PROMO their candidate, using us to give their candidate an extra air of legitimacy. Cullen328 puts this more eloquently above. Will many of these candidates (especially those who do not win) be relevant in ten years? I don't think so. There are obvious exceptions to the rule. Peter Bevan-Baker ran for the provincial Green Party in 1997, and then twice for the federal Greens in 2008 and 2011 before finally winning a provincial seat in Prince Edward Island. He only received an article after winning a seat in the legislative assembly. However, his candidacies are not forgotten, they are mentioned in the candidate lists for the two federal elections. Bkissin (talk) 16:52, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
The "Ten Year" argument is part of the problem: we often do not know what will be notable in 10 years, but deleting articles on unelected candidates now is pre-emptive, and requires individual editors to assess the long-term prospects of topics/ people they do not personally know. There is nothing in our guidelines that says there is a requirement for an article on a person to seem likely in the minds of other editors to be around 10 years from now— that is only a suggestion about what kinds of things to include or not include. If a subject has multiple reliable independent published sources, then who are we to also assign a 10-year rule to that subject? That feels out of place, and like too much responsibility for us to claim as editors over the future of information. We have guidelines, and they do not mandate a 10-year guess.
Also, I have to wonder how much of what you are seeing as the unwarranted promotional inclusion of information on a candidate is a result of being the Wikipedia editor considering it for deletion— the person creating that content may simply be wanting to write up an article on the candidate and may be using legitimate sources to do so. If we look askance at such articles and delete them even though they adhere to all of our policies and guidelines, then we are actually failing the public who may visit our site and WANT more information on candidate X. It shouldn't be our job to sort such articles out so long as the article has the right kinds of sources in it. A loose noose (talk) 17:04, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I also have issues with the so called ten year rule. Truth is, we don't know what will happen in ten years, and the Wikipedia standards for notability may be cast wider or smaller. I think that political candidates should not be deleted just for being candidates. Also, campaign coverage SHOULD count for notability purposes, much like most coverage works for non-politicians. There were a lot of bad arguments for deletion at the Mary Gay Scanlon AfD, such as that keeping the article would open the floodgates to campaign brochures disguised as articles. I think that major-party candidates in congressional races in important districts can certainly be notable. This would not include candidates for statewide races though, which are usually non notable. Honestly, I think the time to have the AfD is after the election, not before, if the candidate loses. Then we can assess whether they deserve an article, and let me be clear, some will certainly be deleted but others kept. Right now we need major changes to the wording of the guideline as well as clarifying what "routine" means. ~EDDY(talk/contribs)~ 17:14, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
It's certainly possible for some candidates to have a credible claim to being more notable than most other candidates; see for example Christine O'Donnell, who got such a firestorm of coverage for having to deny being a witch that her article is twice as long and cites three times as many distinct sources as the article about the actual senator she lost to, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who's already more internationally famous than 95 per cent of incumbent members of the House of Representatives. (I'm Canadian and I've heard of her, which is more than I can say for anybody in the US House who isn't (a) party leadership, (b) local to the specific city in the US whose local news stations I get on cable, or (c) Maxine Waters.) But the fact that some media coverage exists is not how a candidate becomes notable enough to keep a Wikipedia article, because some media coverage always exists of every candidate — what it takes to give a candidate a credible claim to being a special case is that a lot more coverage exists than normal. That's not what Mary Gay Scanlon's article was showing — it was simply showing a depth and range and volume of coverage completely in line with what every candidate could always show. Which is why the campaign brochure issue was not a bad argument: if Mary Gay Scanlon was special just because she had sources, then we would indeed have to always keep an article about every candidate for anything, because there's no candidate for any office anywhere who couldn't show as much sourcing as she had. If her sourcing were enough to make her more notable than most other candidates, then every candidate is always more notable than most other candidates, because no candidate could ever show any less sourceability.
And no, the "ten year test" is not a problem, either. It's true that we can't know who will be notable ten years from now, but it's not our job to try and guess one way or the other — our job is to keep articles about people who have already attained something encyclopedically notable as of today, not to make guesses about who might become more notable in the future and who might not. If "might become more notable in the future than (s)he is today" were an inclusion criterion in and of itself, then we would have to keep an article about every single person who exists at all, because that's automatically true of everybody — every single person who exists at all always has the possibility of accomplishing something more notable in the future than they have accomplished yet as of today, and even people who have accomplished something notable today were still once aspirants who hadn't accomplished anything notable yet as of that time, and wouldn't have been in Wikipedia yet, either. Even Bill Clinton was once just an unelected candidate making his very first run for public office, and even Beyoncé was once just an aspiring wannabe trying to get noticed on the amateur talent show scene. But had Wikipedia existed at those times, our job would not have been to try to predict the future — it would have been to wait until they had actually accomplished a hard notability claim before we started their articles. Bill Clinton would not have had an article in advance of winning his first election to a notable office, and Beyoncé would not have had an article in advance of actually accomplishing something that got her over WP:NMUSIC.
Obviously if Mary Gay Scanlon wins her seat next month, her article will be recreatable at that time, because her notability claim will have flipped from "candidate" to "officeholder". Nobody ever said otherwise. An AFD deletion is not a permanent ban on the subject ever being allowed to have a Wikipedia article — we have had lots of articles about people (not even just politicians, but musicians and writers and actors as well) that got deleted because at the time of their original creation, the subject was still only an aspirant, not yet an achevant, to notability, but then later on their hard work paid off with an election victory or a hit record or a major literary award, and so their articles became recreatable because the notability equation had now changed. Unelected candidates for office do sometimes win the election in the end, obviously (every person who holds political office was once an unelected candidate too) — and if that happens, then the article is allowed to be recreated again even if it was deleted when they were still just an unelected candidate, because the notability equation has now changed. But that doesn't prove that there's a problem with the ten year test for notability — because our job is to maintain articles about people who have already passed the ten year test, not to guess at what people might or might not achieve in the future that they haven't already achieved today. Bearcat (talk) 18:11, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Right. To clarify, I wasn't making any prediction about the outcome of the race. I think the ten year rule is bad because it is very nebulous -- it depends on who is making the judgment. I could say Scanlon will be notable in 10 years based on her legal career, school board career, and congressional candidacy, while you could say the opposite, and neither would be objectively right. Bearcat, I think even you cold agree to a clarification as to what "routine" means, since we both come to the table with differing points of view on the topic. I don't think an article on her gives the right to have campaign brochures for articles on every candidate. Every candidate gets some coverage in an election, while not everyone gets what amounts to more than routine coverage (there we go again with that word). Also, some holders of notable office can have less notability since they get less coverage in a given area. ~EDDY(talk/contribs)~ 18:46, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
And none of Scanlon's coverage evinced anything unusual or out of the ordinary for campaign coverage of a candidate. Which is why I'm not buying your repeated assertions that "I don't think an article on her gives the right to have campaign brochures for articles on every candidate" — nothing about her coverage marked her out as any sort of special case of markedly greater notability than any other candidate. If the coverage shown in her article was enough to make her a special case who was exempted from having to pass WP:NPOL #1 just because that coverage exists, then every candidate is always a special case who is exempted from having to pass NPOL #1 just because their coverage exists, because nothing about her coverage was unusual in volume or range or depth compared to everybody else's. Bearcat (talk) 18:55, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
No need to relitigate the AfD discussion. The reason my argument about campaign brochures still stands is because your argument is a slippery slope argument and is thus not logically valid. While it is true that coverage of Scanlon is less than Ocasio-Cortez, it is certainly greater than someone running for Pennsylvania Senate, for instance. And I'd be open to having articles for candidates who have a similar level of coverage as Scanlon, since it is greater than "So-and-so wins primary with 16,000 votes" and the like. You don't have to agree with me, just stating my opinion. ~EDDY(talk/contribs)~ 19:14, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I thought that was a very clear AfD, to be honest. I don't think the test is whether the person is more notable than other people running - the question is whether they have achieved a level of notability where an encyclopedia article is justified for the rest of time. As I've pointed out above, if you look at Congressional election articles from say the 1970's, very few candidates who lost have or indeed would qualify for an article. SportingFlyertalk22:58, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Earlier Editorofthewiki said I think the time to have the AfD is after the election, not before, if the candidate loses. That topic has been discussed before, and thoroughly killed. I believe somewhere in the Village Pump archives. The prevailing view is that non-notable individuals do not get to use Wikipedia as a free advertising platform for their campaign. Also rejected was a "fairness" argument... yes incumbents have an inherent advantage and no it's not Wikipedia's job to boost unknown-challengers up trying to level the playing field. Individuals have to earn an encyclopedia article on their own merits. For wannabe-politicians that (mostly) means getting elected. Alsee (talk) 09:37, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Support Statement A A politician first of all needs to assume a political duty, while a person campaigning for the post, they are NOT a politician and having an article for candidates that would fall under WP:PROMO. CASSIOPEIA(talk)13:19, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Actually, that wasn't really the point we were trying to suss out here— you can't argue that any coverage of an unelected politician is promotional, and that therefore all such articles should be deleted. Clearly some unelected politicians are notable. The question is really, "What are we going to discount as routine coverage". From the above, it has been argued that a candidate needs to get "more coverage than usual" to be considered notable", but we don't seem to have established what that exactly means. For User:Bearcat: the problem with the 10 year rule is not that ditching it would end up having us keep all articles on potentially notable people because anyone could become notable someday, it is that it is being used to delete articles now when those articles already might meet our notability requirements. This is another red herring. No one is suggesting we start keeping all articles on everyone who might become notable— let's please keep this discussion more focused and not wander off into (weird?) scenarios that no one is proposing and no one would ever support. The point is that there appears to be a significant discrepancy between this set of guidelines and some corresponding essays and the ways that they are being used in deletion discussions which to a number of editors look to be inconsistent— this is what we are hoping to clear up and get to some long-term decisions about. I am also not sure that arguing that a candidate needs to have more coverage than most candidates to be notable is a useful criterion either: does the Queen of England need to have more coverage than most queens for her to qualify as notable? Notability is not determined (exclusively) by having more news-time than others like you, it is having coverage in multiple reliable published independent sources, and where the coverage itself is not routine!! When the coverage is an obituary, we know it is routine because everyone gets an obituary. But not everyone runs for political office and gets interviewed and written up in multiple newspapers and THAT, it seems to me, is in keeping with both the simplicity and the spirit of the GNG. It's not about "candidates more than other candidates', it's "candidates getting coverage which is more coverage than most [non-notable] people usually ever get." I think THAT aught to be our criterion, and yes, I think that probably makes a lot of them notable for Wikipedia's purposes. A loose noose (talk) 18:42, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
There's no such thing as a person who "already meets our notability requirements now but fails the 10YT anyway" — any person you could attempt that argument about, by definition, actually fails our notability requirements in the first place, such as by being a WP:BLP1E. And no, the Queen of England is not a valid comparison to the notability status of candidates, either — being the monarch of a sovereign country is an inherently notable role in its own right, where inclusion is automatically guaranteed because of that role in and of itself. So a king's or queen's notability is not dependent on comparing their volume of coverage to determine whether they're more or less notable than other kings or queens — the fact of being king or queen instantly gets them into Wikipedia right on its own face. Being a candidate for political office, conversely, is not an inherently notable role that confers automatic inclusion rights on every candidate for every office, but a role where inclusion is conditional on factors beyond the mere fact of being a candidate: such as preexisting notability for other reasons that would already have gotten them an article anyway, or a credible reason why their candidacy is a special case over and above most other candidacies. We distinguish between "inherently notable" roles that guarantee an article, like serving as Queen of England or President of the United States, and "not inherently notable" roles where inclusion depends on distinctions that mark a person out as more notable than most other people who are doing the same thing — and "as yet unelected candidates for political office" are of the latter type, not the former. By comparison, writers aren't guaranteed articles just because their books can be verified by Amazon.com or WorldCat as existing, nor are musicians guaranteed articles just because their albums verify on Bandcamp or discogs.com — writers and musicians have to pass conditional notability standards beyond just existing, such as by winning or getting nominated for a major literary or music award. Giving a person guaranteed inclusion rights depends on proving that they've passed our subject-specific inclusion standards for their occupation: politicians who hold NPOL-passing roles, musicians who pass one or more NMUSIC criteria, and on and so forth — if a person passes no subject-specific inclusion criteria, and instead you're shooting for "they're still notable just because media coverage exists", then that media coverage does have to show them as significantly more notable than most other people who are doing the same things. If "media coverage exists" were enough in and of itself to automatically exempt everybody who ever got their name into a newspaper from having to actually pass any SNG, then we would have to keep an article about my mother's former neighbour who got some "news of the weird" coverage a few years ago for finding somebody's escaped pet pig on her front lawn. But we don't, because passing GNG is not just a case of "two media hits exist and therefore she's automatically exempted from having to actually have a real notability claim beyond the existence of media coverage" — if a person doesn't actually pass the defined inclusion criteria for her field of endeavour, and instead you're shooting for "passes GNG anyway just because media coverage exists", then that media coverage does have to mark him or her out as a special case who has a credible claim to being more notable than most other people who are doing the same things. But the Queen of England cleanly passes the SNG for monarchy, so she doesn't have to make the same demonstration of being somehow more notable than other queens — she just has to be verifiable as having been the queen, which she is. Bearcat (talk) 19:35, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
As we quoted in the proposal, WP:BASIC explicitly says that a subject about whom multiple in-depth reliable independent secondary sources exist can be notable without meeting a relevant SNG. There is a longstanding, if loose, consensus behind the idea that special notability guidelines do not trump the GNG; they provide heuristics for quickly estimating whether sufficient coverage exists rather than reasons to ignore such coverage. See previous discussions in 2008, 2013, and this year. FourViolas (talk) 03:36, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Note although I am still thinking the options over, I want to point out the enormous difference among candidates for statewide office. In the U.S., an individual with no pre-exisitng notability running for the lower house of a state legislature is likely to be a non-notable person, and to continue to be a non-notable person if s/he loses in November. But candidate for Governor or the United States Senate or House with no previous claim to WP:NOTABILITY who wins the Democratic or Republican primary election will in many, perhaps most, cases have just become a notable person.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:53, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
...Interesting... As our NPOL criteria would give the former non-notable person a free pass, but continue to hold the latter to a higher standard until winning that governorship. Yeah, that doesn't seem right, does it. A loose noose (talk) 18:58, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Actually, no, a candidate for governor or Congress or president wouldn't be handed an automatic presumption of notability on that candidacy alone. What is true about candidates for high office is that they're likelier to already have had preexisting notability for other reasons anyway than candidates for lower offices are — a person is monumentally unlikely, for example, to be able to win the Democratic or Republican nominations for President without having already held another political office that would have already gotten them over NPOL anyway: Obama served in the state legislature and in Congress before running for president, Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney and Martin O'Malley and John Kasich were state governors before running for president, Hillary Clinton was First Lady and served in the US Senate, John McCain and Ted Cruz were US Senators, and on and so forth — and even the one obvious exception to "the presidency is not an entry-level job in politics", a certain D. Trump, still had preexisting notability in another field. It's not that candidates at some levels of office are guaranteed Wikipedia articles while candidates at other levels of office aren't, it's that candidates at some levels of office are more likely to have already been notable anyway than candidates at other levels of office are. People who weren't already notable for other reasons regularly run for city council or state legislature or even Congress/Parliament — but people who weren't already notable for other reasons are remarkably unlikely to ever actually win a major political party's nomination for governor or President at all. Bearcat (talk) 19:35, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Bearcat, President is a STRAWMAN rgument. We were talking about major party candidates for U.S. Governor, Senator, Member of the House. In fact, we get them here pretty often (albeit not, to my knowledge, nominated by Bearcat). The list someone posted above inculudes several recent discussions about failed major party candidates for Senate Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Ziser, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bob Tuke, [[4]], Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dwight Grotberg, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kathleen Sullivan Alioto. It really looks to me as though we are having a lot of nominations of notable candidates for Senate apparently encouraged by POL OUTCOMES statement on non-elected candidates. As I said, state legislators are separate, but certainly major party (Dem and Republican) candidates for Governor and Senator, and possibly U.S. House, ought to be mentioned as quite likely to be notable in POL OUTCOMES.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:17, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
No, we're not getting a lot of nominations of "notable candidates for Senate" — there's nothing "inherently" notable about being a candidate for Senate per se, but rather a Senate candidate's notability is still determined by the same standards as the notability of any other candidate for any other office: winning the election, having preexisting notability for other reasons that would already have gotten them an article anyway, and/or showing credible evidence that their candidacy was special for some substantive reason beyond the mere fact of having been a candidate. People don't get a special presumption of notability just for being non-winning candidates per se just because the office they're running for is in Washington DC instead of a state capitol — major or minor party, governor or president or Congress or state legislature, the notability standards for candidates still work the same way no matter what. The only difference is that some levels of office will have a higher proportion of candidates who do meet the "preexisting notability for other reasons" and/or "highly sourceable as special cases" conditions than other levels of office do — but even at those levels, a candidate still isn't handed an automatic presumption of notability just for being a candidate if they don't meet one of those conditions.
Of the examples you listed, both Ziser and Tuke were salvaged by stronger sources emerging to show evidence of notability for other reasons, not by the candidacies themselves, and Grotberg is a 12-year old discussion, at a time when candidates were deemed notable just for being candidates — you obviously meant to link to the second discussion, not the original, but the second discussion closed as a delete because Grotberg wasn't shown as meeting the conditions for deeming a candidate notable, and thus isn't proof of the point you think you're making. Again, none of them hinged on "notable because candidate" — they all hinged on whether preexisting notability could or couldn't be located for other reasons besides being a candidate per se, which is not the same thing. Bearcat (talk) 20:33, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
The other issue is that not every candidate for the US Senate represents a major political party. While we could easily say that Christine O'Donnell was the Republican candidate from New Jersey and should be notable because of that, Glenn Miller and James Rash were on the same ballot as well. I do not think we should be basing our standard for notability because of how we (or how a political institution) determine what is a major political party. Enos733 (talk) 22:20, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
It makes sense to say Democrat and Republican candidates have a better chance at being notable because, for better or for worse, these two parties corner the political process and thus the media coverage. Nor do I wish to argue that a nominee for governor, senator or Congress deserves an article because a major party nominated them. While I think this is generally true, there are exceptions, and sometimes the party nominates a real nobody to be their candidate. It happens, but I would count election coverage toward notability for candidates, just as book reviews and coverage are counted towards the notability of an author. What I think is worth discussing is having an AfD for a failed candidate AFTER the election. Wikipedia can be a great source of information for voters who are sitting on the fence or just want to learn about their party's candide. Saying "this candidate needs more coverage than similar candidates" as a standard for notability would be counterproductive. ~EDDY(talk/contribs)~ 01:31, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
But it's not Wikipedia's role to be the voter information service. Ballotpedia does a professional job at explaining and profiling candidates for political office in a nonpartisan way. We can educate voters on incumbent politicians, OR we can expand existing election articles with candidate positions and profiles. As it stands right now, the average 2018 election article has some information, but does not go into detail about the local issues in each district, or where the candidates stand on these issues. You echo the same concerns that Bearcat and I have mentioned, that candidacy (even if it's for a major party) is not inherently notable. Bkissin (talk) 13:34, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Indeed. And another thing that editors need to keep in mind is that Wikipedia volunteer time is a finite resource. It's certainly possible to write an appropriately neutral article about a candidate rather than a blatantly advertorial version, I'm not denying that — but even if somebody does that, Wikipedia's status as an encyclopedia that anybody can edit makes us an extremely alluring target for followup edits that change the tone to something else entirely. There's literally nothing stopping a political candidate's campaign staff from replacing the whole article with a whitewashed version copied and pasted from their own campaign literature, or their opponent's campaign staff from dirtwashing the whole thing with attack edits. We have no mechanisms in place to prevent a Wikipedia rule from being broken before it happens — the only thing we have is the ability to clean up the mess after the rule has already been broken, and even then we can only do that if we catch the mess. I've utterly lost count of how many times I've seen hella bad edits that needed immediate reversion stay in articles for weeks or even months, because nobody had seen the bad edit happen at the time and some completely unrelated maintenance run weeks or months later led me to be the first person to actually notice it. (I'm not even making this up, I actually once came across an article that had spent three full years calling its topic, obviously without a titch of sourcing, a cannibal pedophile who smuggled children into the Chernobyl exclusion zone to rape, kill and eat them.)
Wikipedia's quality control model, which depends on the attention and oversight of other editors, works extremely well on high profile topics who actually generate a reasonably high volume of reader traffic — a bad edit to Donald Trump's or Hillary Clinton's or Justin Trudeau's articles will get caught literally within seconds. But as the topic's level of public prominence declines, there is a tipping point below which the wikimodel falls flat on its ass — lower profile topics, like a candidate for political office who's virtually unknown outside of their own district as of yet, are incredibly vulnerable to getting misused for purposes not consistent with our mission and values and policies, because the article just doesn't generate the same amount of traffic. Wikipedia already has our hands full enough as it is just keeping our articles about officeholders clean, without having to monitor somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 unelected candidates per election cycle too — we simply don't have enough active volunteers to stay on top of all of that.
If we had a tighter quality control model in place, I probably wouldn't care so much about maintaining a firewall against articles about unelected candidates for political office. If our articles were much safer from being whitewashed or dirtwashed by political partisans than they actually are, it wouldn't be such a big deal. And if we were a wiki devoted only to politicians, and didn't also maintain articles about writers and musicians and actors and botanists and hockey players and cartoonists and restaurants and parks and mountains and area codes and talk show hosts and on and so forth, then adding unelected candidates to our mission might not be such an unreasonable volume of new articles to maintain and monitor. But under the quality control model we actually have, we can't just think about the quality of our own edits — we have to keep in mind all the possibilities of what might get done to the article by other editors in the future too, and whether the topic is going to generate enough wikitraffic to control the bad shit or not. (And no, promising that you'll keep an eye on it isn't enough, either — Wikipedia editors do quit or die or get blocked, or just aren't always here all day every day, so we can't ever leave the quality control for any article solely in the hands of one single editor.) Other sites, such as Ballotpedia and Vote Smart, already exist which take on "non-partisan voter education about all the candidates" as their core mission — it's hardly as though we're the only possible source for voters to learn about their local congressional candidates — so I see no compelling reason why Wikipedia needs to add that to our mission too, especially if we're not able to guarantee such articles the consistent level of scrutiny and maintenance they require. Those sites have decided that giving space to all candidates is their core mission, which is great and I'm glad those resources are out there — but Wikipedia doesn't need to do the same thing, because firstly, those other sites are already available, and secondly, there are a lot of legitimate reasons why our inclusion cutoff for politicians needs to be located at a different place in the spectrum than their inclusion cutoffs are. Bearcat (talk) 14:58, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
But just because an article could be whitewashed or vandalized isn't a really good argument for deletion, is it? I mean, anything could be vandalized and not caught for a while, like the example you cited above. I know I keep articles I create on my watchlist, not saying that is perfect, mind you. Ballotpedia doesn't typically go into detail on candidates biographies like wiki articles do. Plus congressional election articles rarely talk about the candidates more than a sentence or two. ~EDDY(talk/contribs)~ 15:49, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
I didn't say the possibility of vandalism was an argument for deletion per se — for one thing, that possibility never disappears entirely, even on the Trumps and Obamas and Clintons of the world. As I said, the difference isn't that the president of the United States will never get vandalized — boy howdy he will — but what he has is enough people watchlisting him that any vandalism will always get caught right away instead of lingering for days or weeks or months. What it is, rather, is a reason to put the brakes on starting the article in the first place, if the person hasn't yet achieved anything that would make them the nexus of broad enough reader interest to keep the risk of vandalism at a manageable level of containment. Even stuff you have on your own watchlist, you will sometimes still miss because you're not around for a few days, or because you just don't necessarily always check every single edit that shows up on your watchlist even when you are around — which is precisely why I pointed out that just promising to keep an eye on the article yourself isn't enough. The less certain you can be that a broad range of editors besides just yourself will keep an article watchlisted to control for vandalism potential, the harder you have to think about whether an article is really justified at all. Bearcat (talk) 16:23, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
I agree that in its current form the congressional election articles don't talk about the candidates more than a sentence or two, but it remains a valid alternative to a full-on article for someone who fails to meet candidate notability. Many AfD discussions surrounding candidate notability are often met with votes to merge the information into the congressional election article, and rather than having an election article with bare-bones basic information, wouldn't it be better to have a more detailed account of the routine election coverage on the article surrounding the election? Bkissin (talk) 16:58, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
"A politician first of all needs to assume a political duty" is not correct. The career of a politician consists of campaigning for office. The career of a legislator consists of being elected to a legislature. someone who is never elected to anything can have a political influence. This has never in the US been shown as clearly as this year in particular, where the mere running for a congressional office is of politician significance and commented on as such. Unusually, this year even people running unsuccessfully in many primaries got considerable attention, because of the challenge they posed. But even in a ordinary year, running in the final election in the US 2-party system is of importance. It may not be in some effectually one-party constituencies, but these are many fewer than there were in the early and mid 20th century)
But all this is missing the real point: those WPedians interest in the topic have a certain amount of time. They can devote it to arguing in afd, or to writing (and watching) articles. Minor differences in the border range of notability don't much affect the encyclopedia -- efforts spent in arguing about whether to have them are at best a distraction. (they're good places to argue politics, of course, but doing that here detracts from the encyclopedia also. .) The reason for an encyclopedia is that people who might want to look for information will find it--people might reasonably look for information on everybody on the ballot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs)
Support statement A (for unelected candidates, routine coverage of a political campaign is not considered to be sufficient for notability), since people are commenting here as well. The unelected candidates can and should be mentioned in the pages of the respective elections, as in "Election for X#Candidate Name". These candidates do not have notability independent of the event, thus making it WP:BIO1E. In certain cases, such as an especially high-profile race, a separate article may be justified, but these exceptions are rare. When a obvious merge/redirect target exists, the content should be added there to begin with. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:42, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Support Statement A, albeit with some language adjustment to accommodate Kecoffman's clarifications. The actual consensus as it stands is that the campaign coverage usually isn't enough in and of itself to make a candidate permanently notable just for being a candidate per se, but that there is some wiggle room at the very high end of the scale for the occasional candidate who gets far, far more coverage than the norm to be considered a special case whose candidacy is more notable than most other people's candidacies — somebody like an Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or a Christine O'Donnell, who for whatever reason becomes nationally or internationally famous. Bearcat (talk) 21:51, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Comment the "state wide" wording is not correct. State wide means elected by everyone in the state. "State level" would be a better term. Also don't exclude Mayors of major cities who are often more notable amd powerful than a state legislator. Also, remember the US is not the world and try to word the criteria to be globally inclusive. Legacypac (talk) 00:19, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
You're right, mea culpa. WP:NPOL's language gives a free pass (even without passing GNG) to politicians and judges who have held international, national or sub-national (statewide/provincewide) office, and members or former members of a national, state or provincial legislature, which is the higher standard we meant to advert to. FourViolas (talk) 13:20, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Comment Generally, it is unhelpful to have these types of guideline discussions during the heat of a campaign (we're just a few weeks from a major election in the US). It is better to wait until after the election so more rational (less emotional) discussion can take place. That being said, I believe that the notability standard should apply equally to everyone, whether they are office holders or not; whether they are candidates or not. No one should gain notability simply because they ran for an office or simply because they won an election. If they meet the standard for general notability, then give them an article. Sparkie82 (t•c)06:44, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
I.e., if a candidate or officeholder has "received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the" candidate or officeholder, then they are notable. Major party candidates for a national legislature or for executive of a sub-national unit (like a governor of a province or a federated state), are most likely going to get enough coverage to be notable. However, sometimes an officeholder may not get enough coverage to be notable, therefore they shouldn't get an article just because they got appointed or elected to office. Sparkie82 (t•c)07:45, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
People who hold notable offices — congresspeople, state legislators, governors, presidents, etc. — get coverage. Sometimes people don't actually get serious about making the article any good by actually citing that coverage in the article, meaning that some articles about holders of notable office take years to actually get beyond "John Smith is a state legislator who exists" — but people not doing anything with the coverage is not the same thing as the coverage not existing in the first place. For example, former Canadian MP Shaughnessy Cohen existed for 13 years before anybody actually took on the job of turning it into anything more than a single-sourced four-line stub. There's no such thing as a congressperson or a state legislator who somehow manages to hold office without getting any coverage at all — the only thing that does sometimes exist is congresspeople or state legislators for whom Wikipedians aren't putting in the work needed to make the articles good by actually citing the coverage, but there's no such thing as a person in either of those roles for whom coverage doesn't exist at all. Bearcat (talk) 19:42, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Nice expansion! I think WP:There is no deadline, but even if you think there should be, this problem doesn't require any change to notability standards: if you find a page that looks "forgotten" and don't feel like improving it yourself, just propose a merge to a relevant election and see if anyone shows up with the motivation to improve the article instead. FourViolas (talk) 21:13, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
My point wasn't that there's a deadline, it was that the fact that some officeholders' articles aren't very well sourced at present isn't proof that officeholders aren't getting media coverage and are therefore being exempted from having to pass GNG — all officeholders do get coverage, and we're just not always on the ball about using it to expand our articles about them with. Nothing in that suggests there's a deadline at all — the point was to explain why a faulty argument, that officeholders don't always get coverage and thus by keeping them we're somehow exempting them from having to pass GNG, isn't accurate: they do pass GNG and we're just not always prompt about making their articles show it. Bearcat (talk) 17:20, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Also, I don't think the "notable for only one event" anti-criterion applies here because elections are generally major events when the participants receive sufficient coverage. Sparkie82 (t•c)07:45, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Note that what I just said above is basically what the overall WP:N criteria are because all those sub-category guidelines (including for politicians) are just thumbnail suggestions. WP:N states that merely meeting the specific sub-categorical suggestions "does not guarantee that a subject should be included" and "A person who does not meet these additional criteria may still be notable". The sub-category suggestions are just rough guides -- the ultimate criterion is the basic WP:N, and each person must meet that criteria in order to get an article irrespective of how they come out on the specific suggestions, such as the specific suggestions for politician notability. Sparkie82 (t•c)08:23, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
that they are seen as just suggestions is the source of most controversy at afd. we should rather interpret them as we do WP:PROF, as sufficient for notability. It's the first step to rational inclusion criteria. DGG ( talk ) 04:38, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Iffy A, until detailed re-write - I think A is how it has to be until we have got some clear-cut but probably fairly detailed rules about what might be permitted. I could see conditions where under very high levels (repeated national etc) it might be permissible. Alternatively we could require say a candidate who reached 25% in a poll to be permissible. These however would be fairly complex, so I think it is safer to err on the current set-up. We also get edge cases where a candidate does something odd during the run - like a bizarre campaigning method - campaigning is routine, but the method is not. I've seen multiple disputes on that issue. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:53, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
Which countries would the 25% of the poll work for? I haven't seen many other countries with the same depth as polling as the United States, largely because in other countries voters tend to vote more along party lines than for the specific candidate, and the 25% would include candidates who haven't received much press. SportingFlyertalk11:58, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
@SportingFlyer: - an interesting point, obviously it would also require the standard coverage to be made, but I concede it would be limited to a reasonably small number of countries (though wider than might be thought). As someone who doesn't just want anyone meeting a level of coverage to be included in an NPOL sense but conceding the rules are probably too tight, it was a potential option to widen the circle to some degree Nosebagbear (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
Major party needs some refinement. In England the two major parties are Labour & Conservatives. Given the case of a safe seat, such as Sedgefield (Tony Blair's former constituency) the Conservative candidate is going to be a local party member making themselves a sacrificial offering, or a junior party official hoping to show their party loyalty & climb the ladder. In either case, not notable. Any free ride given to major party candidates should only apply in those cases where they have a credible chance of winning. Cabayi (talk) 12:46, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
B is better than A with the shortcomings of that approach noted by people like Cabayi. I would say that a failed gubernatorial candidate in New Hampshire is going to be more notable, including in a lasting sense, than a large number of the 400 odd state representatives elected, who are presumed notable under our current guidelines. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:40, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
B I'm going for B, just simply because A's wording is a bit vague and US-centric. For example, where it says US statewide office or equivalent (which you can reasonably say is one level below national government), in England the equivalent would be county councils but I cannot imagine that the community as a whole would support every candidate standing for Kent County Council be considered notable for example. With this one for candidates, I would say use GNG but for those who win and go onto hold the office, then this should apply. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk)07:35, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
B Far better than our current policy of C, or than A. Wikipedia is already one of the most important single sources of information about elections. Without coverage of challengers that are already receiving media attention, the information about elections is strongly biased in favor of incumbents. I'm seeing this with the U.S. congressional candidates' coverage. Many of the challengers in highly competitive elections aren't notable for other reasons, so voters are uninformed without Wikipedia articles about them. La comadrejaformerly AFriedmanRESEARCH(talk)17:56, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
It isn't Wikipedia's job to comprehensively cover every candidate in every election. Voters have access to many sources for information about their candidates, and are not depending on Wikipedia for that purpose — which is a good thing, because Wikipedia doesn't have the resources to even try to do that job effectively. Even with politicians who hold office, we're not doing a particularly good job of making most of their articles any better or more informative than "John Smith is a politician who exists, the end" — how much worse would things get if we added tens of thousands of candidates to maintain in addition to the actual officeholders? We don't do temporary notability, so the inclusion test for a politician is not "what might voters in this person's own district be looking for information about today?" — what we need is a credible reason why people on the other side of the world who can't vote in the district at all, or people who will be reading Wikipedia ten years from now, will also need the information to be available in Wikipedia. Officeholders clear one or both of those tests; while there can be occasional exceptions, non-winning candidates normally do not. Bearcat (talk) 16:05, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
Support BSupport B-nov2018 - I'm a latecomer to this discussion, having been made aware of it over in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Audrey Denney. Having read everything here, I agree with FourViolas' point (reiterated by La comadreja) about how important Wikipedia is for synthesizing summaries about important political issues. Per A loose noose's call for "concrete suggestions", my hope is that we get a little more liberal about allowing individual articles for elections for which the winner is guaranteed to be notable (e.g. U.S. House of Representatives), and the race itself becomes notable due to the plausibility of incumbent office-holder losing office. This offers us a pre-election escape valve for the pressure to create an article for every minor candidate from the most fringe of political parties, since we can rely on the WP:BLP1E policy to avoid creating articles about single-election candidates, but encourage the editors eager to create articles for not-yet-notable candidates to focus their efforts on making the section about their candidate solid and encyclopedic. I believe that the Audrey Denney article offered us that opportunity pre-election, which is why my response on the BLP was to suggest renaming the article to California's 1st congressional district election, 2018 (a focused article about this single election), and give the article a structure similar to California's 10th congressional district election, 2018, rather than deleting both articles and redirecting them to the crowded and unfocused United States House of Representatives elections in California, 2018 article. -- RobLa (talk) 06:08, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
I agree that articles about the election are notable, and would have agreed that an article about California's 1st congressional district election, 2018 would be appropriate and I like the work of California's 10th congressional district election, 2018. However, Statement B does not do what you are suggestion - all it does would be to allow any candidate (with two or three) pieces of coverage to qualify for an article, and since elections are full of passion, it does not take much to add statements that violate many other community policies, including WP:UNDUE or WP:NPOV. As Bearcat mentioned earlier, vandalism or incorrect biographical information can linger on pages about individuals who are not in the spotlight. --Enos733 (talk) 18:35, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
"B-nov2018) for unelected candidate for state or national office routine coverage of a political campaign is considered sufficient to to establish notability of the election as a standalone event, and establishes sufficient notability to name and describe the candidate in an article exclusively focused on the single election, and to establish a redirect of the candidate's name to the article. Per WP:BLP1E, notability should be established outside of the single election for notability sufficient for a standalone article"
With recurring elections in large population districts (plus federal scope of representative body) like U.S. House of Representatives elections that happen every two years, there will almost certainly be a sustainable amount of interest in the previous election to ensure that we won't have the feared article rot on those. For the candidates themselves that may retire from politics after their first failed attempt, I agree that the concern is valid. For the many California candidates for U.S. Congress running notable races in 2018, it was a disservice to our readers when we redirected them to the sprawling and unfocused United States House of Representatives elections in California, 2018 article. I hope we establish a better precedent to create a better United States House of Representatives elections in California, 2020 article (and clean up the 2018, 2016, 2014 etc articles).-- RobLa (talk) 21:59, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with this premise as flagrantly Amerocentric, where people tend to vote for candidates rather than parties. Simply running for office does not make one notable, and as I've demonstrated above, many people who run for office are not notable outside of their campaign, especially in other countries which are more party-centric (for instance, having to vote with the party apart from conscience votes). It is not a "disservice to our readers." If there is a particular U.S. district with a notable race, there's no reason why it can't have a full article, but many of these elections are non-competitive anyways. SportingFlyertalk00:09, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Support B. None of the options offered is perfect, and it is unclear what is meant by "routine" coverage. In my view, GNG is the correct standard for political candidates. There needs to be "significant" coverage (i.e., more than just passing mentions in election coverage) in "multiple", "reliable", and "independent" sources. If these elements are met, there is no reason to treat a political candidate more or less severely than an entertainer, businessman, or athlete. Cbl62 (talk) 01:11, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
@Cbl62: do you believe that it's possible for a candidate to get significant coverage, and still be subject to WP:BLP1E (where the election is the "event"), and thus is not yet notable as an individual? -- RobLa (talk) 05:59, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
@RobLa: BLP1E's applicability would depend on whether a "campaign for public office" is a single event. It may or may not be, depending on the facts of the particular case. However, many political campaigns last for as long as a year and include coverage of multiple events: a public declaration of candidacy; a party primary and/or caucus; multiple rallies, speeches, and other public events; public debates (often televised); a general election; and sometimes (as in Florida currently) a lengthy and publicized recount process. Even in cases where the "one event" hurdle might be overcome, BLP1E remains an exception to GNG and should be applied only where it is clear that each of its other criteria also apply, including (i) the person is covered "only" in the context of a single event and not in any other context; (ii) the person remains and is likely to remain a low-profile individual; and (iii) the election was not a significant one or the person's role in it was not substantial. Cbl62 (talk) 14:08, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Conclusions? I am not certain where all of the above has led us, in the end (or, so far). The thrust of what FourViolas and I were trying to say is that it seems a bit absurd to treat political candidates differently from other people, and that if reliable, independent, published sources exist on a topic, even an unelected political person, then maybe we shouldn't routinely delete those articles just because the subject is unelected, but rather treat them like any other article on any other person or even any other Wikipedia topic: if sources exist, then an article is warranted. And sure, NPOL implies that "unelected" means "not notable", but NPOL is a standard of inclusion not exclusion, and "failing" to meet it only means we need to fall back on broader policy... Which is, if there are actual sources, the subject is notable. It is currently being used, however, as a standard of exclusion: if a political person does NOT meet NPOL, then they are NOT notable. The SSGs were never meant to operate as standards of exclusion, only inclusion. But it is very easy to misunderstand this and apply it backwards. I hope we can stop doing that, at least with regard to unelected political candidates. (The reasons given by TonyBallioni at 03:50, 26 October 2018 below on another topic entirely are also relevant here: we need to not confuse our new users and editors, and having a double standard for politicians does just this.) A loose noose (talk) 01:09, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
I don't think it's led us anywhere, to be honest - it's been kind of a train wreck, partially because of the way the RfC was presented. Option A is probably closer to what we currently do, but it does not reflect the "status quo," since an unelected candidate can pass WP:GNG, and has confused !voters because it requires someone to have reached U.S. statewide office to be notable. And Option B doesn't really change anything either, because many candidates only receive routine coverage in the context of their election that doesn't necessarily pass WP:GNG anyways - there's an assumption we're currently excluding people who should be notable when in reality they're not. I don't think WP:NPOL is being used as an exclusionary standard as much as campaign coverage is being considered routine. It's also of particular note considering U.S. democracy is candidate-driven whereas a lot of other democracies are party-driven. Furthermore, now the last U.S. election has finished - which candidates in that election who didn't get elected should have articles but don't? SportingFlyertalk01:37, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above 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.
This article came to my attention via a link in the recent deaths page. I see that it has existed since 2009. However, I found nothing, either in terms of its prose or its wikilinks, which told me a thing about the position Goodman held or why it would be considered a notable position. Near as I could tell, he was a court clerk, which I don't believe is typially considered a notable position. The impression I'm getting here is the same as with so many other pieces of minutiae on the encyclopedia, that we're giving this a pass because it has something to do with a big city. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:33, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
A county clerk is not inherently notable, however it seems Goodman has garnered coverage (being responsible for many years for calling people to jury details) by the NYT - 2019, 2014 - as well as several other outlets - so there is a case to be make for WP:GNG. Icewhiz (talk) 08:20, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
Local sources, again
This comes back every few years, but to summarize, Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies) has a short and useful section WP:AUD. How about we move it here? While there is no consensus to apply this to GNG in general, I think that discussion does show more consensus for using this with biographies, particularly of modern individuals. With the caveat that this may could be limited to individuals primarily active from 2nd half of the 20th century onward, I think this would be a good rule to deal with some spam (i.e. people who receive in-depth write ups in very obscure sources, like city-wide or parish-wide magazines). To be clear: if one makes it to Foo Town Encyclopedia, that's ok. But if you get covered by Foo Town Newspaper that is not circulated outside Foo Town, I don't think that's a good source. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here07:32, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
I would strongly oppose this - precisely because "local" is so hard to define. I've seen serious Wikipedia editors argue that every single major newspaper in Australia bar one is a "local" newspaper. It gives no guidance to users and ensures ugly and pointless deletion discussions. The attempt to actually define "local" in the context of the companies rewrite a few months ago was a mess that wound up with no useful consensus on what that was, and the interpretation mess at AfD that followed in relation to other vague language in that rewrite (because I and others hoped it would generally be interpreted sensibly, and wasn't) tells me that redoing it in relation to biographies would be a very bad idea. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:47, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Support, conditionally upon it always being very clear that it only applies to recent cases. It should probably apply to all BLPs. It should not apply to anyone who died more than 60-70 years ago. The wish to add the clause here I think is motivated by biographies with associated promotion, and I think that should probably be mentioned, I think company founders and CEOs should be treated as stringently as their companies. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:52, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
But we know that it would be used to try and delete many, many biographies that are not promotion, wasting editorial time and ensuring that more notable subjects of BLPs (and those who know them) get to see charming comments made about their notability - on subjects that have absolutely nothing to do with companies. Spam-hunters who've decided that it's easier to just kill everything in sight are becoming almost as much of a problem as spammers in my book. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:57, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, the last time the discussion was had, it was long, fruitless, and involved people seriously trying to invalidate every newspaper in the country bar one, and experience at AfD has shown deletionists frequently applying absurdly wide readings of any vague language that was inserted in that rewrite more broadly. This does not make one want to repeat the process. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:30, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
I can't speak for what some other people argued (and from what you say it doesn't seem like they made a particularly good argument). But I agree with Joe this shouldn't be to hard. A source that we should treat carefully, i.e. local, can be defined as having circulation no greater than one city or metropolitan area, or equivalent unit of administration (county, etc.). Provincial/state publications, i.e. regional, would be fine. And as noted before, limiting this to let's say 21st century sources or such would be ok too. The goal is to eliminate vanity spam, when someone gets an in-depth piece in their local city or parish or such newspaper, 'local boy/girl gets a career in the big city! look at that, folks!'. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here09:20, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. GNG works fine as is. WP:AUD was adopted as a narrow exception to address unique promotional concerns with companies and should not be extended to biographies. Moreover, the proposed change is grossly overbroad. While it may be appropriate to give discounted weight to small town newspapers, significant coverage in major metropolitan newspapers is entirely valid. Cbl62 (talk) 09:08, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Support. I think this is actually fine. I was a bit hesitant about the potential for overreach but I think the proposed text is pretty careful to exclude anything that could not be considered a small-town paper (i.e. it specifically mentions regional and statewide media which eliminates several of the concerns discussed above). It is definitely a problem that needs solving, because with regards to WP:POLITICIAN for example, there is nothing in the guideline that says local sources aren't fine, which would mean that every single local mayor or councillor could be (and has been) argued as notable under current guidelines, and the only counter-argument at the moment is "oh, no, we don't read it that way", which is a hell of a way to introduce newbies with an interest in local politics to Wikipedia. Frickeg (talk) 09:17, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
GNG and multiple sources I generally find that WP:GNG stating that "multiple sources are generally expected" is sufficient. This rules out the subject that gets coverage in only one or two "local" sources. Note that muliple articles from the same publisher still counts as one source.—Bagumba (talk) 10:34, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
"muliple articles from the same publisher still counts as one source". I like that a lot, but where is it written down? I echo Frickeg as I am pretty sure there are bios of local politicians which are argued notable because the subject has received several articles in the local town gazette (or website). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here09:23, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
@Piotrus: It's in WP:GNG at "Sources": "Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability."—Bagumba (talk) 06:50, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Who put the "usually" in? For the purpose of demonstrating notability, the independent sources have to be independent from the subject as well as from each other. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:49, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe: The quote was regarding the number of sources (e.g. same newspaper with 10 different articles on the subject still counts as one "source" for notability purposes). It was not referring to "same author or organization" being the same as subject of the page.—Bagumba (talk) 08:42, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Oppose To me, the reason that local (however it might be defined) sources are suspect is that they may not be reliable or independent of the subject. Saying all local sources should be discounted is an easy out, but not a good one. Many local sources are of acceptable quality, I don't see how being local equates to being dubious. If a source is of dubious quality or is too closely related to an article's subject it probably should be improved upon. If an article is at AfD due to poor sourcing or if a fact in an article is in dispute, the source should be analyzed on its own merits, regardless of whether or not it is local. Smmurphy(Talk)15:02, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
I agree the quality of the source matters the most, but I know of many local papers (or online newspapers), which are just a repository of press releases (which may or may not be easy to spot). --Enos733 (talk) 17:20, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Local sources are fine to support a topic once shown notable, the issue is that topics that only have local sourcing may likely not be notable for our purposes. We're likely to be able to document the history of a multi-generation family-owned small town restauarant via local sources over time, but that doesn't make the restaurant notable for a global work. --Masem (t) 17:42, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Oppose per WP:CREEP. Notability is a guideline, not policy, which means that it is quite imprecise and fuzzy. Adding more vague concepts like "local" would make matters worse, generating vexatious and opionated arguments which would essentially boil down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Andrew D. (talk) 09:14, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Supportfor BLPs: this would be a good addition, for two reasons. First, many SNGs already do a good job at indicating significant (i.e. WP:NPOL, WP:CREATIVE, WP:PROF), but in the areas without SNGs, it's more difficult to arrive at a consensus. This would apply to businesspeople, beauty pageant winners, motivational speakers, YouTube personalities, etc, which are prone to promotionalism and fancruft -- the second reason to tighten the requirements. --K.e.coffman (talk) 03:51, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Oppose per The Drover's Wife. We have no agreed upon metric to differentiate between a "local" newspaper or a "regional" newspaper or a "major metropolitan" newspaper or a "national" newspaper. For example, I have heard editors argue that the San Francisco Chronicle is a local paper despite the fact that has been circulated widely throughout Northern California since at least 1880 and has won many Pulitzer Prizes going back at least to 1941. Although I recognize the inherent issues of promotionalism regarding BLPs, especially of younger people in the early stages of their career, I think that it is a mistake to accept certain sources for establishing the notability of a person who is dead, but reject equivalent sources from the same publications for a person who is alive. Cullen328Let's discuss it23:00, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
Oppose largely per TDW. The main issue for me is determining what constitutes a "local" source, and the significant likelihood that deletionists will try to expand the definition of it. I also don't think we should be going down that path where we have one rule for dead people and another for BLPs regarding whether undefined "local" sources are useable to determine notability. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:40, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
Oppose – This would set a poor precedent, particularly regarding people based in or from third-world, less developed and rural areas of the world, where a lesser degree of new coverage and a lesser amount of news agencies and publishers exist. Seems that this could also lead to a greater degree of WP:SYSTEMIC bias on Wikipedia as well, whereby people covered in first world countries would receive favoritism for inclusion in the encyclopedia per a greater amount of overall said coverage, news agencies and publishers in first world countries. North America100004:16, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
Massive oppose. AUD is bizarre nonsense that has nothing whatsoever to do with real scholarship. The very idea is simply wrong in principle per se. Circulation is simply not relevant. If the sources are reliable and independent, or the topic is objectively important and reliably sourced, there is nothing to discuss. Real historians use local newspapers: I really should not have to say anything else. ORG as a whole contains so much nonsense now that it is probably broken beyond repair and should probably be demoted to an essay. James500 (talk) 01:30, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Oppose Do we have to have multiple local sources or will "the paper my old employer owns" just do? Does it have to be for multiple events or just "that fun run I did dressed as biffo the bear". I can see this just cluttering up the project with one event non celebrities who got an award for using the same broom for 15 years. Also how local do we make it, county, city, village, that working as a chicken soup machine repair man ward is notable why should we. We can use non English language sources, so there shuold (if someone is genuinely notable) be no trouble finding non English sources that meet our existing RS criteria.Slatersteven (talk) 10:28, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Support Per K.E.Coffman and Masem - it's not that the sourcing is "local," it's that if a WP:BLP is only sourced to a local area, we should look twice at their notability. This would include someone from New York who gets written up in the NYT. SportingFlyertalk07:48, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
Oppose - We are here to write reliable biographies about individuals covered in multiple published sources, not to endlessly debate whether the sources that comprise the information blocks for building the biographies are "important enough." GNG is all about avoiding the trap of such normative, time-sucking, fruitless, bad-feeling-generating arguments. There is no way to define "local" versus "regional." This just dumps mud on top of a reliable, useful, and thoroughly established GNG. Carrite (talk) 14:58, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Support - while I agree that "real historians" use local papers and that they are absolutely a reliable source, not all reliable sources are created equal when it comes to establishing notability for a worldwide encyclopedia. It's my opinion that there has to be at least a modicum of "non-local" interest in a particular topic for it to be notable enough to be included. I grew up in a small town of about 25,000, and I wouldn't be able to count the number of "local kid makes good" stories in our paper; one in particular that comes to mind was the half-page feature, with multiple color photos, of our high school baseball catcher and his counterpart on the rival high school baseball team, both of whom happened to be some of the better high school baseball players in the state. Unfortunately neither of them went on to play even major college ball, let alone any level of professional ball, but they both got that big feature article plus at least one other that I remember. I don't think anyone in their right mind would call either of these two kids notable in the Wikipedia sense, but if someone were to find those two articles, they would at least be on their way to meeting GNG as currently written. And the same would almost assuredly be true of a lot of otherwise non-notable college athlete, especially those from smaller towns where going on to play college athletics is less common. I guess where I am going is the fact that historians (and Wikipedians) should definitely use local papers, but historians don't have to screen topics the way we do; they get to research whatever the heck interests them. We need some kind of objective criteria to avoid writing (and keeping) articles that simply aren't of sufficient interest. CThomas3 (talk) 00:37, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose per above. It's impossible to clearly identify "local" sources; more importantly, for the sake of neutrality and not wasting time, notability should not be any kind of value judgement on how subjectively important or encyclopedically deserving a subject is, but a simple assessment of whether it's possible to have an article on some subject that meets the essential content policies (WP:V,WP:NPOV,WP:NOR, and WP:BLP). Wikipedia is not paper; if a reader doesn't want to learn about some locally renowned and reliably-covered individual, they're welcome to not search for them. That said, AfD participants should be vigilant about covert advertising, as they generally already are. FourViolas (talk) 03:19, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose A) Local is poorly defined B) it's a bad idea. We don't need to keep trying to narrow our scope. If we can write a good article, we should ideally have a good article. That requires independent reliable sources, nothing more. Hobit (talk) 21:19, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose'. This implies a level of reliability that is, in practice, likely to be highly contingent on the precise interpretation of local and the exact publication involved. Guy (Help!) 18:25, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose Some countries have very decentralised media (e.g., Germany) and most/all of their big-name media are at some level regional/local. The idea that you can simply say "national coverage is required" in terms of establishing notability for anything in those countries simply won't work. Moreover this is simply creating an artificial standard for notability based on national/regional borders - there is no reason why the Irish Times (a national paper in the Republic of Ireland, population 4.8 million) should be sufficient to establish notability, but coverage in the Evening Standard (a city paper for London, urban population 9.8 million) should be insufficient. Regional, even small-town media is still a WP:NEWSORG and should still get the presumption that if they have a professional staff, editors and so-forth, then they should be a reliable source unless there is evidence to the contrary. Concerns about small-town papers bigging up some local citizen are misplaced - there is still a requirement for more than a fluff-piece or interview before you can get to notability. FOARP (talk) 19:33, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Oppose it should be the reliability of the source that counts rather than the locality in relation to the locality of the subject, local sources can be more reliable than national sources in my view Atlantic306 (talk) 19:58, 22 February 2019 (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.
This is still a recipe for conflict. Someone can meet all the criteria in this list without there being a single reliable independent secondary source about them. All subject-specific guidelines are merely indicia of the kind of person likely to meet WP:GNG, but n this case the tests are completely unconnected from any kind of reality-based sources. Guy (Help!) 00:20, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
To create yet another walled garden within the encyclopedia, that's why. Most of the content falling under this amounts to nothing more than a directory of individuals who have won awards that 95 percent of the general public have never heard of. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 00:31, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
I mean, we don't really need MfD, since we're not really deleting anything. We could just remove it as obviously useless and see who exactly wants to make it their line in the sand to defend pornography as somehow special...other than the fact that Wikipedia is on the internet, which is 72% porn and 36% cat pictures. Then again, we don't have an SNG for cats either as far as I'm aware. GMGtalk01:04, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
It's not "obviously useless," it's just a SNG that may be a bit too overbroad. I'm not sure I've ever edited a topic on the subject, but I'm glad there's an SNG there to help me if something were to come up at AfD. SportingFlyerT·C01:34, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
...Just because an SNG for albino acupuncturists can help us simplify AfD by applying arbitrary rules without any critical analysis doesn't actually mean that we need an SNG on albino acupuncturists. They key there is that if you're applying any standard at AfD other than whether a well-sourced neutral encyclopedia article can be written based on the available sources, then you're applying the wrong standard. GMGtalk01:59, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
It's disingenuous to compare this to albino acupuncturists, though. I think I've only looked into one article which the SNG would be relevant for, but the elements here are different than WP:NACTOR, and WP:GNG has to be met anyways. I'd like to see an example the SNG completely diverges from WP:GNG before jumping to any broad conclusion. SportingFlyerT·C09:41, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
I'd rather think of it as illustrative analytical alliteration rather than disingenuousness. The problem with "WP:GNG has to be met anyways" is that people fundamentally don't act that way in deletion debates, and you wind up in quasi-legal arguments such as the comment below by User:Hydronium Hydroxide about how sub-paragraph C(4) of SNG#1 modifies section 8 paragraph H of SNG#2. I'm sorry, but that winds up looking like an argument between people who have associates degrees in Wikipedia jargon, and is much more concerned about the interpretation of complex sets of rules for their own sake, and comparatively little substantive argument about whether a well-sourced neutral article can be written. Whether a well sourced neutral encyclopedia article can be written is WP:5P1, and if it fails that, then it don't belong here.
If we give any credence to complex sets of rules for their own sake, then the only thing NPORN actually does is restate ANYBIO and GNG for pornography without adding any additional substance:
The person has received a well-known and significant award or honorfor pornography
The person has made a widely recognized contributionfor pornography
The person has received significant coverage in reliable sourcesfor pornography
So then what is the point of having it when all is does is duplicate nearly word for word guidance already given elsewhere? GMGtalk11:53, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
PORNBIO expressly removed the "or has been nominated for such an award several times" part included in ANYBIO and PORNBIO restricts the awards to "well-known and significant industry award." Porn award ceremonies are abundant and nominations are given out prolifically. The ongoing dispute is which awards types confer notability. Applying ANYBIO without restrictions would be even more permissive than PORNBIO. • Gene93k (talk) 19:47, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
Because the SNG limits what a "well-known and significant award or honor" or "widely recognised contribution" actually means for these types of biographies. Otherwise, Gene93k is right - you'd be more permissive, and notability analysis becomes even squishier. SportingFlyerT·C20:05, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
Given the subject under discussion, I suggest we steer clear of imagery along the lines of squishier. EEng21:37, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
Considering your propensity to add images to threads, I'm just going to assume you couldn't find a good clean squishy image quickly. SportingFlyerT·C08:04, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
So you're saying that PORNBIO should defer to a more general statement? Are you arguing an actor who won multiple ensemble awards should qualify for an article under ANYBIO? SportingFlyerT·C08:04, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
If a person winning multiple ensemble awards received sustained in-depth coverage in reliable sources for doing so, then yes, they should have an article. If not, then they can't have an article because there's nothing to write one with. That's what determines whether an award is important for our purposes, not whether an it is mentioned in one of our special rules. I wouldn't personally argue to keep an article based on either NPORN or ANYBIO. I would argue based on the sources, and if I can't argue based on the sources, then I don't argue at all, and I go write an article that does have sources instead. But if we're going to have special rules because people who are engrossed in the organizational culture have an affinity for special rules, then we should at least get rid of the ones that don't actually add anything over our other special rules, and this one doesn't, because ANYBIO is both broader in scope and more inclusive in criteria. GMGtalk11:21, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
I think we should form a committee to do a comprehensive review of all available sources on each porn performer. EEng02:47, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
That does not help. Who knows what is a well-known and significant industry award? Why awards by that industry are a sign of notability? See next point.
I think this can not be used as a criterion. Someone in these lists is actually an advertisement by this "industry", not a sign of notability.
I believe that removing NPORN wholesale would make AFDs more onerous. NPORN has five components:
The common Additional Criteria preamble indicates that the NPORN criteria are neither necessary nor sufficient, in other words meeting one or more provides no presumed notability.
The NPORN preamble limits scope. It means that one can reasonably argue that for items it covers that this is how the generic GNG / ANYBIO criteria should be interpreted.
NPORN#1 interprets/limits ANYBIO#1 and ENT#2
NPORN#2 interprets/limits ANYBIO#2 and ENT#3
NPORN#3 interprets/limits BASIC.
Non-presumptive SNGs are a Good Thing. Sure we could go from first principles every AFD, but SNGs and similar guides allow us to more easily skip the same debates. SNGs can also help with PRODs. Remove NPORN, and you're left with the less-defined set of criteria at ENT, ANYBIO, and BASIC. If an SNG's criteria need tweaking or certain awards need to be explicitly categorised as notable, noteworthy, or non-notable (yes please -- across all fields) then that should be done. Why don't we need an SNG on acupuncturists, albino or otherwise? Because we haven't had hundreds if not thousands of such bios that are candidates for deletion, and relatively few alternative medicine practitioners have a public profile (but if there were to be a medical practitioner (sub-)SNG that might not be a bad thing). ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~04:36, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
A big problem with porn in Wikipedia is that reputable media tends to shun pornography while some consider it of general encyclopedic interest. The rationale behind PORNBIO was that credible recognition by peers or established critics might indicate notability. Unfortunately, without mainstream media or academic attention, too much of the remaining sources exist to promote the industry. There is no easy fix, but having PORNBIO notability claims insist on support from credible sources would be a good start. • Gene93k (talk) 11:51, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
I'd support getting rid of it. PORNBIO creates the presumption that someone who has won some types of industry awards is notable. In practice it doesn't work like that and even winning some of the most high profile porn industry awards isn't usually enough to save a biography from deletion, unless there is evidence that the GNG is met as well. Given that the guideline should be changed. Porn doesn't get much in the way of mainstream press attention so winning porn awards is not likely to lead to suitable sources being available in itself. ANYBIO would still apply but it would require someone to show that a porn industry award is "well-known and significant" generally, not just within the porn industry. That's a higher standard to meet. Hut 8.521:10, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
The first time I agree with user:Gene93k - "A big problem with porn in Wikipedia is that reputable media tends to shun pornography" - so, there will always be problems for erotic/porn articles to meets of WP:GNG. The problem does not concern only one group of people. For example - 99% of sportmens are known only locally, ~90% of sportmens do not meets of the WP:GNG because they are described only in the sports press. So, we can delete 90% of articles of sportmans? Nonsense. Please - some more rationality. I think, to avoid constantly arising conflicts about PORNBIO and AfDs, we need to specify which are "well-known and significant industry award". I also suggest that to modify the previous version of PORNBIO - restore nominations. It is often the case that there is a well known porn star with many years of experience, many (hundreds) movies, many (>10) nominations of awards and article has been deleted because must to be at least 1 really awards. This is absurd. I would also like to inform you that en.Wikipedia has the most irrational requirements for pornstars, the vast majority of deleted articles of pornstars in AfD, has many interwiki, so - these articles existed on many Wikipedias. Subtropical-man(✉ | en-2)00:20, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
A perfect example of nonsense of current version of PORNBIO is Johnny Sins. In first AfD (2016) - the result was delete, in second AfD (2018) - the result was not keep, just "no consensus" for delete. He is almost cult in pornography industry, also well known as "bald" from Brazzers, popular even in memes outside the pornographic industry [5] and "he is consistently among the most popular porn searches[9][10][11]" He has 4 awards, incuding AVN Award (porn-oscars) - Favorite Male Porn Star (two times) and 33 nominations!!!!!!! Subscribers on new channel of YouTube (from 2017) is million, total views - 44 million, not counting the erotic movies by other productions, for example Brazzers. Several dozen million people know him by sight but due no clarification #1 of PORNBIO and because of that "reputable media tends to shun pornography" (= problem with GNG), the article is still threatened by absurdity of en.Wikipedia. Subtropical-man(✉ | en-2)20:53, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
It's not our job to fix problems with reputable media and it's certainly not our job to write articles on subject without reputable coverage, and certainly not or living persons. It doesn't matter even a little bit whether he has a cult following, how many people like his tweets, or how many memes he's in, because none of those things help us to write an encyclopedia article. The thing that allows us to write an article is in-depth coverage in reliable sources. That's not a problem; it's a feature. If people want to read about cult subjects that have not received mainstream coverage, then I'm sure there's a wikia for that, just like there is for everything else. GMGtalk21:11, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
Agreed. One of the first things I learned when I started on Wikipedia was that notability != fame. A WP:GNG-notable person needn't be famous, and famous person isn't necessarily notable. Too many people confuse those two things (witness the comments we get about YouTube views, Twitter followers, iTunes downloads, and similar dreck). If it were up to me, I'd raise the bar for inclusion of articles about biographies and bands way higher than it is now. That would eliminate a lot of this pop-culture cruft Wikipedia has now. But I know that's an unrealistic expectation. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:30, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
Johnny Sins meets the requirements of the PORNBIO (two notable awards) and even GNG (few sources outside the pornographic industry). The problem is that group of few (still the same) users pushing version that "Favorite Male Porn Star" (and each other award) of AVN Award (porn-oscars) not meets of #1 (well-known and significant industry award). This is absurd and patology. Using the method of Wikipedia:Meatpuppetry, this group of few (still the same) users win in each AfD about pornstar, almost always article is deleted. We have to end these manipulations and finish creating own standards. Therefore, corrections in PORNBIO are necessary. There must be clear criteria for pornstars. Subtropical-man(✉ | en-2)21:32, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
I do believe a correction is necessary, and that's to remove the thing entirely as utterly useless. An award doesn't mean you've received independent reliable coverage, and if it does, then you don't need to argue based on the award, because you can argue based on the independent reliable coverage. If you want to fix the fact that reliable sources don't cover the porn industry, then go start a media company and write about the porn industry in a way that has reliable journalistic integrity and systematic editorial oversight. We don't need to fix Wikipedia so that we can write poorly referenced articles on porn, because the purpose of Wikipedia is not to write about porn. The purpose of Wikipedia is to write about subjects that have received sustained in-depth coverage in reliable sources. If a subject hasn't received that coverage, then they can take their twitter followers and their memes and go elsewhere. The fact that there is a small dedicated fan base that wants to write about every trivial detail of a niche subject does not constitute a crisis on our part. See also every Wikia ever created that lists every trivial unsourced minutiae on everything that's ever been within half a mile of a popular video game. GMGtalk23:44, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
GreenMeansGo (GMG), sorry but the problem is the reliability of the occupational analyzes. At one time, encyclopedias had a small number of biographies, encyclopedia had articles about significant people in the world like Mikołaj Kopernik or Picasso. Now, Wikipedia describes local politicians, local sportmens, local military personnel with no contribution to history or local poets with 2 books. What is it supposed to be? These people only do their job, some people to race, others write poems, others play in porn movies. They have notoriety but none of them no matters to the world. Fame is not a synonym for the word of "notability". De facto, on Wikipedia ~99% of biographies should be removed, being famous and listed in the press should not be enough, these people have no significant contribution to humanity / world. For now, there are no changes for resolve the problem. Subtropical-man(✉ | en-2)02:02, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Notability is not a measure of whether an article should be written. Notability is a measure of whether an article can be written. The presumption is that every neutral well sourced article that can be written should be written. It is not a measure of importance, or fame, or contribution to humanity or history; it is a measure of whether we can write an article based on coverage in reliable sources. We have articles on people who are probably objectively terrible people and contribute nothing to anything, but we have them because there are reliable sources available sufficient to write an article with. We lack articles on people, especially in antiquity, who may have made lasting impactful contributions to humanity, because we have no reliable sources with which to write an article. Our job is not to fix that; our job is only to record it. GMGtalk02:21, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
You just showed the moral, proving that current standards are hopeless and need to be changed. Fame is not a synonym for the word of "notability" but also: existed any reliable sources is not a synonym for the word of "notability". Your opinion is based on one wrong theory: existed reliable sources = article can be written and your next text of "It is not a measure of importance, or fame, or contribution to humanity or history" - sorry, Wikipedia is encyclopedia, not garbage or newspapers looking for publicity. Subtropical-man(✉ | en-2)13:01, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
How many articles are in Encyclopædia Britannica? 32,640 pages!, en.Wikipedia has 5,808,409 articles, so - Encyclopædia Britannica is just 0,56% of en.Wikipedia. How many sportmens are in Encyclopædia Britannica? How many politics are in Encyclopædia Britannica? Sorry, but biographies is marginal part of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Subtropical-man(✉ | en-2)01:29, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Seems like a good RfC idea, perhaps for WP:VPPOL, to avoid attracting mostly a bloc vote. I agree that the SNGs should not be making up fake "anti-GNG" criteria. Their purpose is helping editors decided whether the topic they want to write about is likely to pass GNG and why (or, what kinds of sourcing to find and facts to source to keep an article that already exists but is attracting claims of not being notable enough to keep). I also tend to think we do not need a page like this specifically for porn stars, but we don't MfD guidelines (see WP:P&G, which specifically says so). Rather, the community may decide to mark them {{Historical}} or {{Rejected}}. In this case, it might be kept but made to stop contradicting the site-wide main notability guideline (which isn't okay, per WP:CONLEVEL policy – something definitely has to change about this). — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 04:01, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Have never voted to keep a porn article but I dont see the need to dump the sng as it is normally considered subservient to GNG at AFD in practice, and is at least a benchmark to advise editors against creating the most unnotable of porn bio articles, im my view Atlantic306 (talk) 20:06, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Having run a couple of weeks and attracted a fair bit of discussion, and seemingly overall support, reckon it's time to flip this into a bona fide RfC? Or to those here feel there is sufficient consensus in the threaded discussion to remove the text without the formality? GMGtalk20:14, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above 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.
Request for comment regarding PORNBIO
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Support removal (I've not commented in this discussion yet). Past AfD discussions on adult actors have generally shown that even "significant awards" do not correlate to the subjects meeting WP:BASIC, to which PORNBIO is a supplement. We have WP:ENT and this is sufficient. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:54, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Support as proposer. PORNBIO is mostly redundant to ANYBIO and GNG as I indicated in the threaded discussion above. There is no obvious reason that I see to treat pornographic biographies especially different than others, or at least not any different than other biographies of entertainers. There is no indication that I see, and no real argument above that the criteria is likely to correspond to coverage in reliable sources, but instead seems fairly arbitrarily chosen for a niche subject for no apparent reason in particular, for either standards or scope. Beyond that, we should be mindful to push back against CREEP by actively removing unhelpful guidance, since an abundance of such guidance only helps to complicate discussion, and deter new editors with unnecessarily complex sets of rules and jargon. GMGtalk22:11, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Support – Simpler is better. The adult entertainment industry may have been ignored by reliable sources when this SNG was created in 2006, but today, there doesn't seem to be any lack of reliable sources that cover this industry. I see no real arguments in the discussion for why a separate SNG is needed, and why these articles aren't adequately addressed by GNG, ANYBIO, and ENT. Giving editors a fourth thing to consider (PORNBIO) is too complicated and apparently unnecessary; ENT is adequate as an SNG. Levivich22:33, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Oppose - "A big problem with porn in Wikipedia is that reputable media tends to shun pornography", there are several sections in Notability (people), due to this problem PORNBIO should be remain. Subtropical-man(✉ | en-2)22:55, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Please don't take my statement of the problem as an endorsement of keeping PORNBIO the way it is. I'm undecided about dumping PORNBIO. That said, Wikipedia needs to be based on reliable sources, and excusing pornography from that is bad policy. • Gene93k (talk) 17:37, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Support removal I have always thought that this privileged porn bios as a subset of entertainers, and was a weird niche SNG. They should have to meet GNG/ENT, if they don't we shouldn't have an article on them. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:58, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Support removal. This has led to endless drama and misunderstanding, proposing that frankly terrible sources be treated as reliable because no actually reliable sources exist. Guy (Help!) 01:01, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Comment - I generally trust participants in a project to be more knowledgeable about which subjects falling under that project are truly notable, and which sources provide reliable information about subjects in that area. I would like to think that if the guidelines developed by such a project were problematic, then they could be fixed locally rather than being eliminated. bd2412T02:24, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Oppose it requires improvement not removal, indeed I think removal would actually make things worse as awards are so prolific in the porn industry there needs to be some guide about which ones are significant and which ones aren't - something that PORNBIO is best placed to do. I know that there are plenty of people who have a problem with biographies of porn stars being in Wikipedia at all, but Wikipedia is a neutral encyclopaedia so recommendations based on personal feelings regarding the subject matter must be ignored. Thryduulf (talk) 02:30, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Support removal but we do need to place a grandfathering clause to cover existing articles for a period of about 2 years. The porn industry has little external, independent coverage and thus the criteria for this here are far too dependent to show that WP:V can ultimately be met. --Masem (t) 17:52, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
What would be the point of a grandfathering clause? We have a current problem with articles that don't conform to WP:BLP, so surely any fix to this problem should be implemented immediately. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:02, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Any porn actor meeting one of the current PORNBIO criteria should mean there's a source - maybe not the best or an independent source - to show that criteria is met. That's not an outright failure of BLP, so there's no reason to rush to remove these articles - this also creates a fait accompli problem if someone mass noms them for deletion. If there are true BLP violation articles that can't be edited away easily, then do that. --Masem (t) 18:06, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
You are here, as below, concentrating on the wrong aspect of the sources. If the source is non-independent then that is not necessarily a BLP failure, put if the source is unreliable, which many of those used in articles about porn actors are, that definitely does fail WP:BLP. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:21, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
What I am saying is that if we are removing PORNBIO, then there are going to be numerous pages created/developed in good faith on the basis that PORNBIO was correct, so we should not be rushing to delete them unless they are an outright BLP violation. To me, this would fully unsourced articles. Articles with unreliable sources but against uncontestable claims are not BLP violations, and should be allowed to be kept and a year or two under grandfathering to see if they can be improved beyond the unreliable sources. If they can't be, then after this grandfathering period, they are fair game for AFD. --Masem (t) 19:58, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Well, then, we disagree, but Wikipedia, and the rest of the world, would be a pretty boring place if we all agreed about everything. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:02, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Support removal the veiled attempts at censorship in this are fly in the face of existing policy. Regular AFDs work for all other actor articles there is no reason they can't work for porn actors as well. MarnetteD|Talk17:57, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal per Chesterton's fence. I have commented on thousands of AfD discussions, but make a point to avoid PORNBIO ones. There is no good way to use the WP:ENT criteria to assess porn actors - determining whether actors have "significant roles" is nearly impossible at AFD, and determining if they have a "large fan base" is equally difficult. Using industry awards is a proxy for this metric that can be adjudicated with much less effort. If the PORNBIO standards often allow for articles that violate the WP:BLP policy or WP:V, they should be changed. Many commenters want to remove this because they feel SNGs are generally bad, or there are too many porn bios. I disagree fully. I support having more SNGs and always oppose the theory that we should have no rules but GNG to assess notability. I generally oppose deletionist arguments on policy, particularly when they are based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Furthermore, it's unclear whether this would decrease the number of articles; if there is enough bureaucracy at AFD, it may increase the article count through friction. power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:23, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Support removal. Its purpose has never been more than that of protecting a walled garden of articles on topics that fail any sane notability criteria. Many of its claims (of people being "notable" if they earned this or that type of industry award or played this or that type of role) are simply, factually untrue – let's not forget that a SNG cannot and must not arbitrarily decide what is or isn't notable, but must make testable and falsifiable generalizations about what types of topics typically fulfill our actual, general notability criteria, the ones defined in GNG. If ths SNG don't match those, then the SNG is simply invalid. We should have got rid of it long ago. Fut.Perf.☼20:17, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Support removal. Given that the very nature of the subject poses BLP issues, sourcing must be stricter (and thus the notability bar higher) than the typical biography. Tolerating poor sourcing also invites spam, covert advertising, the misuse of Wikipedia for promotional purposes and gaming of sourcing requirements, just like we have with corporations and a subset of living people. I'm not familiar with how often porn actors/actresses are spammed, but I wouldn't be that surprised if they were. MER-C22:00, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal I strongly believe this should be kept. We already delete most pornography-related articles at AfD for not passing this SNG, and a clear reading of the SNG clarifies how WP:ENT should be applied by strongly limiting the notability criteria. The industry has enough awards I could make a clear keep argument at AfD under WP:ENT for an award currently limited by WP:PORNBIO. Also, as noted above, anyone meeting WP:PORNBIO should meet the WP:GNG, and nothing has been demonstrated here showing there's a problem in that regard. SportingFlyerT·C05:20, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal We have guidelines such as WP:SPORTSPERSON, WP:ARTIST and WP:CRIMINAL because "the one size fits all" WP:BASIC doesn't always work in specialised area. I don't see WP:PORNBIO as different to any of the other more specific guidelines. That said, I think it needs to be more specific than it is at present. For example "well-known and significant industry award" should be defined. --John B123 (talk) 22:12, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Oppose. Some of these people are being watched by millions per week online, but because of what they do, the sources that would qualify as WP:RS, only cover them sporadically, and nowhere near in proportion to their inherent notability and engagement by the public. WP:PORNBIO reflects reality. This proposal is a depreciated version of reality. Britishfinance (talk) 20:47, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
support passing PORNBIO is no longer a successful argument at afd. Therefore the sng is depreciated. These are mostly BLPs and that level of sourcing is necessary.SpartazHumbug!23:06, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Some administrators such as yourself have dismissed it for years, while others follow it since it is the current rules. You recently nominated various porn actor articles for deletion and Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Seymore_Butts ended with keep because of the porn subject specific guideline. So yes, it is a successful argument at AFD. DreamFocus00:19, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Yes PORNBIO was cited by some voters but others noted he passes WP:ANYBIO amd WP:GNG because, as I noted, Butts is one of the two most famous male porn actors out there. You can debate which votes were more important but Mr Butts does not need PORNBIO to have a page. Legacypac (talk) 01:14, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
I think Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mia_Malkova_(3rd_nomination) is a better example of pornbio being the reason it was kept. There are some AFDS where pornbio is ignored and other times its the reason something is kept. Horrible that rules don't get enforced consistently. I'm in favor of eliminating this subject specific guideline of course, but as long as its there it should be followed. DreamFocus15:30, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Support elimination of this subject specific guideline. This is an encyclopedia not a porn catalog. I believe the rules should be followed, and if you disagree with them discuss it here and change them in a proper manner. If for some reason the rule is kept, then it should be followed. DreamFocus23:59, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Support. There has just been at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Casey Calvert (actress) another article about a porn actor kept on the basis of passing WP:PORNBIO (by virtue of receiving XRCO "Unsung siren awards", which pretty clearly states unnotability in its very title) that doesn't contain any reliable sources that would get it through WP:BLP. The WP:PORNBIO guideline, or any other guideline, should not be used to override fundamental policy in this way, but it is clearly happening in this case, so it would be best to get rid of the guideline. I can only surmise, by the way that WP:BLP is routinely ignored in such discussions, that porn actors are not considered to be real living people. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:48, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal. For the most part, SNGs are meant to clarify the GNG, but what I've seen from AfDs is that subjects that pass PORNBIO often fail NACTOR/GNG. SNG should only be allowed to supplant the GNG (e.g. WP:ACADEMIC) under the highest scrutiny. I don't want to practice knee-jerk subject discrimination here, but ultimately it makes sense if we think encyclopedic = long-term significance; we read papers from hundreds years ago, but who even remembers a porno from a decade ago? (And of course the ones that do get remembered are surely covered in reliable sources, so the GNG/NACTOR is perfectly sufficient.) -- King of♥♦♣ ♠ 02:45, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal - Such guidance is necessary to allow reasonable encyclopedic coverage of individuals whose trade is stigmatized by society (which means there is less coverage of it in traditional media and that many editors distaste of it will bleed into their opinions). WP:P*/D shows that pornography deletionism is quite healthy without eliminating a helpful guideline that saves a few borderline cases; Better to keep a few too many than to throw them all away. — Godsy (TALKCONT)03:24, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal - With all the promotional industry awards, it is far easier for someone to become "encyclopedic" by being involved in the porn industry than by being an academic, a journalist, a CTO, a CFO... This change could be applied retroactively to profit. No need for en.wp to continue promoting the industry. SashiRolls t · c14:30, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
We're not here to right great wrongs. People don't get Wikipedia articles if their work is valuable, but if their work is notable. (No comment on the relative value of work done by pornographic actors vs. CTOs.) — Bilorv (he/him) (talk)14:18, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
I found this recent article interesting concerning WikiPorn's cultural footprint. Catalina Cruz has articles on both fr.wp & en.wp; the WMF's former CTO (Victoria Coleman) is on neither. As far as writing straight dung goes, I suppose Miller v. California did establish the obscenity test as being based on "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value", rather than industry-primped notability. SashiRolls t · c20:52, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal Perhaps we can identify what are actually the legitimate highest awards in the industry that are not merely promotional and limit consideration to that, but if there are not substantive sources about the individuals besides "X won this fancy award", i.e. the GNG, there should not be an article about them regardless. Reywas92Talk18:58, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal articles about subjects which do, in theory, meet PORNBIO are frequently deleted at AfD anyway when there is no evidence of passing the GNG. The fact that meeting PORNBIO does not create a likelihood of the subject meeting the GNG means it's not an effective notability guideline. The problem is than porn doesn't get much coverage in mainstream media and industry media sources aren't sufficient. Hut 8.521:45, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal, WP:ENT + WP:GNG should be adequate. PORNBIO seem to be too divergent from our other bio standards to keep, mostly due to the awards issue, which seems to be intractable. Kaldari (talk) 16:24, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal due to being too narrow (at least, in my opinion) to be a good notability guideline. There's also the plenty-mentioned "keeping articles as they pass PORNBIO but they don't pass GNG", mainly due to the awards clause in the former, which also draws my disapproval. Sure, trying to rewrite it is an option, but right now I see too many flaws for a rewrite to do much. Kirbanzo(userpage - talk - contribs)21:44, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal. PORNBIO has 3 points. Point 1 is pointless without an accompanying list of awards that are deemed (following research) significant (and leading to coverage). Point 2 (groundbreaking, iconic, unique, trend - with the exception of HoF perhaps) - is impossible to assess without evaluating sources as to whether a certain act is trendy/unique/iconic or merely a minor variation on some other prior act - it has us evaluating coverage in any event. Point 3 (" featured multiple times in notable mainstream media.) is WP:SIGCOV which doesn't need a SNG. The current SNG, therefore, is pointless as it is either undefined (significant award) or the existing SIGCOV. Icewhiz (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal but word much more strongly & restrictively. I have the same goal as those wanting to remove it, but think removing this is going in the wrong direction. . The awards issue can be dealt with by a list of what counts--a short list. The GNG does not work very well in this field--it's much too permissive. DGG ( talk ) 19:38, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
agreed. The status of this and most sngs is ambiguous. Each one should decide whch option to follow:, just a guide, giving a presumption of notability , giving a presumption of non-notability, restricting the GNG, or expanding it. The amiguity heeleads to erratic decisions at AfD. DGG ( talk ) 20:52, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
@DGG: I'm a little confused by your !vote. An SNG by its very nature is more permissive than GNG; it allows subjects that fail GNG to be considered notable. If those subjects passed GNG, we wouldn't need the supplementary guideline. Are you proposing that we ignore GNG for pornographic actors? How else would we make an SNG more restrictive than the general guideline? Vanamonde (Talk)06:49, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Not so. We can define a SNG however we choose: as an alternative, as a replacement, as a restriction, as a liberalization. The current way, of defining it as a presumption is Imo essentially meaningless, because it leads to a debate at every individual AfD about what the erelevant meaning should be. Remember, we make the rules, and what ever notability guideline we make by consensus can have whatever form and applicability we choose. DGG ( talk ) 07:34, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal - This is a ridiculous low bar for some of the least encyclopedic, worst-written fluff bios on Wikipedia. Treat pornstars like all other movie actors — if they break through into popular culture, with requisite substantial coverage in reliable sources, by all means cover them. But the vapid pseudobios created by hobbyists because Trixie Shagsmore won the 2016 American Humper Award for the best threesome in a Volkswagen, etc. should be absolutely shitcanned as a low bar Special Notability Guideline. Deprecate — with fire. Carrite (talk) 03:38, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal No problem with conventionally "unencyclopedic" topics, but I expect them to have significant coverage beyond trade press and niche websites. No problem if a better vetted SNG is re-added later. And yes, porn is probably not the only subject with this problem.—Bagumba (talk) 10:37, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal. I think we need to keep in mind the purpose of SNGs in general. As I see it, a supplementary guideline exists because there are sets of topics that "should" be notable (by which I mean editors would broadly agree that they need to be covered by a good encyclopedia) but would not normally meet GNG, or cannot be shown to meet GNG. Scholars are a good example; politicians in countries outside the anglosphere are another. We have had something of a proliferation of SNGs, particularly with respect to biographies, which has led to a corresponding proliferation of low-grade biographies of individuals with no lasting impact. PORNBIO is a perfect example of this. Pornographic actors in general are nowhere near significant enough in the larger scheme of things that we need to lower the bar for notability for them with respect to either actors or biographies in general. Vanamonde (Talk)06:46, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal The purpose of SNGs as I see it is to allow editors to quickly determine which topics are highly likely to meet the GNG if a more in-depth search was completed. State or provincial legislator? Check. Olympic athlete? Check. The problem with PORNBIO is that a very large percentage of performers who pass it nominally will fail GNG upon closer examination. The bottom line is that winning a porn industry insider backscratching award is simply not a reliable indicator of genuine notability. This does not mean that all porn stars are non-notable but far too many of them are non-notable upon closer examination. They should be held to the same standards as other entertainers. The argument that I often hear is that the "mainstream media" discriminates against porn stars. Perhaps. But that is a gripe, valid or not, against the sources that we recognize as reliable, not against Wikipedia itself. Cullen328Let's discuss it07:11, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal - We NEED a guideline here, and this one can always be revised. While there are a few editors who are enthusiasts in the subject area, from what I've seen the more serious problem is the widespread bias against the subject. Any porn-related AFD get spammed with garbage 'delete' votes even when there are hundreds of sources and the subject would blatantly pass the GNG in any other genre. We shouldn't be including a bio just because it mentions porn, but we sure-as-hell shouldn't be deleting any bio just because it mentions porn. Alsee (talk) 11:50, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
Support removal As a misanthrope, I always want to stop "a few editors who are enthusiasts in the subject area". We, the community, are fed up with your fandom. If you wanted to keep articles about your shameful hobby, you should have done more to restrain the random editors who contributed too much to this ill pursuit. Chris Troutman (talk)14:15, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Discussion regarding PORNBIO
I've taken the liberty of formatting this as an RfC above the point where Legacypac and K.e.coffman began casting bolded !votes. If either of you take issue with this feel free to move your comments to the threaded discussion above or below. GMGtalk22:05, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
One point that often seems to be forgotten in deletion discussions about porn actors is that all pages are subject to WP:BLP, by which all content about living people needs to be reliably sourced, whatever notability guidelines might suggest. All porn industry web sites that I have seen routinely publish fantasy made-up "biographies" of porn actors, so they are not reliable and can't be the basis of an article about a living porn actor. There seems to be an assumption by some editors that people somehow lose their humanity if they are filmed taking part in sexual activity, so they lose the protection that every other living person gets. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:34, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Its not so much a question about sourcing but the reliability and independence of that sourcing. What's been identified is that there is very little coverage of the porn industry outside of the works that drive the porn industry, meaning there's conflicts of internet, etc, and thus we're lacking independent coverage of that. This is what happened in the mixed-martial arts area a few years ago - coverage outside of MMA-organized periodicals was rare. We need that independence for notability. --Masem (t) 17:51, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
My opinion at this time, is to reduce this to the level of WP:ESSAY. While I am of the opinion the the notability criteria of musicians is to lax (a separate subject I know), it can be said in some cases that having a notability essay or guideline about a certain subject, which have consensus from experts within that field of editing, can serve as a filter to ensure that only the truly notable are allowed to have an article on Wikipedia. We have WP:NOTPAPER, but we also have WP:GNG. What constitutes as a notable award within the field of pornography? What is the Oscar or BAFA of porn? If ENT becomes the default, what constitutes "Has had significant roles in multiple notable films, television shows, stage performances, or other productions." If taken strictly, each of the "multiple notable" productions would have to pass GNG in order to provide a bar, if taken loosely, an actor/actress who have (say a dozen) multiple IMDB listings as "significant roles" now can warrant an article. Should Entertainers, whether pornographic or not, have the one and notable rule like WP:NBASE has; meaning one game in a "major league" grants notability?--RightCowLeftCoast (Moo) 18:27, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Before I give my opinion I would like to understand ... why sports news sites satisfy WP: GNG for sportmans articles, music sites satisfy WP: GNG for musicians, (include independent musicians) but adult video news sites does not satisfy WP: GNG for pornographic artists? I am afraid that the exclusion of WP: PORNBIO will result in a mass deletion of articles. Another question, rankings on sites like pornhub or followers on social networks might be considered?Guilherme Burn (talk) 23:23, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Porn news sites that are RS are fine. No one said they are not. Sites and "awards" that are strictly promotional are not OK. Social media follower counts are often manipulated as it takes just a few days and a few bucks to get millions of views and followers. While views and followers are a possible indicator of notability, we need good RS still. Legacypac (talk) 23:36, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
WikiProject Pornography provides useful guidance about the reliability of porn news sources. It specifically cautions about Adult Video News that its articles are often repackaged press releases. That appears to apply to XBiz as well. The porn trade press often crosses the line between covering the industry and promoting the industry. Legacypac's assessment of social media is also correct. Porn promotion floods the Internet. Promotional sources are unacceptable in verifying facts or establishing notability. • Gene93k (talk) 02:28, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
@Guilherme Burn: That is a fair question. I contribute to American sports bios that have coverage in mainstream newspapers, but there are plenty of other sports that seem to justify their notability from respective sport specific sites.—Bagumba (talk) 10:16, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
WP:PORNBIO should be kept separated from WP:ENT. I think pornography related topics should have their own set of guidelines for notability. However, there are huge conflicts with WP:GNG, especially with the sources. Therefore I propose amendments to PORNBIO. Probably participants of WP:PORN will help. THE NEWImmortalWizard(chat)12:46, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above 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.
WP:PORNBIO redirect
Currently WP:PORNBIO is very widely linked. If this proposal succeeds in deprecating the SNG, then I suggest copying the content to Wikipedia:Notability (pornographic actors) and marking it historical. I think this is the best solution, as:
We can't just delete the redirect.
Redirecting to the top of WP:BIO is not helpful (especially given that many historical AfDs have cited it as policy rationale).
We don't want to keep a dead section around in WP:BIO indefinitely.
Permalink to this discussion once closed with a statement saying it was depreciated (presumably that is the only reason to retarget the redirect)? Legacypac (talk) 04:16, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Since I do not see a consensus here yet I'm leaving this section open. I'm going to remove the section from the policy as that was the consensus reached above, but the redirects are another matter. RFD may be a better venue to decide this. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:52, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Support proposal to copy the content of the former SNG to the redirect and marking it historical, along with a permalink to the RfC. Levivich20:30, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Support Levivich's proposal. Since Beeblebrox deleted the SNG completely and since we haven't figured out what to do with the redirect yet, I added a note about its deprecation on the main page (Wikipedia:Notability (people)). I don't intend for it to be permanent, but I do think it's helpful in the interim. SportingFlyerT·C07:29, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
I have lately come across a lot of short articles on Anglican priests indicating that they were Dean of some diocese or other. Examples would be John Hay (priest), who was "Dean of Raphoe from 2003 to 2013", and Peter Wall (priest), who is Dean of Niagara, who I nominated for deletion. I am struggling to find a basis for notability for priests at the deanery level, and it seems like a lot of these are being made. bd2412T00:55, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
The guidance at Common Outcomes is at WP:CLERGY. The bishops of major denominations, including Catholic and Anglican Communion bishops, are typically found to be notable. Parish priests and local pastors need to show good third-party coverage. As for your examples, John Hay has one good reference, falling short of WP:BASIC. Peter Wall looks like a borderline CSD#A7 to me. • Gene93k (talk) 01:46, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
I agree with your assessment, but note that a large number of articles of this sort are now being created, so something will need to be done at a higher level to address this problem. bd2412T02:19, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
RfC about independent sources for academic biographies
Current wording: Academics/professors meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable. Proposed wording: Academics/professors meeting one or more of the following conditions, as substantiated using multiple published, reliable, secondary sources which are independent of the subject and each other, are notable.
Thanks for starting this discussion. I checked the archives for this page, but I couldn't find any significant discussion of what it means to have 'a significant award or honor' (except a consensus that university scholarships do not suffice). I don't see anything in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes neither. It would be good to have some guidelines here. We can all agree that winning a Nobel or Oscar is sufficient (but of course such winners also pass on other counts). Where do we draw the line between notable and non-notable awards? I think we could create an essay/list, with "Best in the field" such as "best awards in Physics, Cinematography, Sociology" and "Best by country" such as "Top American/British/Russian" awards. On its talk we could discuss individual awards, and whether they suffice or not. On a related note, it would be good to consider how this measures up to inclusion criteria for the very inclusive criteria for sportspeople, as in - if we only include the top awards here (Nobel, or such, with few to dozen awardees each year, how does it measure to Wikipedia:Notability (sports) where people can be notable for not even winning but just 'playing'. hmmm?). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here09:00, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Well, it's not exactly neutral or independent research as you have an agenda of removing leagues from the SNG and invite editors who share your views to assist you Atlantic306 (talk) 18:37, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
@Necrothesp: - in regards to your comments in diff - "Note that for the UK we consider the CBE or above to be high enough for automatic notability per ANYBIO. That's about 100 or so people every year who are considered notable enough due to their state honours" - is this codified anywhere or was discussed anywhere? I think it worthwhile footnoting here.Icewhiz (talk) 15:50, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
COMMENT: I would caution that while CBE may be the standard "in Britain" that really needs to be examined when being applied to other places, which were formerly part of "the realm" in the Global South, where receiving an OBE or even MBE is less common. SusunW (talk) 16:19, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware this hasn't been codified anywhere apart from in individual deletion discussions over the years, but my recollection is in agreement with Necrothesp's. The thing to look at in all cases where such multi-rank orders exist is not the order itself but the level of the honour that someone has received within the order. This certainly applies to those orders with which I am familiar, the Order of the British Empire, the Légion d'honneur and the Order Odrodzenia Polski. People get into the lower levels of these orders, such as the MBE (which my father was) or OBE, without being notable, but the higher levels are strong evidence of notability. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:30, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
That's exactly right. Of course not every member of the Order of Polonia Restituta is notable, but recipients of the higher grades are. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:13, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Piotrus - apropo our discussion elsewhere, note that Ranger donated over a million quid to the conservative party.... Just saying. I think he should've been kept (despite the atrocious state of the article) - however not due to the CBE - but since when I do a quick WP:BEFORE on him I do see hundreds of news items in the UK and India (seems he's a very major business figure [7] also somewhat involved in politics) - including full length parties on him. Icewhiz (talk) 09:42, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Comment: Based on prior AfD discussions in a range of topics, an award with 681,949 recipients would not be considered as meeting ANYBIO#1. Too indiscriminate to lead to presumed notability. In any case, ANYBIO is still subordinate to WP:BASIC, which requires significant secondary coverage of the subject, not just being in a listing of recipients. --K.e.coffman (talk) 05:43, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Comment we need more information than is presented in the article (and here) to make a determination, as it is highly likely that the higher orders of the award may well constitute a "significant award/honour" but the lower orders are unlikely to, in the same way as an MBE generally doesn't, but a CBE may, and a KBE will almost definitely. How many of each level have been awarded? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:25, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't want to go off-topic here discussing British awards, I was just using them as an example of different levels of an order to show that "significance" kicks in as you approach the higher end of the scale. What I think we need is more information about how many have been awarded at the higher levels if we are to be able to come to a useful consensus on at what level the Order of Polonia Restituta is a significant award/honour. Rarity tends to ensure significant coverage. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:28, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
The criteria don't mention modeling work at all as contributing to notability. There's an AfD for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniella van Graas where we're discussing whether seven fashion magazine covers and being for a period the 'face' of a major skincare brand raises a model to notability; it seems like it should at least be approaching notability. I'm wondering if we need to add something to the criteria here that specifically covers models? Pinging RebeccaGreenTrillfendiLubbad85 --valereee (talk) 15:34, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
@Valereee: The community just got rid of a Subject-specific Notability Guideline (SNG) for pornstars. I don't think it's feasible to create a presumption of notability for models. The community, generally, has turned against SNGs and support for such has been viewed as ILIKEIT. There's more traction in getting an active WikiProject to create an internal guideline (like WP:MILPEOPLE) and then bring it here. Chris Troutman (talk)15:43, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
I think she is notable. We will need to work harder to find sources. I agree that modeling adds to her notability just as her covers, and movie work do. Lubbad85 (☎) 17:19, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
The last thing we need is more SNGs judging importance as if importance has anything to do with notability. If the best available on this person is a link to the most passing of mentions in an unrelated news story, and two links to some website of dubious reliability, then there is nothing to write and article with, and it should be deleted. It doesn't matter if she walked on the moon, cured cancer, and killed Hitler. If you can't scrape together even a single decent source, then she ain't notable. GMGtalk17:26, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
What it comes down to is appearance does not = notability. People don't seem to understand that. If I appeared as an extra in Iron Man 3, that doesn't make me notable. Notability comes from:
"Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material.
"Reliable" means that sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability
A model can walk in a Prada show, that doesn't make her notable just because Prada is a prestigious brand. If a fashion magazine or newspaper details that... then yes it becomes notable. This is an example. Because then they give more information about other work they did and their background. It's not just "model walked for Prada" and a picture of it. That's unacceptable. This is an encyclopedia. Trillfendi (talk) 18:22, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
GreenMeansGo the problem I'm having -- and maybe it's caused by the fact we do have SNG at WP:NMODEL, just not for models -- is that the guidelines say "1.Has had significant roles in multiple notable films, television shows, stage performances, or other productions." Which seems to indicate that even if no one is talking about these roles, they're still enough. And the fact this set of guidelines specifically calls out models would mean that we'd interpret that guideline to mean (in the case of a model) 'important modeling assignments' which would seem to include things like fashion mag covers and being the face of major skincare brands. I do agree that importance is not notability; what I'm wondering is whether appearing on the cover of a magazine that is considered a reliable source is significant coverage equivalent to a long text-based profile inside. It's coverage in a reliable source. It's just not text. --valereee (talk) 18:53, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
Let's say you have a model on a dozen different covers of big-name magazines. Even if that were to connote notability, with what material would we write the bio? The presumption of notability is not a politically-driven ILIKEIT campaign. The idea is that with particular accomplishments (like a Medal of Honor or Nobel Prize), there will be significant coverage about that person's life upon which we could write. Who, exactly, is writing about these models? The Daniella van Graas article relies heavily upon FashionModelDirectory.com which just establishes she exists and did covers. With no real coverage about her as a person, why would we write a bio about her? This is why there's no inherent notability in modeling. If Daniella were able to suit up for a game of Major League Baseball, there would be an industry of sports writers to give us source material. Chris Troutman (talk)19:03, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
Exactly what I’ve been saying for months on the AfD, but people want to break bad at me for pointing it out every time. This article is an abomination. This is exactly what we don’t need on this website. I wouldn’t care if she has a 90ft billboard in Times Square. Notability comes from what we can verify reliably. “Idolcelebs” is all people could come up with?! This is why I keep proposing deletion on articles almost daily! Appearing as one of Vincent Chase’s flings on Entourage is NOT enough for an article, people. Operative word is article, not blurb, not resume, and not trivia page. There is supposed to be a quality standard on this website but people want to continuously make exceptions for pretty women. It’s absolutely stupid. Trillfendi (talk) 15:23, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
*: (The only reason why I would make exceptions sometimes for things like the more popular circulations of a magazine such as Vogue (American, British, French, etc.) is that they write articles about the subjects (i.e. significant coverage) while others just put a random model on the cover and don’t even so much as put their name.) Trillfendi (talk) 15:23, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
They problem valereee is that these SNGs are only an approximation of whether a subject is likely to meet GNG. That's why everything is covered with WP:BASIC as an overarching caveat. If someone meets one of these criteria, or for that matter, if they meet every criteria, but they still fail GNG, then the criteria are wrong. GNG in turn is a measure of whether an article can be written. By this, I mean an actual article of the type that wouldn't stand out like a sore thumb in any traditional encyclopedia. (Note: That article doesn't have to be written, but it has to be capable of being written.)
It's important not to get so caught up in sets of special rules that we lose sight of the purpose of the rules. If you want to update the special rules, then you need to show that the criteria you're suggesting is likely to mean the subject meets GNG. Keeping in mind that notability is a measure or write-ability, and not of importance. The consequence of that is that we're inevitably going to have important people who are not notable, and notable people who are not important. GMGtalk19:07, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
GreenMeansGo and Chris troutman, and I do agree with you both. I'm just...kind of feeling undecided here. I feel there's something in our approach that is missing something important in these cases, but I'm not figuring out what it is that's missing. To continue Chris' sports analogy, I almost feel like it might be like barely-notable sports figures: if they played 1 game at the professional level of sport X, they're notable, even if no one ever wrote anything about them of significance in a reliable source. --valereee (talk) 19:22, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
Yes, NSPORTS is a mess. But just because people read NSPORTS and throw throw everything else out the window as they proceed to make 10,000 10-word perma-stubs, doesn't mean the answer is to lower everything else to the same standard of non-notability. GMGtalk19:26, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
WP:ENT, WP:MODEL, WP:NACTOR? They're the same guideline! Doesn't anyone notice this?! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! At least for models at AfD, a lot of uncertainty could be settled by coming to consensus on what counts as notable "other productions". No need to create a new SNG. Just an explanatory footnote would do. This might also help sort through model articles that rely on marginal "15 models you HAVE to see!" clickbait masquerading as significant coverage. Bakazaka (talk) 20:02, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
To chime in here, the Daniella van Graas is not "an abomination." The impending WP:Snowballkeep will prove that claim wrong.
The question of sources and estimable work is a perennial problem. Apparently User:Trillfendi knows nothing about modeling. van Graas was a Ford model (a high levvel accolade), the Aveenospokesmodel and face for years – replaced by Jennifer Aniston. She has a substantial work record in films and television and was for a shot time a parrt of the cast of the longest running ameican soap opera.
Finding multiple WP:RS was complicated by national boundaries and language barriers – had to find Dutch articles.
This is part of a larger campaign whereby Trillfendi is trying to forum shop.
I didn’t even bring it here—valereee created this on April 26, and pinged me, Lubbad85, and Rebecca Green, for a broader topic of the model notability issue. So how am I “forum shopping” by responding to her request? Are you illiterate? Or just plain dumb? Trillfendi (talk) 19:38, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
And how do I “know nothing modeling” yet I’ve created well over 70 model articles. Manifestly I know more than you or anyone here about it. Being signed to Ford Models does not equal automatic notability. It’s idiotic. Do you want me to go to their board right now and list the hundred of un-notable models currently represented by them and who don’t have Wikipedia pages? BEING SIGNED TO A MODELING AGENCY DOESN’T CREATE NOTABILITY IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE NOTABLE WORK THAT CAN BE PROVEN WITHOUT SEARCHING THE DEEP WEB. You expect people to be impressed that she was the model of a drug store lotion brand. And when the astronomically more famous Jennifer Aniston takes her place she became a footnote? Raise your banal standards. Being on a soap opera that thousands of entry level actors go on isn’t special. Trillfendi (talk) 19:48, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Your inclusionism sounds similar to ILIKEIT. Realize that you would have to gain consensus for "accolades" the rest of us have never heard of and don't care about. Instead, provide sources to make a GNG case. Chris Troutman (talk)19:11, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Since you think having once had a comp card (if you even know what that is) from Ford Models is unmitigated notability just based on the Ford Models name: Abigail Olin, Adriana Cernanova, Allegra Doherty, Allie Redmond, Alyssa Arnesen, Amanda Batcher, Amanda Mondale, Amber Wignall, Anastacia Lupu, Anisa Dagher, Angelina Jesson, Anna Fischer, Anna Rachford, Arina Lush, Ashley Augenbergs, Aryn Terry Charlotte Rose, Chloe Kramer, Clair Wuestenberg, Dalia Savic, Dalila Babakhanova, Elise Agee, Elizabeth Sawatzky, Ella Rattigan, Gaby Diana, Grace Fly, Hannah Claverie, Hilal Ata, Hiltje de Kroon, Hope Fly, Jana Julius, Jeske van der Pal, Johanna Schapfeld, Julia Courtes, Juliana Schurig, Juliet Ingleby, Kate Li, Kiran Kandola, Laras Sekar, Lieke van Houten, Lila Cardona, Luiza Scandelari, Mia Gruenwald, Natalie Brown, Oliwia Lis, Pamela Ramos, Raquel Pascual Vila, Rebekka Eriksen, Rona Mahal, Rose Costa, Sara Soric, Selena de Carvalho, Selma Hadziosmanovic, Tanya Kizko, Thairine Garcia, Tsheca White, Vasilisa Pavlova, and Veridiana could use your "assistance" in article creation. And that’s barely scratching the surface of one board.... Good luck trying to make something out of a picture, blurb, gossip, people search website, one sentence, asinine forum or blog from a teenage girl’s room, or Instagram posts. Trillfendi (talk) 04:03, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
There unequivocally needs to be a fundamental change in what notability is considered for a model (no matter if it's a fashion model, model-turned-actress, glamour model, etc.) otherwise the same re-litigation is going to end up happening every 3 months. There are people who think alleged appearance equals notability (then anybody could say they walked for Dior and get an article. Which sadly seems to be the real issue in this category. Countless articles with 2 sources--models.com for the agency and FMD for wild, unverified statements.) and there are people who think a model's article should be more than a terribly sourced CV. And there's a third squadron of people who think nothing is enough to prove notability even if the preeminent Vogue says "this model is a top model" and does have actually notable appearances that get attention (Balmain, Alexander Wang, and Prada campaigns tend to do that). I created Keke Lindgard because she walked in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and that event gets a lot of press for months but at the bare minimum she had a regional source and a reputable fashion source that gave facts and didn't ask stupid, useless questions. The problem is every year there are dozens of "look who's walking in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show!" and "is Jane Dane coming back this year?" articles from Vogue, Allure, Harper's Bazaar, InStyle, etc that rarely offer much substance. If someone proposed it for deletion I wouldn't budge but at least she has a career to stand on for refunding if that happened. Suelyn Medeiros, Esther Baxter, and Celine Farach incontestably need to be deleted. Like, today. "Sexy video model takes Instagram pictures"? "What's your favorite color?" Ludicrous. That is what is unacceptable. That's the stuff that needs to be eradicated on sight. Hilda Clark could definitely be redirected elsewhere. Trillfendi (talk) 17:01, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
There will always be editors who disagree, for good reasons and bad, and if those editors disappear, more will take their place. So in my opinion it's more useful to focus on the process and guidelines. What would you say to removing the "or other productions" from WP:ENT? That would, in theory, remove the argument that show X or Y or magazine cover Z is sufficient for notability. Bakazaka (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Addendum given the structure of the opening question in this discussion: A WP:ENT footnote clarifying that magazine covers are not "significant coverage" would close a potential loophole. Bakazaka (talk) 19:25, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
No need for SNG, but some milestones probably imply presumed notability. A model making more than 10 million dollars a year, a model who has had many covers on major publications, a model who has been in many campaigns.... All of these are strong indications that the subject probably has SIGCOV. However, given the rather copious (and frivolous) sourcing out there on models were really don't need a SNG with presumed notability. Find the sources - they shouldn't be hard to find (at least for models from the past two decades). Thresholds for model notability should be described in WikiProject space or an essay. If there is an issue with sourcing for historic models (e.g. from the early 90s back in time - where digital archive access is more spotty) - that probably merits more attention. Icewhiz (talk) 06:36, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Comment I agree with Icewhiz. Getting onto the roster of the Ford Agency as a regular is somewhat akin to being drafted, signed and playing regularly for the New York Yankees. It'a an elite and exclusive honor. but getting to gauge levels of success is still an issue, and numbers of contracts, covers, etc. are part; obviously WP:RS are too. 7&6=thirteen (☎)17:37, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Of the Top 50 models right now, half of them are signed to either DNA Models or The Society Management (Elite) with Next Management almost making a triumvirate of domination. Ford only has 4. That analogy is dated. Trillfendi (talk) 22:57, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Calibrating these rules of thumb takes effort - going over AfDs (of a large bunch of models). Collecting stats and BEFOREing sources for multiple articles. WP:SOLDIER and WP:AIRCRASH carry some (non-binding policy wise) weight at AfD since AfD participants think they are a fairly decent rule of thumb. I'd suggest that instead of discussing here - that people interested in modelling AfDs start doing the legwork. Shamlessly plugging this in here - User:Levivich/Footy AfDs - Levivich and myself are running a side project, trying to gauge NFOOTY's accuracy (which is a SNG coupled with the essay FPL) - this takes leg work. Icewhiz (talk) 17:53, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Scroll up and you'll see another approach: discuss until a well-formed RfC question emerges, then use the RfC process. Bakazaka (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Just popping in to say it’s interesting how people "cared" about models’ notability for 2 weeks then went back to their neck of the woods. Countless articles still need to be created whether from scratch or those sitting in drafts. Fran Summers still doesn’t have an article for Christ’s sake. Now if you all claim to know modeling so well you’d know who she is and why she needs an article by now. But that means back to square 1. Those who know jack shit nothing about fashion shouldn’t even have an opinion in this space. If there continues to be the ignorant advocacy of models having articles based on existence of a picture, a name, and a sentence then there will never be aNY notability. We shouldn’t need to WP:BATHWATER this entire category. Nobody, nobody is entitled to an article by their job alone. Trillfendi (talk) 04:57, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Spending time writing thousands of words about old articles that don't matter might be less productive than spending time writing good new articles? Interesting. Bakazaka (talk) 08:09, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
While we’re on the subject (for the people who only paid attention model-related notability for the length of a We Bare Bears episode)—if Birgit Kos "doesn’t meet NMODEL" by benighted editors’ conveniently ever changing goal post definitions despite consummate, exemplary sources including but not limited to 3 different Vogues calling her a supermodel and many sources detailing her work excellently, then this whole category is indeed irremediable. No further comment. Trillfendi (talk) 04:27, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Obviously, video games are often, though by no means always, made by large teams. However, the same could be of a major TV show. I also feel it's reasonably uncontroversial for a video game to be able to meet a "significant body of work" requirement. Assuming it gets its multiple reviews, I ask:
Would a primary role (such as game lead) in a game's creation that met the above criteria allow an individual to meet WP:NCREATIVE? Nosebagbear (talk) 09:22, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Speaking as an editor involved with video games, I would tend to be careful here. In TV, while there are similar creative individuals, they tend not to be members of the production companies but only working with the production companies for the show, so they remain relatively independent of the larger team, and thus tend to receive their own recognition. In video games, those creative individually nearly always are staff on the development company - they may shift between companies to work on specific games but they are rarely as independent compared to the creative TV persons. There certainly are individuals that have risen to the top as creative video game professionals, but just necessarily being one of the creative leads on multiple notable games does not necessarily make that person notable, since it is usually the development team as a whole getting the credit. --Masem (t) 13:36, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Jon Hare jumped to mind immediately when I read this, but he should pass WP:GNG anyways. That being said, the video game part of Wikipedia has some "walled garden" elements and I don't want to do anything which makes it more inclusive - creative professionals here can be notable enough for their own biography, but I also have the concern this will open it up to non-notable staff. SportingFlyerT·C18:39, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Proposal to make a slight change to WP:ARTIST
WP:ARTIST says that an artist is notable if "The person's work (or works) has: (a) become a significant monument, (b) been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (c) won significant critical attention, or (d) been represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums."
I'd like to propose a slight clarification of this, to change "several notable galleries or museums" to "two or more notable galleries or museums". This is the way the word "several" has been interpreted at AfD, and is also better than the dictionary definition over at the OED:"More than two but not many." --- ThatMontrealIP (talk) 18:48, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
I don't necessarily think this is wrong but I would caution from the GNG that we have resisted the idea of quantifying how many sources are appropriate for the GNG, because that can be gamed. If this is added, I would add a footnote caveat that the number is meant as a guiding principle, and there are IAR-type exemptions to that depending the galleries/museum. EG an artist that gets their work into the Louvre may be notable from that alone. --Masem (t) 00:25, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
WP:ARTIST says that an artist is "likely to be notable" in such a case. As such, I would just ask: if someone has their work in two notable galleries (or museums) does that mean, in a large majority of cases, that they will have been the subject of in-depth coverage in reliable independent sources? If so, a change may make sense to specify. We shouldn't be keeping anything based just on that criterion, though, if it doesn't translate to coverage of the artist, of course, but I take that as presumed here. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 00:31, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
I'll try and stay out of this as much as possible, as I initiated the discussion, but I think the inclusion in museum collections, with or without SIGCOV, tends to reinforce point a) of WP:ARTIST: "The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors.", as the selection for permanent collections is considered to be very serious business within the art world. For one, you may have to take care of whatever you selected to add to the collection... for the next several centuries! SIGCOV does usually come with people on that level, but not always. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 00:41, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
I share Masem's concern that too strict a quantification may be too easily gamed. Two museums at the level of the Smithsonian or MoMA would certainly be enough for me to argue for a keep. But there are a lot of lesser but notable museums that I would not find so convincing. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:08, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Oppose I think it's a fine idea but I don't think it's clear enough on which museums qualify, book reviews are mush simpler because you can put them up on WP:GNG grounds. SportingFlyerT·C04:15, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Comment I must concur with the concern raised by Masem (talk·contribs) and others. At this point there doesn't appear to be consensus for the change. Better that it is vague, and the quality of the museums be judged if brought to AfD or elsewhere.--RightCowLeftCoast (Moo) 20:24, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
Comment Just before this is archived, could I propose a change an alternative word - is 'multiple' a better word to use than 'several'? Multiple is used elsewhere in notability guidelines, and its meaning is discussed in some depth at WP:MULTSOURCES. 'Several' in my mind implies 'more than two', which doesn't seem to be necessarily the meaning we are trying to convey. GirthSummit (blether)19:57, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
Just noting that "multiple" as an adjective is sometimes defined as "having or involving several parts, elements, or members." I think the concensus above is that being a little vague is a good idea. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 20:06, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
I agree that vagueness, allowing room for discussion, is a good thing. The circular meaning you've pointed out there is a good point, but I just feel that 'multiple' does a marginally better job of conveying what we seem to want it to than 'several'. GirthSummit (blether)20:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
RFC on routine coverage
There was some confusion if WP:ROUTINE was applicable to WP:Notability (people). It is covered under Notability (events) but an "AFD discussion" indicates that without mention it is not applicable pertaining to people which would apparently include politicians as well as others.
Consideration: Is WP:ROUTINE considered applicable to this guideline and if so should there be mention to avoid confusion? Otr500 (talk) 18:02, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
Question Are you asking
Does my careful reading of WP:NBIO lead me to think WP:Routine applies?
Does my careful analysis of recent, relevant discussions relating to WP:NBIO lead me to think there is a consensus that WP:Routine applies?
Reply: I can not argue with the admins closing so I suppose I am asking if you think all three are relevant to please give your opinions. A relevant discussion was closed as no consensus. After reflecting on the closing comments there is a point that WP:ROUTINE is not covered on discussions concerning bios but is concerning events. While I might argue that I feel it should be included I do not want to use a possible criteria that becomes ineffective because of a technicality. Trying to argue the tying in of "events" with a particular field to conclude possible relevance concerning a bio, and if coverage is routine or not, might be negated with coverage here, IF it is determined applicable. Thank you, Otr500 (talk) 19:01, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
Comment – This is a malformed RFC with very unclear question. Even the link to "relevant discussion" is missing the relevant section link. Dicklyon (talk) 04:34, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
Comment there is no confusion to me: WP:ROUTINE is a shortcut to a subsection of the guideline Wikipedia:Notability (events). There is a separate guideline Wikipedia:Notability (people) that has a subsection WP:ONEEVENT which provides insight on people notable for only one event. If WP:ROUTINE were to apply to people, it would actually be on the guideline for people. But it's not, so it doesn't. I would further submit that there tends to be a lot of mis-applicaiton here, as WP:ROUTINE is a shortcut but the guideline is very specific on what is considered "routine" -- editors often misunderstand those specific guidelines, sometimes going so far as to consider feature articles as "routine". There's an essay at WP:NOTROUTINE to address that issue. Further, I have observed editors claim that multiple events are one event, and the essay WP:BLP2E addresses that issue. Both are worth reading.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:32, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
Comment it's simple - people can't be "routine," that doesn't make any sense - how do you have a routine person? But coverage of a person can absolutely be routine, even feature articles. Think long form obituaries for someone locally prominent in a small town, fortunately excluded by WP:NOTMEMORIAL. Or an article on a not-quite-politician entering a local race, especially if they drop out shortly thereafter, or lose the election entirely. These need to be excluded. One of my first jobs was writing feature articles on local young athletes, which fortunately are disqualified by WP:YOUNGATH, since none of those athletes are actually notable. SportingFlyerT·C19:14, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
Comment. The real issue to my mind is not whether truly routine coverage should be used to satisfy WP:GNG in the context of biographies. It is fairly well accepted in AfDs that truly routine coverage (i.e., passing mentions, transactional announcements) does not represent the type of "significant" coverage required by GNG. Where the issues arises is when some try to argue that feature articles focused on a person constitute WP:ROUTINE coverage; of course, it does not -- to the contrary, feature stories clearly represent "significant" coverage as that term is used in GNG and are the very antithesis of WP:ROUTINE coverage. 23:53, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
Comment I too think the question is unclear and if not currently ripe for a RFC. That said, I am not sure that we will ever reach consensus about what is routine or what constitute a featured story. Most articles that go to AfD either are clear deletes or are marginal cases that could go either way. While clarity can be helpful, especially to new editors, at the end of the day, what is routine coverage to one person might be seen as significant to another person. I am generally of the persuasion that for most subjects, notability requires more than local featured stories, unless the individual holds a position that may be "worthy of notice" of an international encyclopedia. --Enos733 (talk) 01:04, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Reply and comments: So someone can figure things out at WP:Notability (events) but not here? The entire concept of Wikipedia is consensus. When or if the question arises concerning otherwise reliable but "routine coverage" on a BLP then a discussion can be held to determine if applicable.
If this arises during AFD then at the least the closer can weigh in with applicable guidelines. During an article discussion on sources consensus still takes precedence and it would only normally arise concerning notability concerns, such as a notability tag, that would be handled by various dispute resolutions.
WP:ROUTINE (coverage), is not a stand alone policy, guideline, or essay but specifically part of WP:Notability (events). A source about a specific person (candidate) or event, is not routine coverage if it is in-depth. If it is about an event, maybe a political rally or town hall meeting, it falls into a catch-22 when a particular person is named, even briefly and in passing, and ROUTINE will be discounted if attempted to be used on a BLP. I assume that is not the point (confusion) but that is the conundrum in the AFD example above. The statement Wikipedia:Notability (people) makes no mention of the word "routine" is true and in plain English also. An example to me would be the Wichita Eagle source "Wink Hartman Sr. may run for office again". This is a short reliable source and is about a particular person but is more than passing mention. It is routine coverage that this person "may" run for office again. Because the subject is a BLP the source about an event (he may run for office again) can be discounted from being "routine coverage" because that is not in the guideline. It is discounted ONLY because it is used on a BLP and ROUTINE is about events. While I would have to make a broad stretch to not make a connection technically it is correct reasoning. The fact that the vast majority of seven of the eight references on that article are routine coverage of a man either running for an office, dropping out of one and being chosen as a running mate in another, losing, and possibly running for another (various events), would not be relevant concerning ROUTINE because they were being used on a BLP which does not address "routine coverage". A person running for office is not considered an event.
I see "feature articles" listed above and concerns mentioned. A source can be perfectly alright for content without advancing notability. When the notability of a subject is already established it would be silly to try to argue ROUTINE in an attempt to get rid of a source. Removal would not affect notability because usually by C-class enough sources would have already been applied that the issue would be moot.
Editors already use WP:ROUTINE to address sources that are run-of-the-mill, ordinary reporting and not in-depth, from attempted use as advancing notability. Why not include equivalent wording at WP:Notability (people) for clarity and consistency? Otr500 (talk) 05:45, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Well, the WP:BLP1Es are on the same page as routine coverage, so I would argue running for office is one event, in the same way I would argue being charged with a crime and going to trial is one event. However, we're just going to go back and forth on this unless you propose a specific proposal or question to discuss. SportingFlyerT·C07:07, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Scroll down from routine coverage on the events page and WP:BLP1Es have their own section. The links go to different pages, true, but it's still mentioned on the same page. SportingFlyerT·C00:30, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Comment I think ROUTINE has to be read alongside WP:AUD here - "routine" coverage of people in certain positions (likely politicians) at the national level will likely be articles of encyclopedic interest - even if all the coverage is routine for a Congressperson that doesn't make any waves - while routine coverage of people at the same type of positions at lower levels like municipal or regional are not going to be of similar interest if all that is given for them is routine-type coverage. A similar concept is reflect in NSPORT for athletes, presuming that routine coverage is good for only those that have played at the professional level and not minors/scholastic leagues. --Masem (t) 16:54, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
You do realize that WP:AUD is a part of Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), right? Right now, we are discussing the wisdom of taking a guideline written for "events" and asking if it should also apply to "people" -- it seems to me that bringing in a guideline written for "organizations and companies" does not bring any clarity to the question.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:23, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
AUD should apply to all notability guidelines (its just that it is better suited right now in NORG). AUD is also implicit in NEVENT. The point is that there's a reason we don't cover local politicians even through we do cover national ones with the same type of ROUTINE coverage, and that's best pointed out by the AUD argument. --Masem (t) 18:05, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
I disagree, although on the reason and not the result. I see that the reason we don't cover local politicians is not because their coverage is "routine" or because the audience of the coverage is local but because their coverage tends to not surpass WP:GNG. It's possible for a local politician to gain notability (such as Harvey Milk, who held a local position although in a considerably larger city). The coverage of this individual has well surpassed the general notability guideline. We don't need to over-complicate things.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:02, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
And I would have thought that "WP:ROUTINE" could have applied here. It is not stand alone but part of "WP:Notability (events)". "WP:AUD" is not a stand alone but part of "WP:Notability (organizations and companies)" and apparently we can't mix them up. Splitting hairs seems to be a Wikipedia past time.
Under WP:BASIC we could separate "Trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability." with a shortcut WP:NOTRIVIAL and/or WP:NOTRIVIALCOVERAGE. The General notability guideline (WP:GNG) states: "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material." so would also tie in. Otr500 (talk)
An issue with ROUTINE alone that I see could affect a larger set of articles than intended. For example: it is election time in the US. Like death and taxes, there is coverage of every major race and candidate from national to local school boards. This is, by one definition, routine coverage of the election. We clearly aren't covering all elections on WP, and part of that is because of what AUD represents - we rarely give articles to topics only sourced to local or regional papers. That's reasonably fair, but if you apply that same logic to other topic areas, like in sports, even with the criteria there already limited. For example, I can routinely expect, at the start of a major league sport season, coverage of each player, including backup/second string/etc. Some could consider that ROUTINE in this same sense, since that reporting happens year after year. I don't think consensus would take that as falling within ROUTINE, but it could be read that way.
Arguably: ROUTINE and AUD should be at GNG and apply downward to the SNG. I've argued AUD to be at GNG before but that had resistance from some editors, I would figure ROUTINE would too. --Masem (t) 19:30, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Comment another issue with WP:ROUTINE is that many editors look at the shortcut "routine" and apply the common definition of the word "routine" -- yet WP:ROUTINE has specific definitions of what constitutes that type of coverage, and the common usage of the word "routine" is much broader. It's very easy to take the meaning of the word used for the "shortcut" and apply the common definition instead of the details in the destination of that shortcut. It happens a lot.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Paul McDonald. The issue is that WP:ROUTINE is being used here but arguable should not be since it is not specifically mentioned. Some admins ignore the "misapplication", I suppose considering it does have justification, and others read it literally as a misapplication. Also, WP:ROUTINE is mainly used in cases of sports coverage. Trivial coverage is mentioned here and since breaking out ROUTINE as stand alone is likely not something that would happen, "Trivial coverage" and a shortcut (mentioned above) would at least give substance in arguments. It just seems strange that we can argue something can be "ROUTINE" when it involves sports coverage but that somehow it cannot be applied to average run-of-the-mill political coverage that exists. Otr500 (talk) 23:41, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
procedural close - the question is confusingly phrased, and the discussion is more about interpreting what is desired from a change rather than whether it should be instituted. If still desiring clarification, it should be closed and restarted in better form Nosebagbear (talk) 18:29, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
ROUTINE does impact articles about people, though this is often poorly understood: the actual issue is that routine coverage of events is commonly used in an attempt to demonstrate the notability of the individual people involved in those events. For example, every election in a media outlet's local coverage area will always get media coverage of the election in that media outlet, literally by definition — covering local politics is exactly what local media is for, so that coverage very much falls under ROUTINE, but nevertheless such coverage is quite commonly invoked as "evidence" that the unelected candidates in the campaign have passed WP:GNG and therefore are exempted from actually having to pass WP:NPOL. People often start articles about smalltown mayors on the basis of a single news article nominally verifying that the person won the mayoral election, which is a type of source that every single mayor of everywhere can always show whether they actually clear our notability standards for mayors (which require much more than just single-sourced cursory verification that they exist as mayors) or not. People have actually tried to create Wikipedia articles solely on the basis of the subject being able to show a wedding announcement in the newspaper's society section, or an obituary on legacy.com. And on and so forth. So yes, ROUTINE is an assessment of the coverage of events rather than people, but the issue is that ROUTINE coverage of not inherently notable events is not only used to create articles about the events themselves, but is commonly also misused in an attempt to confer standalone notability on the people involved in those events — which is precisely why even though ROUTINE is an assessment of event coverage, it does still have bearing on and relevance to the notability of people. Bearcat (talk) 18:19, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
Proposal to add a criteria for notability of WP:AUTHOR
The recent discussion over whether some author pages should be deleted for lack of notability highlighted that the criteria for notability of authors are somewhat subjective and may possibly be out of date. What is one to do with a bestselling author who sells a lot of books but does not necessarily get reviews or awards from "traditional" publications? There was a time, twenty years ago, when there were lots of independent newspapers and lots of competing publishing houses pushing for their books to get reviewed, so one could be reasonably assured that "reviews" were a proxy for "readers". Now that there are only a few large publishing houses and they tend to specialize, you can get in to a situation where an author or even a whole genre is only published by one house, and there just aren't so many papers who pay for a staff book reviewer any more, so reviews are not such a reliable proxy.
I suggest that a criteria for "notability" of an author ought to be sales figures. There are now independent services that count book sales, such as Amazon and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_BookScan
Book sales tend to be very spiky -- most of the sales of a book happen in a relatively short window after release. So one cannot go back and track how well the book sold. But often there are secondary sources from these -- for example, one might have captured a shot of an Amazon sales page during the window when the book was highly rated. Or a news article might have cited BookScan as evidence that sales of a book were high.
I don't have a particular quantitative criteria in mind yet, with luck that might come out during discussion. But I'd say that an author who has two or more "well-selling" books as determined by independent sources is notable, even if those books are not award-winning or reviewed.
I am unclear on the "3 or more reviews" criterion. I think the intention is that these reviews are in major publications, not regional or local newspapers, but it does not seem to actually say this. If my fabulous History of Bypass is reviewed in the Bypass courier, the Bypass Weekly Advertizer, and the Bypass County Times, does that count? If not, why not? (Leaving aside the fact that the papers' editors are my cousin Earl, my other cousin Earl, and my other other cousin Earl, of course.)-Arch dude (talk) 18:26, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
COMMENT: this seems like slippery slope applying standards which appear in one part of the globe to another part of the globe. Say for example "author" is from Jamaica and finds a publishing house to agree to publish X number of their books written in Patois. Due to the size of the island, and the fact that Patois is spoken primarily in Jamaica or by the Jamaican diaspora, the pool of books printed is never going to equal the number that would be published for an author from say the US, UK, Canada, etc. Is that author less notable than one who sells thousands of books? What if they sold every single copy that was published, but the publication run was only 300? I don't see this as a logical global standard that can be applied to all markets for all people. Context matters. SusunW (talk) 14:10, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
Rather than sales which can be difficult to track or verify, maybe a criterion based on the worldcat.org summary data would be workable? "80 works in 293 publications in 1 language and 7,957 library holdings" Not sure of what ideal cutoffs for data would be. Schazjmd(talk)14:29, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
@Schazjmd: We only want to write about authors (or any subject) that has a lot of independent coverage giving us the inputs with which to write an article. The issue is that best-sellers used to trigger book reviews as a feature of a newspaper or magazine but that market is vanishing. While Worldcat provides a metric, it's not a metric that correlates to a review giving us our inputs. I don't think there's any longer a need to presume notability for authors. Either their works are reviewed in The Bloomsbury Review, Chicago Review of Books, or other periodical or the inidividual has to pass WP:ANYBIO. Chris Troutman (talk)15:31, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Again, that assumes that worldcat has the same amount of coverage for the globe. It does not. Rarely are any Caribbean titles covered, Spanish titles reflect a minute portion of published works and if the language does not use Latin characters, inclusion is abysmal. The problem with applying a single standard criteria is that it doesn't work globally. We need to be more aware that what works in community "A" may be completely different to what works in community "B" and make our guidelines more responsive to a global perspective rather than a narrow one. Place, time, characteristics of the community of which one is a part, all play a role in how we should evaluate sources. Lack of inclusion in worldcat doesn't mean someone/their work is not notable, it could, rather just be that it means they live in a place, or a time which worldcat stats don't typically reflect. SusunW (talk) 15:55, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
WP:NACTOR numbered list?
Shouldn't the list @ WP:NACTOR be bullets and/or specified as any of the following, rather than a plain numbered list which implies to me that each condition must be met?
Actors, voice actors, comedians, opinion makers, models, and celebrities:
Has had significant roles in multiple notable films, television shows, stage performances, or other productions.
Has a large fan base or a significant "cult" following.
Has made unique, prolific or innovative contributions to a field of entertainment.
Maybe it should be obvious that this is any of the above, but it is hardly so when #1 to me seems inadequate since it may be far from meeting GNG alone.
I was going to suggest changing the wording to something like
Actors, voice actors, comedians, opinion makers, models, and celebrities must meet at least one of the following:
but I see that "any of the following standards" is mentioned toward the the top of the page. You won't see that though if you follow a link to one of the subsections as I did. And is a "standard" a set of criteria or a single numbered criterion? —DIYeditor (talk) 17:51, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Hi, only one criteria is needed and standard means one but I agree with your suggestion as it would make the link clearer, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 19:56, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Just Me, or The Death of Me
Here's what my ce looked like (to me, on my desktop) just before publication:
If, however, there is only enough information about one notable event related to the person, then the article should be titled specifically about that event...
If, however, there is only information about one notable event related to the person, then the article should be titled specifically about that event...
If, however, there is only information about one notable event related to the person, then the article should be titled about that event...
If, however, there is only information about one notable event related to the person, then the article should be titled about the event...
(enough is hard to unsee, specifically not so much; that to the, meh)
Is winning a juried literary award Evidence of significant critical attention to the work of a writer for purposes of WP:NAUTHOR? Specifically thinking about the Raja Rao Award for literature of the Southeast Asian Diaspora. Hyperbolick (talk) 02:50, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
Don’t know how well-known this award is. Some sources report on it. Not a Pulitzer obviously, but more prestigious than a local award. We already have articles on five of six recipients, considering making one on the missing. Hyperbolick (talk) 03:00, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
If one's missing, but the other five are notable, I'd look to create an article on them because they're missing an article, but also doing the research to make sure they pass WP:NAUTHOR. If the only thing on them is they won this award, I don't think that would be enough, and I'd also be surprised if that were the case. SportingFlyerT·C05:56, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
Should be fine then. If you want to create it in draft space, feel free to ping me if you're concerned notability isn't met with the sources you've found and I'll be happy to take a look. SportingFlyerT·C06:53, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
Oscar nominees are not notable
As NACTOR and ANYBIO stand now Oscar nominees for Best Actor/Actress are not considered as being notable from being Oscar nominees. That seem ludicrous. It is not enough but it should be. Same goes for other major awards in this area. I propose an addition of something like in NMUSIC.
Has won or been nominated for a major acting award, such as a Oscars, BAFTAs, AACTAs, add other countries majors award.
Not necessarily. The Oscars nominate a bunch of stuff in a bunch of weird categories. I'm not sure a nominated, non-winning makeup artist who fails WP:GNG would be notable. SportingFlyerT·C21:26, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
Let me clarify here – have there ever been any actors nominated for an Oscar who wouldn't be notable under WP:NACTOR #3? Is this in response to a specific article? Or is this a general query? Because I don't support the addition if this is just a general proposal, since those actors will already pass both WP:NACTOR and the WP:GNG, and we shouldn't be unnecessarily expanding the scope of WP:SNGs. SportingFlyerT·C18:05, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
You may want to limit this to film. For example, when you get to things like the Daytime Emmys, there area a lot of acting catagories that clearly aren't the prestige of the Oscar acting stuff. --Masem (t) 18:09, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
What does "multiple" mean?
Sorry, I appear to have opened this section without noticing that the context I was talking about was not the context in which the word is primarily used on this page. I should have been more clear up front, but even after I clarified in a response to another editor it apparently didn't stop another respondent from being confused. So closing because my own lack of preparation has effectively poisoned the discussion. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:21, 22 September 2019 (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.
MW does its usual bang-up job of prioritizing what I'm pretty sure is the less common meaning. I'm pretty sure that most Wikipedians would interpret the word as it is used on this and similar pages as synonymous with "many" or "numerous", and that that is how it was intended, but the word choice as is is a boon to wikilawyers who want it to mean the same thing as "several".[8]Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:23, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
For Wikipedia purposes, I've always thought it meant "two." WP:THREE has gained a bit of popularity as an essay as well, showing that users don't really think of notability as "numerous." SportingFlyerT·C04:42, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I wasn't talking about the number of independent reliable sources discussing a topic but about what is meant by Has had significant roles in multiple notable films, television shows, stage performances, or other productions.Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:50, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I think that this is dependent enough on the significance of each individual role that it's not worth fixating over the true meaning of multiple. Having significant roles in 3 or 4 critically acclaimed movies is better in my book than having 10 roles in barely-notable ones. signed, Rosguilltalk05:06, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I kind of look at it as when I find one truly significant coverage in a reliable source, I go looking. If I can find a second, I start the draft. When I've got a third, I'll move it into article space. Anything below that -- two sigcov and five bare mentions or whatever -- and I'll hold onto the draft, waiting for another bit of significant coverage. --valereee (talk) 12:27, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above 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.
External links update
After discussions spread over the last couple of years, we have finally updated Wikipedia:External links#Links in lists with some new advice about how to format external links in some stand-alone lists. This format is not mandatory, but it may be helpful in some cases.
Obviously, this isn't going to change the question of whether a given person is notable, but I figure that the regulars on this talk page are more likely to encounter lists of people than others, so I thought I'd let you know. Please feel free to try it out in pages that you think are appropriate, and leave feedback on the guideline's talk page. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Use of this guideline to blight spirits of Wiki newbies & living-person subjects
W rgd newbies... See Wikipedia:How Wikipedia looks to newbies. (Althogh I haven't read this linked essay yet but am about to.) W rgd subjects: According to a recent headline I glanced at, one day in the not too distant future technological advances will make phones obsolete. You know what can be made obsolete with current technology? The mindless wp:ATTACK PAGE type of tone inherent in such statements as ""Community consensus finds so-and-so is not notable." How? Simply merge this page into Wikipedia:Too soon, anything unable to reasonably fit there jettisoned. You're welcome.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 08:06, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Well, Xxanthippe, let's say that the co-editor of the primary "review" journal in a particular subdiscipline is also published in hardback (and then in paperback) at Cambridge University Press; then, he gets picked up for a book in the subdiscipline at a general audience publisher. Yet, arguing from this page's esoterica, this individual cannot be said to be notable (see: Bee eeh enn jay ay emm aye enn Eeh Pee aye arr kay).(*) with a sample of said argument from esoterica being (1) "[...W]riting general books is a second-level publishing venue in history if one cannot publish an academic research book[...]"; and, (2) Would-be blp subject's "book on Mormon history is not by the major specialized published of such titles--or by any of those listed in Mormon studies[...]."
For the purposes of my advocacy above, it doesn't matter whether one might counter arguements with the above assertions. (Eg: "A fairly newly established terrain of study that involves a culture that has historically been marginalized might actually put a premium on scholarship able to translate its experiences/mindsets into something comprehensible by educated individuals outside of its culture blah blah blah.")(**) What matters is the mind-boggling intricacy of this type of argument-by-esoterica in the first place.
_____ Notes (*)a person whose book on the history of Nauvoo, Illinois, comes out in early 2020 at Liveright (**)Examples: (1) Richard Bushman published nothing since a '67 Bancroft Prize winner then does Mormon Studies in 2005 . . . at Alfred Knopf. (2) Bushman inaugurates Hunter chair at Claremont; next chair there moves on to Utah State; third chair there in 2019 is Matt Bowman. Bowman, though, apparently ah refuses to publish anything at all in the field of Mormon studies (sic) in that Claremont says in its announcement of its posting that he'd published in 2018 Christian: The Politics of a Word in America at Harvard University Press followed by another non-Mormon studies title similarly placed and his sole Mormon studies credit was in 2012 with his The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith published at . . . Random House.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 10:28, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Yet, what I'm trying to get at is how counterintuitive it might be for joe and jane everyday contributors to find Knopf, Random House, and Liveright don't bestow gravitas with regard to the publishing of histories.
Anyway, what follows is just ideas for tweaks for ersatz fixs perhaps to some of these "problem" as I perceive them. There are a number of folks such as myself who find it relaxing to fill in details of things on Wikipedia. No? Have one or another or even a handful of these volunteers sort through both whatever default pronouncements as are pronounced on this page along with relevant discussions that occurred over the years at the notability of people noticeboard with regard to sources A, B, C, for purposes X, Y, or Z. Then eventually within such a Wikipaged compendium one could find appropriate entries under alphabetized heading /k/, /l/ and /r/ respectively where joe and jane contributors could immediately ascertain that currently according to the great and unmatched wisdom of wiki barristers and solicitors here, yes . . . "blah blah blah." And should joe or jane feel otherwise, say after googling to look up what Pulitzer Prizes in history were bestowed on historians published by such as the foregoing, they could bring that point up subsequently at the relevant noticeboard, as to be countered by whatever documentary evidence as might be assembled by the experienced hands from this page, with the results from this arbiting discussion if necessary thereafter's being updated to the compendium page.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:36, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Notability means exactly that: people have written about it. Some editors confuse the word notability with words like importance or worthiness but this is a mistake. We write articles based upon source material. Some editors are only here to praise LDS academics as if they were some sort of protected class worthy of affirmative action quotas. The fault for their misunderstanding lies not with us. Chris Troutman (talk)23:55, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Hankering for academic purity vs. taking off hubristic blinders w rgd of sourcing.User:Chris troutman, I've been writing about how works for an unspecialized audience from generalist historical publishers establishing or not bonafides but let's switch to examining overall sourcing. News, books, and scholarship footprints. In addition to Google News,[9] Google Scholar and Google Books being consulted in addition to Google News,[10] plugging the unnotable schlar into the former[11] and latter,[12] we find enough scholarship and commentary to show that there indeed exists an amount of interest in his history writing beyond merely the Latter-day Saints audience. For encyclopedic inclusion purposes however the question is whether this amount ought be considered sufficient. And perhaps it would help to try to account for any factors that might unduly influence considering it insufficiently so. For example, when stepping back to examine the overall demographics of religious studies, we find, as could be predicted, that a new subdiscipline within it is populated by relatively few researchers fortunate enough to hold fully-funded chairs; by way again of example, there are several hundred fully-funded chairs in Judaic studies and three in Latter Day Saint movement studies--whereas, interestingly, half of the world's 15-million Latter-day Saints live domestically in the U.S., half abroad -- in similar numbers in both of the respective camp as there are adherents of Judaism. Taking into account this skant number chairs available, could the fact that there are articles about and interviews of a particular Mormon studies scholars and book reviews about his already published book at Cambridge University Press [who, by the way, in this case, also actually holds a co-editorship at the review journal in the subfield] hold weight, despite that the person doesn't hold a fully funded chair in the subdiscipline in question?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:03, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
In this vein, we know there are groups that are underrepresented in WP, such as many women pre-1920, and pretty much any group not in NA, Europe, AUS/NZ or SE Asia. Some of this is systemic bias that we can fix (like, we accept any reliable source in a foreign language, we don't require English sources), but some of this is simply the fact nothing was ever published about these people. They may appear in "databases" of the time, but if that's all that exists, we can't magically make coverage appear to justify articles. --Masem (t) 19:26, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Lewis, James E., Jr. Review of American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, 1783–1833, by Benjamin E. Park. Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 39 no. 2, 2019, p. 365-367. Project MUSE[13]: "Park’s ambition is the source of this book’s strengths and of most of its shortcomings." --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:15, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Daniel Feller, American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, 1783–1833, Journal of American History, Volume 106, Issue 2, September 2019, Page 447[14]: "[...] Park argues that the Revolution severed the one thing Americans had in common, that they were subjects of the British Crown. The lack of definition in American nationhood fostered grave anxieties for the country's future. To fill the gap and unify the citizenry, thinkers in the early republic cultivated particularist visions of American character and destiny and projected them onto the country as a whole. These notions were regionally grounded."
Other than renaming 'notability' to something less provocative and confusing (with which I agree but that's been discussed before) I don't see the sense of getting rid of the editorial consensus advice here on what makes a subject writable. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:32, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
No. Among choices sufficiency, adequacy, acceptability, adequacy, enough, enoughness, it's sufficiency that partakes of general "not-yet-ricity" without its subtly seguing into what derogations might often be implied within respective antonyms of insufficiency, inadequacy, unacceptability, general-not-enuffed-ness, in my opinion.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:56, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
What does qualify as "significant role"?
In Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Entertainers the first criterion states "Has had significant roles in multiple notable films, television shows, stage performances, or other productions" (emphasis is mine). We adopt the same guideline in fawiki, and recently one of our users asked about how best to interpret which role is considered "significant". Specifically, is the phrase referring to the significance of the role in comparison to other roles in the same work of art (e.g. a lead actor or a supporting actor being significant, while a cameo being non-significant), or is it referring to the significance of the role in the story line of the movie/show/performance (in which case even a short cameo is significant if it contributes to the story line). I suggested we should ask the enwiki community the same question while we discuss it locally. Please advise. huji—TALK19:45, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
Significant means prominent in the production and not confined to leading roles as for example Darth Vader and Obi Won Kenobi were played by supporting actors in the first Star Wars film but had significant roles that attracted substantial coverage, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 21:16, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
I would say star billing with regards to television and either poster or title card billing in films. And I agree with the first referring as the other one is original research / synthesis. Some non-starring but recurring character roles can become significant though for actors, as with Jim Beaver, John de Lancie or Robbie RistAngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 23:03, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
This article could benefit from some attention of an editor who's more familiar with notability guidelines for politicians than I am. Thanks! --Randykitty (talk) 11:18, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
Is there a guideline for death-related notability - i.e. for articles on people whose notability is only or primarily due to the circumstances of their death? There seems to be inconsistency throughout the encyclopedia - for example compare Death of JonBenét Ramsey with Mary Jane Kelly. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:40, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
I am inexperienced with BLPs and I'd like some input on the article-worthiness of the Spanish TV writer and creator Esther Martínez Lobato. On one hand, she has been collaborating with Álex Pina (one of the "Top International Showrunners of 2019" per The Hollywood Reporter) for years and has created and co-produced several highly regarded Spanish TV series with him, see my sandbox. On the other hand, she has only won one award that she shared with a group of writers (per IMdB), does NOT have an article on the Spanish wiki (es:Esther Martínez Lobato), and most importantly I am having a hard time finding out anything about her life and background. Maybe she wants to keep her private life quite, maybe Pina takes all the glory, maybe I'm not searching for sources the right way, who knows. Anyway, is it sensible to start an article on her with just the hard IMDb-like data? – sgeurekat•c10:02, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Two of the articles @Nomen ad hoc: AFD'd in one succession, Bruno Subtil and Patrick Binder, are members of French regional councils. From what I can tell they are just mere unitary authorities serving giant swaths of lands in the size of provinces/states, so I have huge doubts they are notability-making legislatures. A Google on "regional council passed/enacted a law" and similar phrases (even in French) yielded nothing. Ping @Lefcentreright: who voted delete in one of the AFDs and @Nomen ad hoc: who did several of the AFDs. ミラP17:48, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
I also agree. French régions are not legislative units, like German Länder or the Scottish Parliament, but their councils simply administer the implementation of centrally decided legislation. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:10, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
@Phil Bridger:This 2013 article states that even the Corsican assembly "has no law-making powers" despite the WP article saying that they "hav[e] executive powers over the island" - all this despite Corsica being on this list. Of course, since the councils occupy larger amounts of land, they are more likely to meet WP:GNG than the county councillors in the British Isles, but they are still not notable solely on grounds of existance. ミラP18:21, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
In South Africa, we have these things called "districts" which are pretty much equivalent to the French regions. They just administer the local municipalities and have no real legislative function. Are we going change the WP:POLITICIAN description? LefcentrerightTalk(plz ping)18:26, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
I don't see anything in WP:NPOL that needs to be changed, but maybe WP:POLOUTCOMES should be clarified that only members of legislative bodies should be regarded as automatically notable, rather than all members of bodies at the major sub-national level. There's an enormous difference between a legislator in a US state or Russian federal subject and a French regional councillor or English county councillor. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:41, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
In that regard Portugal seems to be similar to the UK, where I live, where Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (although their legislature is suspended for the moment) have their own legislative bodies but England has no legislature at a more local level than the UK parliament. Current guidelines can cope with that. If what you say is true of Turkey then no members of provincial councils should be considered to be automatically notable. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:32, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
I would support rewording NPOL slightly for added clarity. In addition to this matter, we have often seen people try to claim that since England doesn't have a "province/state" layer of government between Westminster and the local authorities, we should deem English county councils to be an office that fulfills NPOL #1 instead of #2. Which, needless to say, it isn't. Obviously, of course, a French regional councillor (or English county councillor) might sometimes get over the bar, if they have enough reliable source coverage to be deemed a special case under NPOL #2, but they're definitely not automatically notable just because they exist. Bearcat (talk) 16:04, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
