W:Wikipedia talk:Notability

This article seems to be conflating "notability" with "sourced". We all know that articles should be well sourced. But just because statements in an article can be independently and reliably sourced, doesn't mean the subject is notable. Reading through this article, I'm more confused than when I started. Ghost writer's cat (talk) 22:22, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

:Wikipedia isn't conflating things so much as inventing its own idiosyncratic definition for the word "notable". If you pretend the words "notable" and "notability" don't already exist in English and resist the intuitive associations you'd make for those words based on the ordinary meanings of "note", "-able", and "-ability", it may help.

:As for why it's this way, I guess it's because Jimmy Wales et alia knew the criteria they wanted to apply and didn't already have a word available for them so they co-opted an existing one. Largoplazo (talk) 13:10, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

:Yes, this guideline is about things being "sourced". For some reason, editors decided to call this guideline "notability", in the sense that something "sourced" is also "noted". There are perennial efforts to rename this guideline to be more clear, but it is hard to change something that has been in place for more than a decade. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:32, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

::If I may chime in, notability isn't a yes or no question, instead rather a likelihood. Every subject appears as on a continuum. I prefer to use the phrase "sufficiently notable" or "sufficiently sourced to meet NOTE". A very good way of learning about GNG and SNG is to read or participate in WP:Articles for deletion procedures where such disagreement is hashed out in case-by-case using varying tagged examples. BusterD (talk) 14:46, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I agree. If a subject is noted then it is definitely and indisputably notable. If a subject isn't noted in practice, it could still be potentially noted in the sense that we just need to find the sources that note it. Hence notability. (I still think our terminology creates unnecessary confusion, but it's not completely baseless.) Shooterwalker (talk) 14:51, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

::::"Notability" is a characteristic of the topic, while "sourced" is a characteristic of the state of an article or draft at a moment in time usually called "now", {{u|Ghost writer's cat}}. It is quite common to encounter poorly sourced articles about clearly notable topics, where plenty of reliable sources offering significant coverage of the topic can be easily found with a couple of minutes of competent search engine work. Poor sourcing in itself is not persuasive evidence that the topic is not notable. Cullen328 (talk) 06:42, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::@Cullen328 I agree. But I came here trying to find the criteria for whether a subject is worthy of its own article, then got lost in the lengthy explanation about sources. The editors need to make a clear distinction, using different terminology, between subjects that are noteworthy (i.e. deserving of their own article) but for which sufficient sources don't exist (therefore not notable) and those that have plenty of adequate sources but are not deserving. Right now, the "criteria for notability" is applied to both, which is why it's confusing. I could probably write an article about myself and provide good sources for all the information, but am I worthy of my own article? No. Ghost writer's cat (talk) 00:12, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::{{u|Ghost writer's cat}}, in Wikipedia terms, there is no such thing as a topic which is {{tpq|noteworthy (i.e. deserving of their own article)}} that is not covered by reliable sources. Even the most lenient interpretations of special notability guidelines require some coverage in reliable sources, as required by the core content policy Verifiability. If you have received truly significant coverage in truly reliable sources that are independent of you, then you are eligible for a Wikipedia biography. Cullen328 (talk) 00:47, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::@Cullen328 Yes, I understand that. I should have been more clear above... where I wrote "for which sufficient sources don't exist" I meant they don't exist within the article. That is, the article hasn't been properly sourced. As this article notes, "The absence of sources or citations in a Wikipedia article... does not indicate that a subject is not notable." Ghost writer's cat (talk) 02:32, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

::@Shooterwalker, I think I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't coincide with the definitions. The first line of this article states, "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article." They are using notability here to mean noteworthy, not "able to be noted". It even later states, "The absence of sources or citations in a Wikipedia article... does not indicate that a subject is not notable." But the very next sentence states, "Notability requires only that suitable independent, reliable sources exist in the real world." This is why it's confusing-- those two sentences, taken literally, contradict each other. (The second sentence is badly written; it's not conveying the intended meaning. The "only" is the problem—it should be deleted.) And since the article then goes on to discuss at length the value of sources, it loses the bigger picture of whether a subject is worthy of its own article in the first place. Ghost writer's cat (talk) 00:00, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

:::@Ghost writer's cat, "notability", or at least GNG, on Wikipedia is defined by a subject's sourceability. Although there can be more nuance, in general a subject cannot warrant its own article if independent secondary RS providing SIGCOV do not exist anywhere in the world. To actually establish notability, the subject (not the article) must have this coverage; however, that coverage does not necessarily need to be demonstrated, e.g. via citations in its wikipedia article, until the subject's notability is challenged. JoelleJay (talk) 14:40, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

::::@JoelleJay I disagree on your first point, as the article clearly describes notability as being independent of verifiable sources. More to the point, if notability were defined as you say, then how is it distinguished from WP:Verifiability? Ghost writer's cat (talk) 15:31, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::"Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable, independent sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. ", So no, if there is no coverage, it's not notalbe. Slatersteven (talk) 15:35, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::@Ghost writer's cat No it doesn't? Like, at all? {{tq|On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article. Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable, independent sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. }} The test to decide whether a topic can be presumed to warrant its own article is by assessing whether the topic meets GNG or an SNG. GNG and many SNGs ultimately require IRS SIGCOV of the subject to exist. {{pb}}Verifiability is a property of the information already present in a given article: it only requires that a statement can be sourced to a reliable source, and this source does not have to be secondary, independent, or SIGCOV. Notability (GNG) requires that the subject has received secondary SIGCOV in a reliable source that is also independent of the subject, but this coverage does not always immediately have to be present in the article. JoelleJay (talk) 15:47, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::@JoelleJay Okay, and where most people are arguing over notability I think what they're really discussing is verifiability. I think they're confused. They're arguing that if they can produce reliable, secondary sources for the content, the subject is thereby worthy of an independent article under Notability. (This whole subject keeps going around and around... It's a chicken and egg thing. I don't care what WP wants to name things, I just wish the guidance were more clear instead of mixing the explanations. That's my only goal. But apparently the confusion is too widespread.) Ghost writer's cat (talk) 16:08, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I do not think anyone who is arguing over "notability" actually means "verifiability". People who are saying a subject is notable based on being able to produce IRS SIGCOV in multiple sources on it are correctly demonstrating notability. Any source that can contribute to notability must necessarily meet "verifiability", but RS verifiably existing is absolutely not sufficient for a topic to be notable. The order of operations in article creation and retention of (GNG) subjects is: IRS SIGCOV found (or its existence at least strongly presumed) --> article created (with or without the IRS SIGCOV cited) --> notability challenged --> IRS SIGCOV identified and cited --> article retained. JoelleJay (talk) 18:20, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps this guidance could have a clarification on what it means to be "direct". Since it isn't explicitly defined, some editors argue that nonspecific coverage of a group, e.g. "[6-person sports team] flew to [host country] and successfully defended its title in [tournament], with all players scoring points despite struggling in the unexpected heat", is also direct coverage of each individual member (or at least of any members mentioned elsewhere in the source). JoelleJay (talk) 14:57, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:That view is contrary to any reasonable definitions of the word "directly" and the phrase "in detail". I don't think we need to start defining ordinary words because some people make dumb arguments. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:22, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

::@Voorts, I agree, but I think the argument is that if all the details in the coverage of a group apply equally to each member, then it wouldn't be OR to state those details just in the context of one member in an article on that member... ∴ the clause {{tq|so that no original research is needed to extract the content}} is satisfied... ∴ the "SIGCOV" part of GNG is satisfied... Obviously the intent of having SIGCOV, and its application in practice, goes beyond simply the requirement that a given source not need OR to use it, but I have encountered arguments in multiple AfDs, including by admins, where parts of a source that are talking about a group are claimed to be SIGCOV of one of its members. JoelleJay (talk) 18:34, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I agree that it wouldn't be OR.

:::I'm not sure that there is a single, objective, universal answer. On the one hand, if something is said about two people, it's nitpicky to say this isn't directly about the two people. On very extreme the other end of the spectrum, we can source "All men are mortal", but we're not going to add "Sooner or later, he's going to die" to every BLP, nor would we consider that large group reference to show anything about the notability of any individual. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:47, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

:It's going to be subjective but we pose this as being far from just a passing mention. The entire reference doesn't have to be focused on the topic in question but it should at least one paragraph devoted to directly taking that topic. Masem (t) 16:36, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

::Sure, but what does it mean for a paragraph to be "devoted to directly talking about that topic"? JoelleJay (talk) 18:23, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I suggest that a paragraph is "devoted to directly talking about that topic" if it provides you with material that is incontestably suitable for a Wikipedia article about that topic. For example, if you have a passage about Bob's Big Business, Inc. that provides you useful encyclopedic information for an article on {{fake link|Bob's Big Business, Inc.}}, then that's "directly talking about that topic"; if you instead have a passage that maybe namechecks the business but is actually talking about the widget industry in general, or about something tangentially related (Bob likes baseball; Bob's sister is a possibly notable lawyer), then that's not incontestably suitable for a Wikipedia article about the business, as editors could argue that Bob's love of baseball is about him, and his sister's career ought to be described in a separate article, {{fake link|Lee Lawyer}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:53, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

::::That's how I view this too. See my essay WP:SPECTRUM. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:22, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::This is a good essay. I might not agree with 100% of it, but it explains why bright line tests aren't going to work. It's going to come down to what lets us build a unique non-stub article. Anything less is either ripe for deletion, or at best a merge into another non-stub article. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:38, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

IMO the main intent is we need the type of coverage of the topic of the article to build a real enclyclopedia article on the topic of the article from. "Directly" means the content is about the topic of the article. I think that that provides guidance for people who are seeking it. But maybe we should add " "Directly" means the content is about the topic of the article " to handle situations where folks prefer to not follow the intended meaning of "directly". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:48, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I often find arguments about NOPAGE include something about how it is better for the reader for everything to be in one place instead of in standalone articles. While I can understand this perspective, I think it's also important to note that this can make it more difficult for readers to navigate as well. In my personal experience, search engines often don't include Wikipedia articles in the results if the subtopic is a redirect to another article, likely because of how SEO works. I don't think the average reader is relying on Wikipedia search for navigation. What are some thoughts from other editors about maybe saying something about this possible downside in that section? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 01:08, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:I don't think we write WP to worry about how search engines pick it up. There are some things we have placed the proper commands to request no indexing like user pages, but I dont think in terms of mainspace content we worry about how a search engine indexes it. Of course, when a topic is brought into a larger topic page per NOPAGE, we should have appropriate headers and anchors to be clear the topic exists on that page, which should help with search engine identification. Masem (t) 01:24, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::A different downside to merging smaller articles into larger ones, also not mentioned there, is the formation of articles that are packed with too much material making it difficult to find the one specific thing that one seeks. For me one that stands out is Chernoff bound, where the part I almost always want to refer to but have trouble finding is {{slink|Chernoff bound|Multiplicative form (relative error)}}. It's not even a very long article, just dense. No doubt others have examples that are less technical. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:26, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::Obviously one shouldn't write an article just from the SEO implications but what I was talking about is when people invoke the spirit of Wikipedia:Readers first in merge discussions with the underlying implication that merging will always serve the reader best. The very first sentence of NOPAGE reads {{tq|When creating new content about a notable topic, editors should consider how best to help readers understand it.}}, afterall. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 01:32, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Personally, I don't think guidance is necessary on creating separate articles in order to assist search engines (internal or external). I agree that putting everything into one large article may not best serve readers. I do think, though, that many editors are biased towards creating new articles, so I appreciate why {{section link|Wikipedia:Notability|Whether to create standalone pages}} spends most of its text covering scenarios where including content in an existing article is desirable. I'm not sure if making the text longer with more examples of creating separate articles would be a net positive. isaacl (talk) 02:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::::I'm not saying guidance is nessecary to create separate articles that do not yet exist but I do think some counterarguments are good because this shortcut is used in contexts outside of that. I'm a bit tired of seeing merge discussions that everyone can agree meets GNG but is simply a short article because the possibilities of those could go on forever. GNG isn't a guarantee something deserves a standalone article, but GNG exists as a rule of thumb for a reason. A sentence or two emphasizing the latter (along with other concrete reasons not to merge) might be useful in preventing the waste of a lot of editor time. Examples give people ideas of when something does or does not apply. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 03:31, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::The search engine issue runs the other way too. I'm not sure how the algorithms work, but they don't seem to like to show multiple Wikipedia articles in the early results, so creating a new article will hide the others, even if the others have more information. CMD (talk) 03:43, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::But if someone is looking for something in particular, doesn't it make sense to show them what they're actually looking for? Maybe they don't want more information. If it's linked within the article, they can always seek it out on their own. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 10:31, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::That assumes the person is specifically writing exactly the words needed to find what they're looking for, which will often be a flawed assumption. CMD (talk) 17:32, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::My first comment was specifically regarding your suggestion of adding some guidance based on assisting search engines. There may be of course other improvements that can be made to the guidance on whether to create standalone pages. I'm wary of just adding more stuff to the section, but of course it depends on how it's done, including possible copy edits to streamline it. Perhaps you or someone else can draft a holistic example of how the entire section might be modified? isaacl (talk) 18:43, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::I agree that drafts of examples would be a useful idea but I'm at a loss for something that would be both simple enough and not ruffle too many feathers (aka something that hopefully everyone can agree is a good thing). Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:06, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

IMO search engine concerns are low enough on a list of priorities that they should not modify normal decisions on these type of things. In short, IMO make the decision the normal way based on the normal considerations without being influenced by search engine considerations. North8000 (talk) 14:05, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:I'll also voice my opinion that search engines are a tangential concern. The goal is to write good articles, and covering things in context is often really helpful. Additional advice or counterarguments can be in an essay, not the official guideline. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:32, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

::My point wasn't solely about search engines, though. If the goal is to just write "good articles", shouldn't counterarguments that also lead to that be included? It seems odd to me to just shoehorn that into an essay. Like the section as it's written could be perceived as contradicting other sections, which isn't a good thing for a guideline. What's to stop someone from nominating every start class article that meets GNG into a larger concept article? Discretion is important, but where people draw the line varies, hence why I think it's useful to provide more examples. I have similar frustrations about an entirely different thing over at Wikipedia talk:Categorization because whether or not a category is diffusing is often "someone decided that when it was created" vs "these are the circumstances where this decision makes more sense". I'd say NOPAGE as written is definitely less ambiguous than that situation, but it's still a bit too vague in my opinion. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:24, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:::There's nothing stopping such a nomination, just as there's nothing stopping any particular editor turning each section of an article into its own discrete stub. However, the way the processes tend to play out, the second is going to be the more successful endeavour. CMD (talk) 17:36, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I don't understand the last post. But as an observation, if an article has solid or even close to GNG compliance I never see discussions/proposals/arguments/ to upmerge it and I think that this rarely happens. And most of when I see it come up is where there's nowhere near GNG compliance and....most commonly is where the lower level article is either has promotional intent (e.g. individual song of a band or product of a company) or completionist work like "I'm going to make an article for each stop/staqtion on a train line" or "I'm going to make a stats-only article for each season of a particular sports team or each election in a particular district". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:05, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

::::If it rarely happens maybe I've just been unlucky. But it's definitely the impression I've had in merge discussions. The circumstances you describe above make way more sense to me for situations where one should merge, so maybe this page should explicitly state that? Because I really have seen NOPAGE applied more broadly and meeting GNG not being enough if it's a start class article. I think there's a real detriment to doing that. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:00, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

:I've heard that shorter articles are preferred by mobile users. That makes sense to me. Who's going to spend half an hour or more scrolling through a long article on a phone? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:43, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

Pinging @Masem and @WikiOriginal-9.

I don't like exactly the wording of "assumption" but it appears that "presumption" is not favored, so taking to talk page as part of WP:BRD cycle.

"Rebuttable presumption" doesn't sound too deletion leaning, it sounds less clunky than "assumption, not a guarantee". At least that is my thought. What do you think? Aasim (話す（はなす）) 03:48, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:Notability is a rebuttable presumption in practice, and language elsewhere in the guideline uses this term. "Assumption" is a bit too much of a simplification because it belies the fact that passing the letter of the text of a test like the GNG is not assurance that notability has actually been demonstrated, that's the "rebuttable" part coming in. Masem (t) 11:57, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:For reference, I assume you are discussing [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Notability&diff=prev&oldid=1290134574 this edit]: Although there can be times where it is warranted, I think part of motivation for using a term other than "presumption" is to avoid using a variant of the word being described ("presumed"). I think adding "rebuttable" is redundant with the clause that the established assumption is not a guarantee. isaacl (talk) 15:36, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::"rebuttable presumption" is a legal term, see presumption, that has similar apicability to how notability is practiced particularly with SNGs, hence why we have used it here. Masem (t) 16:17, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:::The guideline used to link to Rebuttable presumption, which used to be its own, law-specific article [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rebuttable_presumption&diff=prev&oldid=1152666670 until about 18 months ago]. Conclusive presumption was also a separate article [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conclusive_presumption&diff=prev&oldid=1152666740 back then]. These were blank-and-redirect moves after 24.5 hours' "discussion" at Talk:Presumption#Merge proposal, in which the now-retired editor says that he wants to merge them, and then says that he redirected them and would later add the contents (spoiler alert: he never did, though Dl2000 merged in the contents of Conclusive presumption).

:::A few months after that, @Espresso Addict [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Notability&diff=prev&oldid=1179870511 removed] the link to Rebuttable presumption from this guideline, on the grounds that the link was a redirect. This was discussed in Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 79#Do we need "rebuttably"?

:::The point behind "rebuttable" language is not to create or invoke a legal system, but to clarify that this presumption is not a conclusive/mandatory/irrebuttable presumption. For those unfamiliar with this language, a rebuttable presumption is something like "I saw Karp in the elevator, and he said it was np-complete." You could rebut that with evidence showing the person didn't see Karp, it wasn't in the elevator, he didn't say that, and/or that it's not actually np-complete. A non-irrebuttable presumption is "Dogs are prohibited on the premises. However, any dog trained to assist a blind member is hereby deemed to be a cat for the purposes of enforcing the ban on dogs". You can't introduce evidence that contradicts this definition, because no factual evidence can overcome the definition. The blind member's dog is not banned, because the ban itself says that the blind member's dog isn't a dog. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:55, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I'm not sure what you mean by "we have used it here". Are you signing on as a joint author for the proposed change? (The [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Notability&diff=prev&oldid=1290146382 longstanding version to which you reverted] doesn't use the word "rebuttable".) I agree with WhatamIdoing that I don't think it's necessary to draw a parallel with a legal term of art. In my view, saying something is not a guarantee is clear without using jargon. isaacl (talk) 21:31, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::::If you scroll down you can see. Sometimes diffs can be confusing. Aasim (話す（はなす）) 21:46, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::It would help if you would be a bit more specific about what you are proposing. I don't know where you are scrolling (the page history?). Can you write out your proposed change on this talk page? (And any specific explanation for "we have used it here"?) isaacl (talk) 04:10, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

{{textdiff|* "Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject merits its own article. A more in-depth discussion might conclude that the topic actually should not have a stand-alone article—perhaps because it violates what Wikipedia is not, particularly the rule that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.Moreover, not all coverage in reliable sources constitutes evidence of notability for the purposes of article creation; for example, directories and databases, advertisements, announcements columns, and minor news stories are all examples of coverage that may not actually support notability when examined, despite their existence as reliable sources.

• {{shortcut|WP:SIGCOV}} "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.

|What this means:

• "Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates a rebuttable presumption, not a guarantee, that a subject merits its own article. A more in-depth discussion might conclude that the topic actually should not have a stand-alone article—perhaps because it violates what Wikipedia is not, particularly the rule that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.Moreover, not all coverage in reliable sources constitutes evidence of notability for the purposes of article creation; for example, directories and databases, advertisements, announcements columns, and minor news stories are all examples of coverage that may not actually support notability when examined, despite their existence as reliable sources.
• {{shortcut|WP:SIGCOV}} "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 just a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material.

}}

::::::Essentially this is what was supposed to be shown by the diff. MediaWiki failed at indicating exactly what changed. Aasim (話す（はなす）) 16:53, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Yes, that's exactly what I understood was being changed in the diff. isaacl (talk) 08:59, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::::IMO the actual longstanding version is the one that contained a link to Rebuttable presumption for 13 years, representing 70% of this guideline's existence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:46, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::I was just quoting the edit summary. The initial reply said "language elsewhere in the guideline uses this term", thus stating that the term is in current version. I understand the guideline used to contain related language before. isaacl (talk) 04:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::The link (not always the word rebuttable, but always the link itself) was in the lead for 13 years. I haven't checked other parts of the guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 14 May 2025 (UTC)