Wikipedia talk:Notability

See also: Wikipedia talk:Relevance

Re: "Churnalism" at WP:SUSTAINED

Intro: WP:CHURNALISM

There was a bit of an unfocused discussion on "churnalism" last year at Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 84#On notability and scientific churnalism which resulted in the following being boldly added by Ldm1954 to WP:SUSTAINED after only brief discussion between two editors actually focused on that exact guideline:

Similarly, reproductions or close paraphrasing of press releases from, for instance, companies or other organizations (aka churnalism) does not count as sustained coverage. This is particularly the case because normally these are not secondary or independent sources.

Which was promptly shortened by WhatamIdoing to:

Similarly, reproductions or close paraphrasing of press releases (aka churnalism) does not count as sustained coverage.

with WhatamIdoing explaining in the disucssion:

I've shortened the addition, because half of what you wrote wasn't true, especially since press releases can be Wikipedia:Independent sources, and their problem isn't the lack of independence or being primary; the main problem with a press release is that it's self-published – a problem that completely goes away when The Daily News independently decides to write an article about the subject of the press release, no matter how badly the article is written (including, but not limited to, copying large chunks out of a press release).

I am not very knowledgeable of the scientific side of "churnalism" discussed there, but there is an ongoing discussion touching on entertainment "churnalism" at Wikipedia talk:Notability (films)#Unreleased Films and Notability (again). As I stated there, there is no official policy on suspected "churnalism" in perfectly reliable sources, and the term itself can be defined in a way that it can be stretched to apply to almost all news reporting, making it unfalsifiable. Press releases are already discussed as being non-independent of the subject at the WP:GNG. So articles built upon obvious copies of press releases should fail the GNG. But that should be identifiable to the extent that it is demonstrable, i.e. logically proved. And in almost all cases I have seen (in Western media), I don't believe we have the evidence required to make that kind of judgement. In general, I am not satisfied with this "churnalism" neologism and its application. Secondary sources are built from primary sources, so if a journalist honestly believes that what they have been told was the truth, and his or her belief was reasonable, he or she is entitled to use it. "I believe what a press release said" is an independent opinion, whether you like it or not. If you are going to argue that coverage fails independence, then that claim should rest on demonstrable analysis of the editorial process in that specific instance. But it is not Wikipedia's place to speculate to that end. Remember: The goal is to reflect established views of a topic as far as we can determine them. And a topic is "notable" in Wikipedia terms only if the outside world has already "taken notice of it". As Erik wrote in the aforementioned discussion: We should not shun reliable sources' reporting just because there is some apparent thinking that such sources are being manipulated by publicists. Ultimately, whether we like it or not, Wikipedia is simply a reflection of what reliable sources tell us. A compiler of information that is presented in proportion to the coverage found in reliable sources, and not a publisher of original thought. It is rather arbitrary to selectively disqualify information that mainstream, trustworthy sources have made the editorial decision to publish as their own material. So I'm not very satisfied with this "churnalism" addition to WP:SUSTAINED. And I believe WhatamIdoing wasn't either, as they concluded their posting in the 2025 discussion here with the following statement:

On the more general question, I am doubtful that we need this in the guideline, and I predict that including it will cause problems. Specifically, just like we occasionally have editors exceed the intent of various rules – a frustrated editor declaring that they're hereby WP:CHALLENGING every single uncited sentence in every single article, or POV pushers declaring that all sources supporting the other POV are unreliable, or deletionists declaring that no _____ (fill in the blank: current events, influences, children, websites, small businesses, etc.) is ever notable – I expect we will see an increase in the number of AFD noms and delete !votes that baselessly assert that every source is mere churnalism and therefore banned by WP:N. (How does the nom know it's churnalism, you might ask? Well, first of all, no true source would ever bother writing about that kind of unimportant subject, second, everyone knows that true sources only write criticisms instead of the positive facts related in that source, and third, it's obviously UNCIVIL of anyone to question my omniscience. I just know, okay? And you will never, ever convince me that I'm wrong.)

What do we think? Οἶδα (talk) 05:53, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I think the discussion you refer to was somewhat broad, and there was a general concensus in favor of it wrt WP:SUSTAINED. While WhatamIdoing makes a good point, the discussion was not (in my mind) on the general issue of press releases. It relates to whether press releases by companies, universities or academics about their recently published work which are then reproduced with minimal edits are a basis for a claim of sustained coverage. (If you want I can give examples in science of churnalism versus genuine press articles with independent investigation.) The discussion you reference Wikipedia talk:Notability (films)#Unreleased Films and Notability (again) is not about sustained, so I do not understand the relevance. What are you actually suggesting? Ldm1954 (talk) 12:19, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Giving an example, with apologies as it relates to my work. I view this as churnalism, whereas this is not, but the similar article in Scientific American is because it is a reproduction, even though Scientific American is a respectable source.. Ldm1954 (talk) 12:37, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

A reprint is not what Wikipedia editors traditionally call churnalism. That's covered under Wikipedia:Notability#cite note-4, in which the same document being printed in multiple places, even if it has minor changes, is still just one source and therefore not "multiple".

The thing that Wikipedia editors usually call churnalism in this context is:

• Big Business, Inc. issues a press release about itself.
• Jo Journalist copies a large chunk of it, changes a couple of words, and puts "by Jo Journalist" at the top of the article.

In this case, we question whether the news outlet has done what we need from them, which is to exercise editorial judgment about whether the subject is worth giving attention to.

The other thing that a few editors (most memorably one now banned by ArbCom for his anti-COI work) call churnalism in the context of notability is:

• Low-Cost Wire Service puts together some information on non-time-sensitive subjects, which they sell to ordinary news sources in multiple formats. The same bit of reporting gets produced as a 200-word version of an article, a 300-word version, and a 600-word version; a 30-second news-style video, a 60-second video, and a 90-second video saying the same things; and a photo essay.

This isn't really churnalism per se. It's more like a Least publishable unit model, except that it provides all the publications at the same time. When you can determine that all of these "different" sources have the same origin (i.e., the same journalists, all working for Low-Cost Wire Service, Inc.), they should be counted as one source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

We are not disagreeing about churnalism in the context of science publications, they and reproductions do not have to be mutually exclusive. Ldm1954 (talk) 17:43, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I do not agree with your statement that "the similar article in Scientific American is [churnalism] because it is a reproduction". I believe that the article in Scientific American is a reproduction and not churnalism. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

The discussion I referenced pertains to the notability guideline for films and is revisiting an earlier discussion on the same talk page here, wherein this "churnalism" addition to WP:SUSATINED was referenced. Among multiple points raised there, the topic of "churnalism" was brought up many times to dismiss film-related announcement articles from perfectly reliable publications such as Variety, Deadline, etc, which some have argued "draw pretty heavily from a press release and promotional blurbs". You will find no disagreement from me on that. Though, as one user wrote:

The reliable sources, manipulated or not, are churning out content. That is their job. They take announcements, rewrite them somewhat for clicks, then post them without any independent coverage. So, it is not that there is coverage in reliable sources...it is that the coverage is basically from the studios. Not all articles published in a reliable source are reliable. I mean, if you read some of the sources I cited in the deletion discussions linked above, you will see there dozens of articles in reliable sources, but if you look at those sources you will see that the majority are published at the same time based on churnalism. That is not okay.

As I was saying above, where I take issue with this is: "without any independent coverage". I am doubtful the extent to which we can make such unfalsifiable "failing independence" accusations against reliable publications for the purposes of selectively disqualifying their coverage from being counted as WP:SIGCOV from secondary sources. My question is whether or not the GNG doesn't already effectively communicate about press releases failing independence without needing this mention/definition of the problematic "churnalism" at SUSTAINED, at the risk of its miscitation. Οἶδα (talk) 05:09, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

I think that it's helpful to understand why WP:N (generally) and the GNG (specifically) want "independent sources". The goal, for notability purposes, is not to prove that the publication was uninfluenced by anyone or anything. The goal is for the publication to function as a filter. To explain what I mean, let's pretend for a moment that every single news or magazine article ever had its origin in a press release or similar document. We would still want to know whether The Daily News or Monthly Magazine picked Subject A over other subjects. Even if we can prove that every single fact came straight off a page on the corporate website called "Press releases", the fact that the 100% independent editorial process at that 100% independent publication 100% independently chose to copy some facts from Subject A's press release instead of doing the same for Subjects B, C, and D is what Wikipedia's notability process actually cares about. Notability is not about the purity of the information. Notability is not about fact-checking. Notability is about whether there was voluntary attention from the world at large, and not just from people being paid to pay attention. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

the fact that [...] chose to copy some facts from Subject A's press release instead of doing the same for Subjects B, C, and D

I would like to know that too. I understand that independent publications act as a filter. But I think we're overstating what editors can actually infer. Because unless obvious enough to the point of being demonstrable, there is no actual way for us to determine that a publication chose to do something for Subject A over B, C, and D without guesswork. Presumably notability should not be grounded in assumptions about voluntary attention, correct? I could just as equally claim that a seemingly ideal article reflects involuntary attention. My source? Why, it's obvious and it would be to you as well had you possessed my omniscience. I just know, okay? Let me take the reins here. The article must be deleted. It is the only true conclusion. And you will never, ever prove otherwise. Οἶδα (talk) 08:10, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

I think we can and should make some common-sense assumptions. We can, for example, assume that when there are thousands of restaurants in a big city, and that the daily newspaper for that city runs very few articles about local restaurants per day, then the newspaper is picking and choosing which restaurants it gives attention to.

Similarly, I think we can safely assume that when there are just two restaurants in a small town, and the small-town weekly newspaper runs an article every time one of those has a change of menu, decor, ownership, etc., that the newspaper is not picking and choosing which restaurants it gives attention to. It is instead indiscriminately trying to cover everything that happens, because not much happens in that town.

The goal of WP:AUD is to 'level the playing field' between the small-town restaurant, which gets attention from their local newspaper merely for existing, and the big city restaurant, which will be largely ignored by their local newspaper.

I think that many editors are unfamiliar with the ecosystem of small-town newspapers, but even into the early years of the current century, there were small-town newspapers writing about whose grandchildren came to visit last week. Every traveling preacher or small-time entertainer making the round of rural schools and libraries would be "notable" if we treated local newspapers as equivalent to the major dailies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

@Οἶδα, I agree with you that unfalsifiable accusations are a significant problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

If opinions of a few editors exemplify the consensus, then perhaps I can stand corrected about wide consensus being necessary. Indeed, "churnalism" has been frowned upon, so at least something was already done about it. Right? George Ho (talk) 05:49, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

This is a hard problem to tackle. But I sympathize with efforts to address it at its root, and not on a source-by-source basis. There are many problems with churnalism. For one, a lot of churnalism is just repeating press releases or things they saw on social media, and that makes it questionably reliable. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:47, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

The current sentence in SUSTAINED says: "Similarly, reproductions or close paraphrasing of press releases (aka churnalism) does not count as sustained coverage."

Maybe we should split this up:

• The sentence "Brief bursts of news coverage may not sufficiently demonstrate notability" in SUSTAINED could get a copy of footnote Wikipedia:Notability#cite note-4, which says "Lack of multiple sources suggests that the topic may be more suitable for inclusion in an article on a broader topic. It is common for multiple newspapers or journals to publish the same story, sometimes with minor alterations or different headlines, but one story does not constitute multiple works. Several journals simultaneously publishing different articles does not always constitute multiple works, especially when the authors are relying on the same sources, and merely restating the same information. Similarly, a series of publications by the same author or in the same periodical is normally counted as one source."
• Wikipedia:Notability#cite note-5, which says "Works produced by the subject, or those with a strong connection to them, are not evidence of notability. See also: Wikipedia:Verifiability § Questionable sources for handling of such situations." could have the words about "reproductions or close paraphrasing of press releases (aka churnalism)" added.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

A source that is taking a press release or equivalent material, and simply rewording or restating it without any significant additional transformation is a primary source, and thus should immediately be excluded from consideration for notability. That itself covers the basics of churnalism. This also couples when you get multiple sources doing that reiteration over a short period (the brief burst of coverage). Masem (t) 03:52, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

As in WP:PRIMARYNEWS? So an article is restating a press release and we know that because...? And the publications are doing no independent research into the factual basis of the material they are publishing and we know that because...? Either way, I agree that articles containing announcements of future events and providing no in-depth aka non-trival interpretive/filtering/original material are routine and do not establish notability warranting a standalone article. But what if, as I mentioned at NFILM, a publication publishes an exclusive story and 10 other newspapers pick it up, citing their exclusive. And it isn't obvious that the original article is restating a press release, even though it most likely is. Is that churnalism? I understand that it may not establish notability for a future event, even if such coverage were to happen 10 times over the span of a year. But is it actually "churnalism" in any provable way? It would moreso appear the media made the editorial decision to cover something, and we're dismissing it on nothing more than a series of unfalsifiable assumptions. What if CBS News posts a bombshell story and every line is actually just information from their confidential source, information the publication merely says it has "learned"? When do the sources that the media use as the basis of their material become equivalent to a press release? Everything the media decides to publish can be argued to be promotional ultimately. And likewise unfiltered, or not filtered enough. Οἶδα (talk) 06:47, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

So an article is restating a press release and we know that because... in the ideal case, we also have a copy of the press release in hand, and we can compare the text of the "news article" with the text of the press release. When that's not possible, there's a significant chance that Wikipedians are guessing based on their biases.

I have seen comments from editors about publications are doing no independent research into the factual basis that seem unreasonable to me. For example, at the List of megachurches in the United States, a few editors occasionally say that they want independent audits of claimed attendance. These Wikipedians think it's not enough for a professional journalist to call the church, ask for the number, decide the answer they received is trustworthy, and publish that number; they want someone in the parking lot, counting the number of people arriving, and preferably then running an article complaining that their count was lower than the church's reported annual average. But a newspaper reporter isn't a private investigator, so staking out a parking lot to check attendance numbers is not how they work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:52, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

Seemingly independent coverage can be covertly reproduced supplied promotional material. It is not “bias” to look for and to recognise the subtle signals of insider influence, marketing spin, or undisclosed conflicts of interest.

In an idealised scenario, where the press briefing sheet has entered the public domain, something has gone wrong.

In the normal case, where the press briefing sheet is never to be seen, but is 90% word for word in the publication, magical powers are not needed to spot the duck.

”New cafe has the warmth of your grandparents Christmas dinner”

”New cafe is the best new place to be seen”

”New cafe serves only the best rib eye, aged for 12 weeks, and is to die for”

“New cafe has been the place to be for the last five weeks”

”New cafe has been booked out every weekend for the last five weeks”.

The first may reflect a personal or highly subjective perspective. The second is unverifiable. The third and fifth suggest access to information not typically available without internal knowledge. The fourth may be plausible, but warrants further context.

Unsourced facts, facts unverifiable without going to the source, are an indicator of possible undisclosed non-independence. Do the facts sound like the trim pickings from a hypothetical audit, or are they more likely the work of the church spokesperson’s office assistant?

Newspapers don’t anymore usually pay reporting staff enough to do serious investigation. One can make a good relationship with local newspaper staff by supplying them with publishable words. It doesn’t take a thief to know a thief, the tells can be taught. It is reasonable to approach commercially beneficial promotional content with caution.

- SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:40, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

I can agree that It is not “bias” to look for and to recognise the subtle signals.

However, it is bias to look for and recognize subtle signals only in certain subjects. For example: Everything in a luxury goods magazine is going to be "positive". And if a Wikipedia editor says "This is positive, so it's obviously written by the company and probably illegal paid advertising", that's the Wikipedia editor's own personal bias speaking, and not anything grounded in facts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

A luxury goods magazine is the sort of thing I mean to talk about. It is the same as a trade magazine and the fine dining section of a newspaper. If you want coverage, you make it easy on the “journalist”. You write them briefing material.

This “bias” I call “skepticism”. It is a good bias for Wikipedia. Promoters want their name in Wikipedia.

It’s important to analyse facts. “This material is all positive” is a subjective fact. “Obviously” is not a fact but bluster. “Probably” in “probably illegal paid advertising” might be unjustified or untrue. A lot of covert non-independent promotion is not illegal. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:54, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

If you want coverage in a disreputable source, you make it easy on the journalist. However, if you want coverage in a reliable source, then you cooperate with them to the extent that you can, and then realize you can't control them. Whole categories of publications should not be condemned en masse just because you feel "skeptical" about (aka "biased against") subjects such as "luxury goods" and "fine dining". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:00, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

We live in an ocean of disreputable sources.

I do condemn categories of publication, according to the WP:RSPSOURCES table. I don’t even read the red ones. For others, it’s case by case on the content of the article. I do tend to trust the green ones. I hope that whoever maintains that table does a good job. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:07, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

"The red ones" are individual, named publications. They are not "categories of publications", like "luxury goods magazines". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:14, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Certain subjects? This is why we have SNGs. Covert non-independence is to be more expected for topics connected to promotion. For commercial promotion, expect staff assistants. For non-commercial promotion, expect a different style. Yes, this will lead to bias. Name the bias and try to identify it. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:01, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Allegations of "covert non-independence" is not something that editors should just make up out of their own personal "skepticism". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:03, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. They should name what they consider the objective evidence, such as inclusions of facts that could only have come from inside the organisation. Others may then disagree objectively.

Personal skepticism bias? I am more skeptical of claims of significant on CORP topics than I am for ancient history or the natural sciences. Is that a problem? SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:10, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Why do you think that "facts that could only have come from inside the organisation" is evidence of "covert non-independence" and not evidence of "the journalist interviewing knowledgeable sources"?

If a source writes that Microsoft has more than 200,000 employees, do you think that is evidence that the journalist was secretly manipulated by Microsoft's publicity department into publishing their pre-written content, or do you think that is evidence that the journalist asked a question during an ordinary interview and received an ordinary answer? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

I don’t immediately think that Microsoft’s employee count is intended as promotion to be included in press coverage. That fact would not draw my skepticism.

If a source wrote “Copilot does [these many impressive things]”, I would be skeptical of the true author of the information. For Wikipedia content, I would expect each thing to be verifiable to an independent source. If the content of the source needs to be stripped as content in Wikipedia, I would not count it towards any WP:SIGCOV measure of that source, but I think we would appreciate a better label for what makes it not a good source. The best I think we have now is “non-independent”, for something that we think is Microsoft-supplied puffery statements. But first, I would check the journalist, because if they were already recognised as an independent software expert, it would lean to giving it a pass. (I’m imaging here that we are talking about the dubious two best GNG sources in an AfD, which would not be applicable for Microsoft, but maybe a new company). SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:54, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

I think you're letting personal biases affect your judgment of sources. If you're looking at an ordinary daily newspaper, you say that a headline like "Microsoft now region's largest employer" doesn't strike you as promotional, so you wouldn't expect that to be secretly pre-written by the company's PR department, but if the next article on the same page has a headline of "Copilot saves man's life by recognizing serious symptoms", then you suspect that of being "Microsoft-supplied puffery statements".

I suggest that the reality is probably the other way around: The "largest employer" is an annual set piece written entirely from pre-packaged information supplied to the paper (usually by a business consortium or a government report, rather than each of the individual organizations). None of the facts are discovered or otherwise elicited by the publication: you just read the report, assume everything is correct as supplied, copy the key figures, and nobody cares how little effort you put into it (except the editor, who would like you to do it quickly and move on to something else). The "software saved someone's life" pieces usually arise organically on social media (example), and a basic amount of fact-checking (e.g., reading the social media thread) leads to more information (e.g., someone saying that the same thing happened to their cousin, or that they were there when it happened).

I think we need to evaluate the source for itself, and not based on whether the content of an individual article "feels promotional" to individual Wikipedia editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

It’s hard to let go of personal biases. Having seen how briefing papers to journalists work, I’m suspicious of anything that looks like it.

”largest employer” is not puffery because it is verifiable. “Great employer” is puffery.

"Copilot saves man's life by recognizing serious symptoms" sounds impressive, but I need to see verification, and to not discover after deep digging to find that the story is about a hypothetical. Anything verifiable from outside Microsoft would probably satisfy me that it’s a good story for meeting the GNG.

I agree with evaluating the source for itself, but I think I am more than you interested to read into the text for subtle signs, and to suspect an undisclosed press briefing. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:00, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

"Great employer" is verifiable if a reliable source publishes it, and "Best employer" is a staple of surveys in multiple independent, reliable sources (e.g., "JPMorganChase ranked as Singapore’s best employer"). What I think you mean is that "Largest employer" is an objective fact, rather than an opinion. People might reasonably disagree about the details (e.g., is 100 full-time employees more or less than 110 half-time employees? How do you count seasonal employees?), but they will agree on the basic mathematical aspect of it. People would probably disagree on what makes an employer be "great" or "the best" (e.g., whether "best" is different from "highest paying").

I think that being suspicious of secret communications based on "subtle signs" results in an impermissible (potentially even NPOV-violating) level of bias. As editors, we have to take reliable sources at face value. We shouldn't be rejecting sources because of our personal guesses. We definitely don't want to end up in a situation in which editors are saying things like "This source is so anti-Microsoft that I just magically know that it's the result of sloppy work by a lazy reporter who secretly copy/pasted a bunch of stuff from Apple's press briefing materials". Or even "Everything in Category:Lifestyle magazines is unreliable because luxury goods magazines are too puffy to be real reporting". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:02, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

“Great employer”, no qualification, is an unverifiable claim, district from a fact that someone made the claim.

Employee count, or Full-time equivalent, year-sum, whatever.

I think Wikipedia ignoring the fact that corporations pay to get coverage is foolish. Not everyone needs to worry about it, as long as some do, it will probably work out. Crowdsourcing Wikipedia content, and deletion decisons, works.

We don’t have to take anything at face value. Everything can be questioned. For efficiency purposes, I take WP:GREL sources at face value, I reject WP:RSPSS deprecated and blacklisted source without looking. All others, included sources not listed in the table, where the source is offered or challenged as a GNG source, and the topic is commercial, I adopt a skeptical mindset with regard to independence. Others might not. You don’t have to. But I strongly reject the notion that I am not allowed to. I do not reject because of personal guesses.

Microsoft is a really bad hypothetical example. This sort of analysis, studying the source text for writing style and likelihood of the author independently knowing, or being able to find out, what they are reporting, is required for borderline notable CORP topics. Winston Weinberg is a very interesting case that I am studying. Many interviews, all of highly dubious independence. SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:34, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

And once again, you've resorted to accusing "corporations" and reliable sources of engaging in illegal activities: corporations pay to get coverage. Paying for undisclosed "coverage" is illegal in the developed world.

Remember when you went through a restaurant review in a luxury travel magazine, and declared the whole thing to be written by the restaurant, because it was too puffy for your taste, except that it turned out this was the house style, and everything that author wrote had the same style? We agreed at the time that writing positive content was not a reason to suspect non-independence. Can I remind you of this exchange?

I don't think that we should be judging the independence of sources according to the POV the source expresses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:17, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

:Definitely agree. I’ve been talking about bias and POV as confounding attempts to infer whether the source is independent. I had been straying into thinking that pro-bias or pro-POV is an indicator of non-independence, but I am now convinced that this is a poor method, both for it being subjective, and because there can be many other reasons for a pro-bias or pro-POV. Bias and POV are not reasons to exclude a source from meeting the GNG.

:I am now inclined, in close call cases, to look at whether the source contextualises (with which you agree), and whether the source is distant-perspective (with which I think you have not agreed, and for which I am not aware of any written guidelines or essays). SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:34, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

And yet you're here again, making the same claim that your subjective impression of the biases in a review is supposed to be evidence that the source is not independent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

I am not making the accusation, instead, you infer it.

I’ve been thinking on this ever since you first did this. I think that you are trying to lead me down a dark path of irrelevance. I think you appear to be assuming that illegal things don’t happen. I think that what I imply is not illegal. A person or company is allowed to have staff paid to support public relations, or communications, or education. These paid staff are allowed to write briefing notes. These briefing notes are allowed to be in the style of newspaper articles. The journalist is allowed to read the briefing notes, and write a story in their name that bears strong resemblance to the briefing notes. This may be described with criticism, but I do not believe it is illegal. Maybe there is copyright practice infringement, claiming something is yours when another could prove it is theirs? Copyright infringement happens frequently.

I have read that in India, a developed nation, with nuclear power and a space program, it is commonplace for positive newspaper stories to be paid, and I have never heard of a court conviction for doing it.

For Nigeria, newspaper sources are treated harshly at AfC and AfD, despite their being no stories of publications by bribe.

I do not make legal calls on newspaper practices, and I think such calls are worthless to Wikipedia.

I do read text for tone, perspective, and the authors ability to know things that an independent distant perspective author would not know. I do not think that questions of legality are relevant.

I continue to believe that contextualisation, for for-profit companies, their products, CEOs and founders, is at the top of a list that should be considered, at AfC or AfD, for the sources proffered as the minimum GNG-meeting sources.

”subjective impression of the biases in a review is supposed to be evidence that the source is not independent” is a gross misreading. Tone, perspective, and insider facts can all be assessed objectively.

“Evidence that a source is not independent” is not the test. For a WP:CORP topic, I expect objective evidence (or conclusion from objective analysis) that the source is independent.

Independence of the source, it’s author, and the information it publishes, is not for being presumed in the absence of evidence either way. WP:PAID editing is rife. Companies advertise it. Some make a show of asserting that they comply with Wikipedia policy, but it would be foolish to assume this reflect universal PAID editor practice. These editors have incentive to push the boundaries to get their clients’ articles into mainspace. If editors don’t resist that, then Wikipedia will be polluted with promotion-biased information. AfC and NPR-ers are indeed suspicious of new CORP topics. I am working to describing objective methods that achieve what they are already doing.

If you think that you can infer that I write things that imply that illegal things happen in practice, why should you or I or anyone care, in respect to Wikipedia policy discussions? SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:38, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

In re the authors ability to know things that an independent distant perspective author would not know: Would an "independent distant perspective author" know enough to write an news article?

Would you describe Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as having that "independent distant perspective" when they broke the Watergate scandal? Was Daniel Ellsberg an "independent distant perspective author" with respect to the Pentagon Papers? How exactly does an "independent distant perspective author" find out new information, if not getting that information from someone – possibly an "inside source" – who has that information? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

You want to explore my ideas as they apply to obviously notable topics? No. Wikipedia works fine for obviously notable topics, and for deletion of obviously non-notable topics. I’m trying to make progress where progress would be useful. The trouble is at the boundaries.

Improved methods for evaluating sources for meeting the GNG, are only needed for borderline notable topics. The {{Source assess table}} linked from WP:SIRS is one such attempt that seems to work for experienced Wikipedians, but not for newcomers. Can we explain better, even if it tends to being lies-to-children?

I have suggested Winston Weinberg, where if we can ignore the complicating sockpuppety, experienced Wikipedians at AfD rejected sources for reasons that I find hard to explain to a newcomer.

Your style seems to me to be accepting of the sources offered. Do you approve of the !votes in that AfD, their conclusion, their style? How would you assess the sources, whether in the article in the history behind the redirect, or those offered in the AfD?

- SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:02, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

I want to explore why:

• when an employee quietly gives documents to a newspaper reporter,
  • causing the reporter to know something that the average "independent distant perspective author" did not know, and
    • the reporter turns that into a newspaper article saying something negative about a politician,
      • Wikipedia editors would hail the newspaper as the epitome of an independent source, but
• when another employee quietly gives documents to a newspaper reporter,
  • causing the reporter to know something that the average "independent distant perspective author" did not know, and
    • the reporter turns that into a newspaper article saying something positive about a business,
    • you want me to believe that the newspaper is not an independent source.

Even when it's the same newspaper. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:25, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Please forgetB my description of a hypothetical.

Here is a real example. What is wrong with the sources? SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:24, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing, what is wrong with the sources? Is it what the editors at the AfD wrote? SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:19, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

I looked at the first five sources:

• article in Financial Times: WP:GREL publication. I can't evaluate this because it's paywalled.
• article in Bloomberg Law: WP:GREL publication. I can't evaluate this because it's paywalled.
• article in The Information (website): Not discussed in RSP. I can't evaluate this because it's paywalled.
• article in Fortune: Not discussed in RSP. The BLP explains why the product is valuable, but almost nothing about himself.
• article in Harvard Business School Case Collection: Not discussed in RSP. I can't evaluate this because it's paywalled.

Mostly I wonder how many of the participants in the AFD discussion actually read the sources. I checked five, and didn't have access to 80% of them. How many AFD participants also couldn't read those articles?

Two sources are from The New York Times. The AFD nom, who opened the AFD with the claim "Refs are exclusively interviews with ceo Weinberg or monies raised for business", says that "The New York Times article...is another interview style article". It's not clear which of the two articles is being described, but I have the full text for both of these, and neither of them are Wikipedia:Interviews. It's possible that some editors have an unusual idea of what a published interview looks like, and are confusing it with an ordinary article in which one or more people get quoted. Perhaps we need more guidance on what an ordinary news article, properly researched and corrected reported, looks like. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:00, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, I don't think you meant WP:GUNREL for FT and Bloomberg? Valereee (talk) 13:22, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. I posted the wrong shortcuts. I'll go fix the links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:11, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Break

"New cafe serves only the best rib eye, aged for 12 weeks" does not suggest access to information not typically available without internal knowledge. It suggests that the reporter read the menu.

But let's pretend that it suggests internal knowledge. Reporters are supposed to be getting that "internal knowledge" through a process known as interviewing relevant people, such as the chef, manager, and/or owners. So you complain that they're not doing their job, and your proof is that they learned things that they would learn if they'd done their job. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:53, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

"New cafe serves only the best rib eye, aged for 12 weeks" does not suggest access to information not typically available without internal knowledge. It suggests that the reporter read the menu.

On that line of thought, it is plagiarism, failure to explicitly cite the menu. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:55, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

No, it isn't. The standard for what needs to be explicitly cited depends on the genre.

Also: What do you expect them to do? Are they supposed to break into the refrigerator, check the packaging labels, intercept the invoices, and go investigate the meat packaging plant, to make sure that it really was "aged for 12 weeks", and not just 11.5? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it is. The menu in a commercial restaurant cannot be consider such an obviously reliable source that it doesn’t need explicit citing as the sole source of information.

What do I expect quality sources of Wikipedia to do? I expect them to take a distant perspective, such as noting other people’s apparent liking of the food.

If the aging of the beef is really a point of focus, I want the journalist to be talking to an independent chef who ate the meal or visited the kitchen. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:14, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

I think you're applying a completely inappropriate standard. The community's standard is what ordinary reliable sources actually do. The community's standard is not rejecting ordinary journalism and only accepting sources if they follow an individual editor's paranoid standards, like sending in secret evaluators to determine whether the restaurant was lying. It's not possible, BTW, for "an independent chef" to determine whether a piece of meat was aged 10 vs 12 vs 14 weeks just by eating the meal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:22, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

I hold a different opinion then. For content that is announcing something commercial and new, I expect stronger evidence that others have noticed. This means, to some extent, more distance of perspective. I think that Wikipedia should not be publishing diners experiences in new restaurants, but can cover reliable sources discussing diners experiences. It is not sufficient that the source is reliable.

The point about the beef aging is not the number, my point was aimed at a source that is reproducing information supplied by the source. I had in mind an unpublished press briefing, which you reveal to be similar to content that could have been on a restaurant menu. I agree. A restaurant menu is part of the promotional material of a restaurant, although without any attempt to hide it. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:41, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I certainly would never claim that "churnalism" is not a thing. Journos converting press releases into articles is a thing. But for the purposes of assessing sources, the leap from "This article looks derivative of a press release" to "This article has had no original reporting or fact-checking" is perfectly unreasonable. Unless a publication has a history of doing just that (i.e. WP:NEWSORGINDIA), which would likely render it a non-RS in the first place, I don't believe we can selectively dismiss its publishing on such baseless assumptions that call for personal involvement in the editorial process and even, at times, for the operation of the author's mind. There exists as much proof for that latter claim that there does in the opposite direction. So much of journalism is ultimately just "reproducing information supplied by the source". So if that is what disqualifies articles suspected of copying press releases then so much of what is reported can be as equally and arbitrarily thrown into the bin. I understand that articles built on such "churnalism" do not state that the material therein has not been fact-checked by the publication, but publications mostly don't state that when they have done fact-checking either. Οἶδα (talk) 22:52, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Besides what has been said above, if you work long enough in an area, it becomes to spot regurgitations of press releases even if you dont have the press release in front of you. I know for video games, when a new game is freshly announced, all the major sites will discuss the announcement without any real details, that's churnalism. At the same time, there are times that the publisher has treated the media ahead to sneak peaks, so that when the game is announced, these sites discuss their impression of the sneak peak. That fact, that the information is based on a sneak peak, is nearly always present, as to make those articles reasonably secondary and not regurgitation of a press release, so not churnalism. The film project has similar metrics, that for most films, there's lots of pre-production press (announcement of actors and main crew), but per NFILM, editors shouldn't create articles until production starts, as to avoid that pre-production churnalism. Masem (t) 03:20, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree with this and I think it offers a (partial) solution to churnalism. Repeating press releases or social media reactions should not be the WP:SIGCOV basis for an article. (They might be used to fill in non-controversial gaps in coverage, if used judiciously and/or with clear attribution.) Shooterwalker (talk) 23:33, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

If it repeats a ton of information, it's SIGCOV. SIGCOV is about an amount of information (e.g., that could realistically be used to fill in gaps in coverage). SIGCOV is not about the quality of the information. What it might not be is independent, secondary, or even reliable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:54, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

Repetition of information, without another layer of commentary, without even acknowledging the repetition, is lazy and cheap. It may be part of a comprehensive collation and valid and valuable, but it is a bad quality source for Wikipedia. (Don’t use a phone book to determine the population of a town). For repeated information, go to the source. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:47, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

A source may have all sorts of problems, but if it contains a ton of information, SIGCOV is not one of the problems it has. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:54, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

It seems common for Wikipedians to misidentify/mislabel the point of failure of a bad source. Primary, non-independent, SIGCOV, reliable. Maybe we need a good picture? SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:57, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree that it is common for Wikipedians to misidentify/mislabel the point of failure, including whether the problem is a bad source (see, e.g., all the people crying "MEDRS!" when they ought to be talking about NPOV). Accurately identifying the problem is not usually important to editors: they want to 'win' with as little effort on their part as possible, and if WP:THIS wins quicker than WP:THAT, then they'll say WP:THIS every time. However, when talking about changing a guideline or policy, we need to be precise and accurate, or we'll end up writing nonsense. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes.

Similarly, reproductions or close paraphrasing of press releases from, for instance, companies or other organizations (aka churnalism) does not count as sustained coverage. This is particularly the case because normally these are not secondary or independent sources.

The second sentence is untrue. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:17, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I understand this. So:

• Bob's Big Business, Inc. posts a press release that says "Supply chain disruption slows widget production: YOY production declined 10%, causing hiring freeze", and goes on for another 300 words about this.
• The Daily News posts a lightly edited, 36-word version in its "Brief announcements" column: "Bob's Big Business, Inc. announced on Monday that supply chain disruption is slowing widget production. Widget production is down by 10% at the business compared to last year, causing the company to institute a hiring freeze".

I'd say that the newspaper is independent (e.g., not being paid by or beholden to the company), the material is still primary because there was no intellectual transformation of the press release, and the content all came from the company (not "intellectually independent", if you like that phrase). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:50, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree with what you’d say. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:48, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm late to this reply, but our policies are not separate from each other. WP:N and WP:SIGCOV requires that the information be reliable. Quantity is assessed after' we filter for reliability and independence. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:55, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't care which order the sources are filtered in. If someone wants to look for SIGCOV first, and then has to throw out long sources as being unreliable or non-independent, then neither I nor any rule on Wikipedia says they're wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Year x in Country y

I've been referred here by my colleagues at NPP. What are the notability criteria for articles with titles like "1977 in San Marino"? Do we need two reliable sources discussing 1977 in San Marino, indicating that the topic meets WP:GNG? Or is some other consideration applied? Could it even be that we know San Marino existed in 1977, and things definitely happened there, so it's always a pass?

Feedback would be really useful, as we have many such articles in our backlog.Boynamedsue (talk) 09:48, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

This is not really a Wikipedia-notability question. It looks more like a WP:SPINOUT question. Is Events in San Marino so large that it needs splitting, and at the level of year?

Reliable sources for 1977 in San Marino might be the answer if 1977 in San Marino was a spectacularly unusual year. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:50, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

The timeline articles (not just for countries but a vast array of other topics) likely fall under WP:NLIST which means notability is not required to be considered, though obviously the major topic itself should be notable (San Marino in the example). All other content policies must be met still, and its expected that the list items to include have some selectivity to keep the list relevant and useful to the reader. Masem (t) 11:50, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Great, that's really helpful, thanks.Boynamedsue (talk) 13:04, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

I was actually coming here for a similar reason, so I will use this thread, unless someone thinks I should start a new one. While looking at some infobox/template consolidation work, I encountered Template:Infobox year in country, which is essentially a "Year in Australia" template at the moment. After digging further and finding Template:Year nav and examples such as Template:Year in France, I realized through transclusion counts that we have thousands of such list articles (Template:Year in Europe is a very visible case, but not an isolated one). The overwhelming majority of them suffer from the same issues: minimal sourcing that never include anything actually about that year in that country (clearly failing WP:NLIST), completely arbitrary inclusion criteria regarding the contents (WP:SELCRIT), and very low page-views and editor activity (which compounds other issues). I do not actually think these issues can be fixed, because the necessary sources that would actually qualify as counting towards notability for such articles simply do not exist. However, while I am not afraid of suggesting I believe almost all of them should be deleted, I am not sure how to go about it in all honesty, so I would appreciate your input. To be clear, I am not lumping in there articles about calendar years, decades in specific places, and so on, as many such lists still clearly serve a purpose and can be adequately sourced; I just do not believe this is the case for most (and therefore thousands of) "year in country" pages. Choucas0 🐦‍⬛ 14:09, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Natural languages

I have seen users arguing that natural languages are exempted from WP:GNG, and one reliable secondary source for them would be sufficient whether or not it contains WP:SIGCOV. Is this correct? Boynamedsue (talk) 10:03, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

For reference, this is the discussion, regarding Magiana language. @Kepler-1229b:@Kwamikagami:--Boynamedsue (talk) 10:06, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Verifiable natural languages should be notable.

But. The lede is

Magíana is a poorly attested and extinct Arawakan language of Bolivia.

”poorly attested”? Attested is a weak word, weaker than verifiable. Redirect to [Arawakan languages]], note it at Talk:Arawakan languages and ask whether the content in the redirect history is worth merging. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:41, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

If the one reference says “poorly attested” then the source is not reliable for the verification of the topic. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:44, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your answers. In linguistics "poorly attested" usually means we have very few direct examples of the language, rather than of people writing about the language. For example, the Pictish language is almost as poorly attested as Magiana, as we have no brief wordlist giving examples of vocabulary and their translation, only personal and tribal names and Ogham inscriptions that might not be in the language and might not mean anything. However, there are whole books written about Pictish so it obviously passes WP:GNG.

We only know Magiana exists from two very short mentions in primary sources from the 18th century (one being a word list). No secondary sources have been written about it, except an entry on Glottolog which mentions the existence of the secondary sources and says it is Arawakan. This is a fail of WP:GNG and I don't feel there's been enough scholarship to definitively state it even existed as an independent language. I mean, I think it did, but I wouldn't bet anything I cared about on it.--Boynamedsue (talk) 12:25, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

I believe, from long experience at AfD, albeit mostly many years ago, that the application of the GNG to topics varies wildly between topic areas. Distant history and natural sciences get an easy run, currently trading for-profit companies get a tough run. Natural languages in distant history is the sort of thing I think will get an easy pass at AfD. I’m saying, the GNG doesn’t really apply meaningfully to this topic, rather than that its test fails. “Secondary source” is particularly poorly defined for fragmented coverage. “Reliable” depended heavily on what you mean by “reliable”, the topic existence, or the details, especially where there is very little secondary source detail. SIGCOV is poorly defined everywhere, and is especially poorly defined for topics that get easy passes in the GNG. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:08, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Cheers, interesting to hear. I might AfD it as a test case. If it gets a keep, it's pretty clear GNG doesn't apply to natural languages and it's worth trying to get that into GNG or write a subject specific guideline.--Boynamedsue (talk) 13:23, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

User:Boynamedsue, please be sure to nominate with a well articulated rationale for deletion, or redirection or merging. AfD does not work well with terse or ambivalent nominations. If you get an interesting result, as in contradicting this guideline in any way, please let us know. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:42, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

I’m not agreeing that the “GNG doesn't apply to natural languages”. I would prefer to say that the GNG was not written to apply to distant historical topics with very little sourcing. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:48, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

There's no exemption for natural languages.

That said, keep in mind the GNG is not black or white. If you do create an article based on one secondary source that has reasonable secondary coverage, that's a good enough presumption to at least start an article and get improvements via the Wiki-way, but you still should be expected to seek out more sourcing to improve how well it meets the GNG. Masem (t) 11:46, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

In my view the one secondary source isn't what you'd call reasonable. It doesn't really give any detail and merely notes the existence of two primary sources. It's more the principle I'm interested in though, as this is a real edge case.Boynamedsue (talk) 12:13, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

An article with one secondary source will not survive at the long term at AFD, however, it should be given the benefit of the doubt for initial creation (though pushing this to draft space over mainspace if possible) and remaining at the short term on the basis it is being worked on. But like if someone creates such an article and then does nothing with it for several months, that's a good reason to delete it. Masem (t) 15:46, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

At this point I'd contact the linguist who first brought up the existence and wordlist of Magiana at Glottolog. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 15:49, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Interestingly, Ramirez and Franca (2019) list Magiana in a map, but fail to mention it as an Arawakan language. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 15:52, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

For a topic as difficult to define as languages in a field as regularly revised as linguistics sources are probably needed. That said, it also feels improbable there would be a clear natural language that doesn't meet GNG. CMD (talk) 12:36, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Remember that GNG and all our SNGs have a banner at the top of the page noting that they outline general rules, but that there will be exceptions. So, while most natural languages may be deemed notable, a specific one may not make the cut. Blueboar (talk) 13:59, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Endangered, if not extinct, languages are, honestly, very heartfelt or touchy topics to discuss, IMO. As I must say, failing GNG doesn't make the language any less notable than it already is, but that's my personal opinion.

Unfortunately, we don't have a separate notability guideline about languages. Rather you may have other considerations of notability, like WP:NTEMP and WP:SUSTAINED.

Perhaps the language's notability is not temporary not because it has existed and tried to survive. Rather it's been documented by existing reliable sources.

What matters more is the growth of the article about an endangered language, like the one you referred us to. If there aren't enough reliable sources that can help the article grow further, then I guess a redirect is more likely a suitable option... sadly. George Ho (talk) 14:11, 3 May 2026 (UTC); edited, 14:13, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

For me, it is improbable that an endangered language could ever fail WP:GNG. If we know it is endangered, there are enough sources. This language was only ever mentioned briefly in two written sources in the 18th century. Given where it was spoken, we can be fairly sure it is not currently spoken by a group in voluntary isolation. So it must either be extinct or a form of a language that does still exist but which was recorded so poorly that we can't tell.Boynamedsue (talk) 14:20, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

• I have nominated the page for deletion, here.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:47, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Proving notability

This edit by BilledMammal changed:

However, once an article's notability has been challenged, merely asserting that unspecified sources exist is seldom persuasive, especially if time passes and actual proof does not surface.

to

However, once an article's notability has been challenged, notability must be proven to retain the article.

I've restored the earlier text for now. I agree with BilledMammal that their update reflects current practice. My worry is that, in reflecting current practice, it may change practice. I'd be concerned about people citing the punchy "notability must be proven" line in AfDs. There are non-zero exceptions and our guidelines are optimally more nuanced than this. However, I agree that the current text should be changed....it is quite verbose and imo doesn't convey its message particularly clearly. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 01:38, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

It feels like there's a gap between "merely asserting that unspecified sources exist is seldom persuasive" and "notability must be proven".

The first says something about consensus. The latter makes me think – how? to whose satisfaction? Is it enough to list sources on the AFD page, or will someone say that it's not "proven" until the sources have been cited in the article itself? What if it's an offline source (like an older book)? Is it enough for me to tell you that Alice Expert's famous book, The Sun is Very Big, is definitely SIGCOV for Size of the Sun, or is that not really "proven"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:20, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Maybe "notability must be demonstrated"? I think this would address WAID's objections and reflect that notability isn't always proven through reference to sources, but demonstrated by reference to SNG's. BilledMammal (talk) 02:24, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

SNGs are an additional complication, but what I really mean is: Please look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/White cake and tell me: At what point in time was the subject's notability "proven"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:48, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Independent of SNGs, I do think "demonstrated" helps get this both closer to current practice and keeps WP:N internally consistent. If notability requires verifiable evidence (WP:NRV), it follows that determining notability in an AfD requires verifiable evidence. I'd +1 your earlier comment that "proving" has unhelpful implications; in the white cake AfD, I would consider your comment to constitute demonstrating notability, though whether it proves notability depends on the reader. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 02:55, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

I think this comment did a lot to prove notability. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:57, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

I do think it's important to underline, though, that all a SNG does is assert that the criteria it mentions usually imply that the bare minimum sourcing for the WP:GNG exist. (Per WP:SNG, The subject-specific notability guidelines generally include verifiable criteria about a topic which show that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic. Therefore, topics which pass an SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article, especially if adequate sourcing or significant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia.) Ultimately all articles must eventually have two independent reliable sources with significant coverage; the purpose of an SNG is that you can point to it and say "this implies that those sources probably exist." But if people are pointing to SNGs and saying it doesn't matter whether those exist, or if they're leading to us retaining articles for which those sources clearly don't exist, then that indicate that the SNG in question isn't valid and needs to be removed or revised. --Aquillion (talk) 02:45, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that's true, and if we want it to be true, then WP:NPROF needs radical changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Just to note because several years we spent a long time on this, this applies to most SNG, but with the notable exception of NPROF, primarily because this predated WP:N and its get grandfathered. But yes, otherwise SNGs are likely indicators that with work and source additions, notability should be readily demonstrated. Masem (t) 02:47, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Ultimately all articles must eventually have two independent reliable sources with significant coverage what you quoted from WP:SNG certainly does not say that and the existence of many articles that do not comply with your invented requirement is a strong reason to believe the community doesn't agree with you. Katzrockso (talk) 02:56, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I think it more-or-less exactly reflects what I said, in terms of the purpose of WP:SNGs; SNGs exist to indicate that something would pass the GNG with work, not to provide alternate bottom lines. If something could never pass the GNG, we cannot write a neutral, balanced article on it. And this answers your other question - WP:EVENTUALISM and the like apply; we can have articles with less than two sources (even none) as long as editors believe the sources to pass the GNG exist somewhere. Other things can pass without notice simply because Wikipedia is huge and it takes time to find issues. The other issue is WP:FAIT; deleting articles is more difficult than creating them. But I am not aware of any article that unequivocally has no hope of passing the GNG, which has survived without controversy; there is of course some back-and-forth, but my view is that all such articles are the subject of ongoing disputes (largely driven by a reluctance to make mass-deletions even in cases, like this, where the article violates policy) that will eventually result in their deletion. Single-source articles are not acceptable, ever, anywhere, in any topic; they are inherently unencyclopedic and clearly violate multiple core policies. While some have been grandfathered in for now I do believe that the overarching consensus behind this will either force people to find additional sources eventually or accept a deletion or merge. --Aquillion (talk) 16:22, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

• The former is more convincing than the attempted change, IMO, despite current practices. Indeed, "seldom persuasive" is more specific and clearer than just "must be proven". The attempted rule doesn't specify what should happen if a topic's notability is not yet proven or has been not well verified to that point. (My further reply below...) George Ho (talk) 02:42, 6 May 2026 (UTC); expanded, 06:33, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

How about, once notability is challenged, "evidence is required"? Andre🚐 03:35, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's true. Consider:

• A: Tags with {{notability}}.
• B: Rv tagging; all ____ are notable.

In certain areas (e.g., species, modern heads of state, winners of the Oscars), there's a decent chance that this evidence-free argument will be accepted by the tagger and anyone else who happens to notice it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:34, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Those arguments aren't evidence-free. The article needs to include evidence that the subject is a species, or a head of state, or an Oscar winner.

I think Andre's proposal is a good one; However, once an article's notability has been challenged, evidence is required. BilledMammal (talk) 05:05, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Is B's assertion that the BLP is an Oscar winner "evidence"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:20, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

If all we have is B's assertion - if the article doesn't contain WP:V-compliant evidence to support the assertion that the subject is a species, a head of state, or an Oscar winner - then the argument won't be accepted by the tagger and anyone else who happens to notice it. BilledMammal (talk) 05:26, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

If you create a plausible-looking article that says something like "Paul Politician was the president of Ruritania from 1994 to 1998. He became president upon the death of Bob Bigman in 1994, but lost the 1998 election to Sam Slimy", people will generally believe you, even if the article is unref'd. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:37, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Then we definitely need to revise the current wording of WP:NEXIST to avoid encouraging that behavior. It creates both WP:V, and WP:BLP issues, and makes it easier to get hoaxes into Wikipedia.

Andre's suggestion is good, but maybe we should also consider a change to make it clear that new articles are expected to provide evidence of notability even prior to being challenged. BilledMammal (talk) 05:43, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

The next baby step towards that goal is to get a rule into WP:V that says all articles need to cite at least one source. So far, every proposal has failed (usually for overreach: they've not been content to leave it at just "any one source", but instead demand that the source must be X, Y, and Z). It's been more than a year since the last attempt, so we could try again. However, I think that Category:All articles lacking sources might be emptied in late 2027, so trying then might be logical. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:42, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

And? People believe a lot of things without evidence, but that isn't good or consensus-oriented policy necessarily. Andre🚐 05:44, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

In practice, when people believe that, they stop challenging the article's notability. This is consensus in action, even if we think it's a suboptimal approach. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

However, I agree that the current text should be changed....it is quite verbose and imo doesn't convey its message particularly clearly.

• Oh, I see what it's all about... methinks. My proposed wording wouldn't be that good. All I might come up is the following in a working draft quality to reflect current practices but still in the spirit of the former:

  However, once an article's notability has been challenged, in order to help you user provide a reason to keep the article, merely asserting that an existing source already verifies its notability without evaluating their reliabilities and stating a type of that source would not help support your reason to keep that article.

  Doesn't look good, huh? George Ho (talk) 06:33, 6 May 2026 (UTC); edited, 06:36, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Notability is a guideline: a best practice that should be met in usual cases. It is not a policy--something that must be adhered to regardless of circumstances. As such, no guideline, even notability, should have a must in its wording or explanatory wording. Jclemens (talk) 07:55, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

@Jclemens, please see Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays, and then to go count the number of times that the word must appears in Wikipedia:Manual of Style. The MOS says must more than all of our legal policies combined, and it is not wrong to do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:47, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

The MOS is absolutely and incontrovertibly wrong to use the word "must". I've had this beef with it for years. People have cited MOS pages--which deal with how we present information--in AfD discussions, which deal with whether we should have a particular page at all. Lots of people, including most of the people who contribute to or opine on Wikipedia policy, don't understand how to construct policy. Wikipedia is a poster child for how not to do things. Jclemens (talk) 19:03, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Just reminding that every one of our guidelines start with a banner noting that occasional exceptions apply. There are a lot of strong “Shoulds” on WP… and very few “Musts”. Blueboar (talk) 20:52, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

And IMO most of those musts are basic points of grammar and punctuation, which is why the MOS ends up having more musts than the legal policies. It'd be silly to tell people that they only "should" use proper grammar and punctuation in articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:41, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes… but… sometimes there is disagreement about what the proper punctuation and grammar actually is. And even when there are no disagreements there are situations where using incorrect grammar or punctuation is appropriate (when quoting for example)… Which means that even in those areas there are “exceptions” to the generalized rules (and so we should avoid firm “musts”). Blueboar (talk) 18:24, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

I agree with you, which is why I think that the wording of the quoted text must be faithfully reproduced is a perfectly reasonable thing for the MOS to say. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Isn't this semantic though, JClemens et al. Shall, must, or coulda woulda, the question is: should the policy or guideline such as it is, Notability, a key touch point for wikipedia decisioning, advise and/or legislate that articles which do not substantiate their claim of notability with evidence of an acceptable form may be deleted? Andre🚐 02:17, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

No, because that would be contrary to WP:ARTN and WP:NEXIST. Katzrockso (talk) 02:42, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

It's not clear that it would be, but a better question is, should it? Do we want to encourage editors to create insufficiently sourced articles, or do we want to encourage them to demonstrate their creations notability from the start? BilledMammal (talk) 02:45, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

How is it not clear that even a completely unsourced article can be notable, since notability applies to topics/subjects? Do you disagree with WP:NEXIST and/or WP:ARTN? Katzrockso (talk) 02:51, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

All I'm asking is whether encouraging the creation of unsourced articles is a positive for the encyclopedia, or if we would be better of discouraging them.

Personally, I think we should discourage them, as unsourced articles have WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:BLP issues, and make it far easier to introduce hoaxes to Wikipedia. What do you think? BilledMammal (talk) 03:00, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Some unsourced articles have WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:BLP problems – not all.

And if I were going to create a hoax article, you can bet that there would be impressive-looking sources in it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Per WP:V, completely unsourced articles can only exist so long as nobody challenges them. Any material that has been challenged and which lacks an inline citation must be removed immediately until a source is provided (the responsibility for which lies on whoever wants to retain it, per WP:BURDEN.) Now, "challenge" is a thorny concept in this context and carries an implication that someone isn't just going to go around challenging everything indiscriminately (ie. it can remain as long as nobody has an issue with it and people aren't supposed to be challenging clearly uncontroversial stuff solely for the lack of a source, otherwise the implication in WP:V that things can remain until challenged would be meaningless), but once you're at the point of having an active dispute over the article's content, V is clear - everything that gets challenged and which you can't provide a source for has to go. There's also some things which fall under the category of "clearly likely to be challenged" which can't be retained in an article without a source at all. (And ofc anything BLP-sensitive and any quotes have to go instantly and can never be retained without a source, no exceptions, but I think we all understand that.) --Aquillion (talk) 03:12, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

@Aquillion, this bit: Any material that has been challenged and which lacks an inline citation must be removed immediately until a source is provided (the responsibility for which lies on whoever wants to retain it, per WP:BURDEN.) is wrong.

WP:V specifically contradicts this, particularly in the paragraph beginning "Whether or how quickly material should be removed for lacking an inline citation..."

WP:V does not impose any deadlines on adding citations when they're needed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:18, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

four types of information must be accompanied by an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material: ... material whose verifiability has been challenged

.

We're getting off topic here, but I do not understand these objections. Do you actually want editors to add content without a source? Do you want us to have content that doesn't have a source? I don't, and I cannot understand why any editor would. BilledMammal (talk) 03:21, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't want editors spreading false rumors about what's in the policies, because that leads to avoidable drama and to never being able to fix the policies/guidelines.

• Y Yes: The policy says these four types of information must have an inline citation.
• N No: The policy does not say that the required inline citation has to be supplied immediately. It also does not say that this inline citation has to be supplied before NPP or AFC accepts the article, within the 90-day default window for search engine indexing, before the end of the year, or even within my lifetime.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:28, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Well, it's true that it doesn't have to be removed immediately. But it may be removed immediately, and when it is, restoring it would be a violation of WP:V (since it has now been challenged.) Again, the key point is that V allows it to remain only so long as it's not in dispute. --Aquillion (talk) 03:31, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

No. WP:V allows it to remain so long as it's not been removed as part of a WP:CHALLENGE. Something can be "in dispute" indefinitely. Category:Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 has more than 800 articles in it. That's almost 20 years ago, and WP:V allows that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:50, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

If we all agreed on what constitutes an "insufficiently sourced article", it might be worth pursuing that. But we don't – we really don't, especially when you take editors out of their favorite subject areas and ask them to pass judgment on subjects they know little about – so there's no point. If someone writes an article that says:

• A periodontal cyst is a cyst in or near a tooth.

and cites https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/C04.182.089.530.690.790 (i.e., a webpage that contains two sentences), the wrong responses sound like:

• That's just {{one source}} and you need to prove notability with at least two sources.
• That source is primary, and you need to prove notability with secondary sources.
• That's too short, so it's not WP:SIGCOV, and you need to prove notability with SIGCOV sources.

An appropriate response sounds like something like this:

• Thanks for creating that article. I can't believe that it wasn't done years ago. Do you need any help finding sources so you can expand it?

But perhaps you're more of the m:immediatist POV, so you think that having nothing is better than an accurate, appropriately sourced starting point? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Can you explain why those are the wrong responses?

However, that example does demonstrate one of the issues with permitting unsourced and undersourced content. The correct title is Lateral Periodontal Cyst, which we already have an article on - and if the editor had spent the time to find sources, rather than creating a microstub and saying "other people can do the work", they would have realized that and not introduced issues to the encyclopedia that other editors would need to spend time cleaning up. BilledMammal (talk) 03:13, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

The correct title is not lateral periodontal cyst, because a periodontal cyst comes in a couple of flavors, only one of which is the lateral type. (Today we have proven that you're not a dentist, so to give an analogy with a more familiar subject, what you've written is like saying that we don't need an article about the general subject of lung cancer, because we've already got one about small-cell lung cancer.)

The reason those are the wrong responses is because:

1. WP:NEXIST, rather than "already cited", is the rule for notability.
2. The article fully meets the requirements of WP:V. It contains only a definition of the term, and it links to a source that is reliable for that definition.
3. If you know something about the particular cited source, then you know you're three clicks away from finding out whether there are any MEDRS-compliant sources on this subject.

Also: Who says that the editor is saying "other people can do the work"?

Also also: Who says that letting other people "do the work" is bad? We have a rule in WP:OWN prohibiting editors from refusing to allow other people "do the work", but we have no rule requiring any editor to do some greater amount. You (and I) might wish that they would Wikipedia:Beef up that first revision, but there's no rule requiring it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Periodontal cysts are odontogenic cysts related to periodontal tissues. These include Lateral periodontal cyst, Botryoid odontogenic cyst, and Gingival cyst, but periodontal cyst will typically refer to the lateral periodontal cyst. However, the correct article for the content you referenced might be Odontogenic cyst. Either way, that article isn't appropriate - and would only create cleanup issues.

As for the rest of your comment, we're discussing here whether the wording of NEXIST actually reflects practice and consensus (it doesn't). Further, any editor creating a microstub that doesn't demonstrate WP:N is met is saying "other people can do the work", as they want to create the article but can't be bothered to do the work of actually demonstrating an article is suitable. One editor doing that isn't an issue - but thousands of editors doing it hundreds of thousands or millions of times creates an insurmountable backlog. BilledMammal (talk) 03:49, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I think that article is appropriate and that it would not create clean-up problems. What actual {{clean up}} could be needed in such a short, accurate, and 100% cited article? The only "problem" is that it's very short, and that "problem" is just a personal preference.

(If you'd read the source I cited, you'd know that periodontal cysts are a subtype of odontogenic cysts.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:13, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

WP:IMPERFECT states Hence, perfection is not required, as Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome. For instance, one person may start an article with an overview of a subject or a few random facts. Another may help standardize the article's formatting or have additional facts and figures or a graphic to add. Yet another may bring better balance to the views represented in the article and perform fact-checking and sourcing to existing content. At any point during this process, the article may become disorganized or contain substandard writing.

Do you disagree with this part of the Wikipedia:Editing policy? Katzrockso (talk) 04:14, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I certainly have the impression, formed over years of discussion, that BilledMammal does not "welcome" any "poor articles" at all, even if they can be easily improved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:16, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Rather than try to repeal existing policy in a roundabout way (by making imperfect articles unwelcome), it might be more productive for BilledMammal to directly try to change the Wikipedia:Editing policy. Katzrockso (talk) 04:19, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

It duplicates existing content, and it doesn't demonstrate notability. Poor articles are acceptable, but there becomes a point where the cost of cleanup is greater than the benefit the article provides. Articles created by LLM are clear example of this.

However, as I have said to you elsewhere, we are getting off topic, so I am going to leave this here. BilledMammal (talk) 04:21, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

(I uncollapsed this section as it was collapsed while I was in the middle of writing this comment)

I don't think it's "off-topic" to clarify the understanding of existing policy that we are attempting to discuss here.

If I say "According to WP:ABCQ, we should do X" and you say "According to WP:ABCQ, we should do Y", our contrary interpretations of WP:ABCQ are perfectly topical to whether we should do X or Y. Katzrockso (talk) 04:26, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

• It duplicates existing content – No, it doesn't.
• and it doesn't demonstrate notability – We don't have any rule requiring this yet. You're trying to create that rule because it doesn't exist yet.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, as Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not compulsory, disallowing improvements to the encyclopedia on the grounds that they are incomplete goes against the spirit of WP:NOT. Katzrockso (talk) 04:22, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Break

I don't think that the bare minimum of notability established by the WP:GNG is just a guideline. At its heart it reflects WP:V and WP:RS; articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. And having more than one such source is needed to satisfy WP:NPOV and WP:DUE; with only one source, we cannot reasonably balance the article. And WP:SIGCOV, as it says, likewise implements WP:OR; it is not possible to write a meaningful article based on trivial passing mentions without engaging in original research, because insignificant coverage doesn't provide enough information to flesh out a full article on its own. The absolute bare minimum for notability is therefore whether we have enough sourcing to satisfy WP:V / WP:RS, WP:NPOV, and WP:OR. I'm generally opposed to red-line policies because I feel that they have a tendency to lead us away from collaborative editing and towards using policy as bludgeons; but I do think that multiple independent reliable sources with nontrivial coverage is a reasonable red-line must. Without that we cannot write a policy-compliant article. --Aquillion (talk) 02:55, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing/Database article. Do you think this article violates a policy? If so which one? Katzrockso (talk) 02:58, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

It is a clear-cut violation of multiple policies! First, and most glaringly, its sole source is not WP:SECONDARY by Wikipedia's definition of the term (A secondary source provides thought and reflection based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources.) This violates the requirement to base articles largely on secondary sources, stated in WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:SOURCETYPES, and honestly almost everywhere - it's such a central part of our sourcing requirements that it gets restated in almost every relevant policy. We cannot write articles without secondary sourcing, and, therefore, in the long term an article based solely on a database entry is not acceptable. Now, obviously, sometimes articles in incomplete states can remain until they're fixed, but if that article were in mainspace I would instantly tag it for insufficient sourcing and, if it seemed impossible to source it to anything but a database, it would of course have to be deleted; secondary sources are not an optional requirement in the long term. Beyond that it also violates WP:DUE by putting undue weight on a single source; the fact that all those policies talk about sources, plural, isn't an accident. Again, any article with only a single source must be seen as being in an incomplete state. --Aquillion (talk) 03:27, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I think that the database source in question is mostly certainly not a primary source, but is a tertiary source, as many database sources are commonly understood.

secondary sources are not an optional requirement in the long term According to what policy? According to WP:PSTS, we could cite everything to a tertiary source and this would be permissible.

Beyond that it also violates WP:DUE by putting undue weight on a single source. How so? WP:DUE as written does not state that an article cited to a single source violates the policy, it states that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. In the hypothetical case where only one reliable source has been published on a subject, faithfully representing and encyclopedically summarizing the source is by definition fairly represent[ing] all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources, simply because the article would represent the only viewpoint that has been published.

Our policies are written for the general case, not for the exceptional cases where only source might exist about a subject. A 1100 page monograph written about a species and published by an academic author, but not discussed in other sources, would be sufficient Wikipedia:Significant coverage for the subject to be notable and I don't think writing a Wikipedia article based solely on this monograph would violate any policies. Katzrockso (talk) 03:52, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

A 1100 page monograph written about a species and published by an academic author, but not discussed in other sources, would be sufficient Wikipedia:Significant coverage for the subject to be notable and I don't think writing a Wikipedia article based solely on this monograph would violate any policies

It would probably violate WP:FRINGE. If an academic author has managed to write 1100 pages about a species not discussed by any other source, then I strongly suspect that they're insane and are promoting some novel cryptid. Which is why we require multiple sources to demonstrate WP:NPOV. BilledMammal (talk) 03:58, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

It couldn't be WP:FRINGE if no sources establish that the source departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field. WP:FRINGE would prevent you from even claiming that the monograph is FRINGE, since it states Statements about the truth of a theory must be based upon independent reliable sources. Your assumption that the monograph is fringe is based precisely on the lack of sources about it.

An alternative hypothesis for why no other source has noted anything about the species is that it is a new monograph with limited reception (perhaps it was published only in Toki Pona by an academic in Guinea-Bissau in a small, yet reliable academic publisher not indexed by traditional search engines).

Which is why we require multiple sources to demonstrate WP:NPOV Where is this requirement imposed? Katzrockso (talk) 04:03, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

It could be. The notion that there is a race of sentient teapots living under London and controlling the French government as revenge for the Napoleonic Wars is a fringe theory, but it is so fringe that you can't find any reliable sources establishing that it departs from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field.

However, we are arguing about matters unrelated to the discussion at hand, so I'm going to leave it at that. BilledMammal (talk) 04:13, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

We cannot write articles without secondary sourcing...and yet, I did. Or, at least, I wrote a full encyclopedia article from a single source that you say isn't a secondary source.

WP:DUE isn't determined by what's cited. It's determined by whether the text of the Wikipedia article matches what the range of source say. This one does. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:53, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Er, no it doesn't? The article matches what one source says, by giving that one source wildly undue weight and ignoring everything else. Why did you devote an entire paragraph to its phylogenetic diversity? Why did you emphasize the fact that it has not been evaluated for those specific organizations' anti-poaching status? Why did you devote a whole section to Eigenmann being the first to describe it? (Also, looking closer, that is a promotional claim cited solely to Eigenmann himself!) Are those balanced representations of what the range of available sources say? It's not possible to establish due weight for an article with just a single source, because due weight involves weighing multiple sources against each other - one source is obviously not a "range of sources" (did you actually intentionally type "range of source" as a joke, or was that a typo?) Yes, it is technically possible for you to write an article-shaped object by blindly repeating everything a single source says, but as a matter of policy it is prohibited, because we cannot gauge due weight from just one source. I find it hard to accept that you believe you could send that article to WP:AFC, going "ah, yes, we cite a single source 22 times and nothing else, this is fine", and expect it to be accepted in that state; or that it could survive WP:AFD if you were unable to produce any additional sources; or that, if someone tagged that article as violating numerous policies, you could successfully sway people on talk into agreeing that it's fine. --Aquillion (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

What part of WP:DUE states that It's not possible to establish due weight for an article with just a single source, because due weight involves weighing multiple sources against each other? The argument that simply because the policy is written with an s is unconvincing, because even a policy explicitly written with the intent to allow a single source to be used would still use a plural there to represent the general case. Katzrockso (talk) 16:17, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Further up in NPOV, the very first sentence explaining it (and the part of the sentence that, I think, it's fair to say DUE implements): Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias. (Emphasis mine.) Are you arguing that a single source could ever be "a variety of reliable sources?" --Aquillion (talk) 16:27, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that's the ideal. But imagine a world in which it is possible to actually reflect "a variety of reliable sources", and still yet only need to WP:CITE one of them, because that one source contains all the facts that would be appropriate.

DUE isn't measured by counting the number of or variety of cited sources. DUE is measured by reading the sources and creating an article that matches their breadth and variety. When there isn't any breadth or variety (typical for species articles), then DUE's pretty easy.

But let me go back to the dental example we were talking about above. The entire text of the article is:

• "A periodontal cyst is a cyst in or near a tooth."

Do you think that this sentence is DUE? Do you think that it might be "giving that one source wildly undue weight and ignoring everything else"? Do you think that if you looked hard enough, and just "carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources" long enough, you might find a source that has a significantly different POV on what a periodontal cyst is? (You won't.) If not, does it actually matter how many little blue clicky numbers are at the end of that sentence, or listed in that one-sentence stub? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:39, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Do you think that if you looked hard enough, and just "carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources" long enough, you might find a source that has a significantly different POV on what a periodontal cyst is? (You won't.)

I will say that uncertainty about the above is why I would want multiple sources regardless, because as someone whose dentistry knowledge doesn't extend very far past my own teeth, but who does have knowledge about advanced mathematical topics, it would not be surprising at all if there was another source that used "periodontal cyst" to mean something subtly or extremely different.

Or something theoretically different but the same in practice. This might be more of a math concern, since there are plenty of concepts that "might have" existed until a proof of non-existence was found, though I think I've heard that there are controversial cases like that in medical sources. (Maybe something close is whether Asperger syndrome is equivalent to or a subset of autism, for instance, though it's not a perfect match to what I'm thinking)

Or, as described below, it could be a FRINGE name for the concept and actually it's called a flibbertigibbet by every other dentist. (I have run into stubs that may as well be that.) Sesquilinear (talk) 05:47, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Citing sources wouldn't allay that concern. Let's imagine that there are two things in the world that are called foo. (This happens all the time, and they're why we created WP:DAB pages and naming conventions to differentiate them; originally, Cancer (disease) and Cancer (astrology) were both on the same page.)

Let's imagine that I'm a POV pusher who is writing about an altmed concept that's named foo. I write "Foo is ____" and drop a couple of sources after it.

That doesn't tell you anything about whether the mainstream foo exists. It doesn't tell you anything about whether I've given due weight to the thing I'm writing about. Depending on the specific sources, it might not even tell you whether the altmed concept is notable.

But: if my sentence is a fair representation of what the balance of real-world reliable sources say about this FRINGE subject, then what I've written is compliant with the NPOV policy. And:

• If I add two more reliable sources, that doesn't change whether my sentence complies with NPOV.
• If I blank all the sources, that doesn't change whether my sentence complies with NPOV.
• If I add two unreliable sources, that doesn't change whether my sentence complies with NPOV.
• If I add two biased sources, that doesn't change whether my sentence complies with NPOV.

In short, no matter what I put inside the little blue clicky numbers, the article would still be neutral. Sources do not violate NPOV; only article content (words, sentences, paragraphs, links, images, etc.) can do that.

NPOV is not determined by which sources are cited in the Wikipedia article. NPOV is determined by which sources exist in the real world. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:04, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

The answer to your first three questions:

• Why did you devote an entire paragraph to its phylogenetic diversity?
• Why did you emphasize the fact that it has not been evaluated for those specific organizations' anti-poaching status?
• Why did you devote a whole section to Eigenmann being the first to describe it?

The answers are:

• because that so-called "entire paragraph"/"emphasized fact"/"whole section" is just a single sentence each, and
• because each of these are ordinary pieces of information for an encyclopedia article about a species to include, so WP:BALASP says to include it.

Most importantly:

• Are those balanced representations of what the range of available sources say? Yes. If you knew anything about the subject area (or the cited source), you'd know that.

As a general principle, NPOV should be measured on article content, and not on cited sources. Citations exist for WP:V. Citing a variety of sources doesn't make an article comply with NPOV, and citing a single source doesn't make an article violate NPOV. This is particularly true for very short articles and for articles about which there are no significant minority POVs. Or, to put it another way, NPOV, and especially the DUE section, is tuned for articles about major geopolitical disputes, and it's just not as salient for articles about an undisputed minor subject like a three-inch catfish in a couple of South American lakes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:54, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Current proposals

Current text:

However, once an article's notability has been challenged, merely asserting that unspecified sources exist is seldom persuasive, especially if time passes and actual proof does not surface.

Proposal One:

However, once an article's notability has been challenged, notability must be proven to retain the article.

Proposal Two:

However, once an article's notability has been challenged, notability must be demonstrated

Proposal Three:

However, once an article's notability has been challenged, evidence is required.

Proposal Four:

However, once an article's notability has been challenged, in order to help provide a reason to keep the article, merely asserting that an existing source already verifies its notability without evaluating their reliabilities and stating a type of that source would not help support your reason to keep that article.

BilledMammal (talk) 02:45, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

If you want to issue an hard-line edict of "Every article must cite source(s)", I think this is the wrong way to go about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:10, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

It is already hard-line policy that every article that has been challenged (or is likely to be challenged) must cite at least one source. This is clearly established in WP:V. The relevant sentence (and practice) only reflects that, ie. unsourced material can remain as an in-progress thing as long as nobody challenges it, but cannot remain afterwards. --Aquillion (talk) 03:14, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, WP:V imposes a requirement to add a source. However, it imposes no WP:DEADLINE for doing so, and never has. That's one of the structural defects in the policy, according to people who want to use policies as weapons for forcing other editors to do what the bludgeoner wants but won't do himself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I mean, it doesn't impose a deadline, but it clearly establishes that material in violation of it can be removed at any time by any editor, and any attempt to restore it would then be in violation of WP:V. It doesn't require removal (I did misspeak there, and I do think the lack of a requirement is fine and appropriate) but once someone has removed something unsourced under V it can't be restored until an in-line source is provided, and I think that that's appropriate and proper. --Aquillion (talk) 03:43, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

• My suggestion is to just reference WP:V, which is the actual controlling policy here (and the one that sets the actual incontrovertible red line.) That policy is very clear, and incorporating it here would lead to something like: Per WP:V, however, any material that has been challenged or is likely to be challenged must have an inline citation that directly supports it. I mean, is the suggestion that we could keep an article whose entire content violates V (ie. it has all been challenged, and no sources have been found for any of it?) --Aquillion (talk) 03:14, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

  BLAR is always an option to deletion for articles that can't be verified. If new sources become available editors can restore the article and fulfill the requirements of BURDEN. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:39, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

The current version seems better to me than all the proposed alternatives. It actually explains what not to do and warns that vague handwaves will be ignored. Proposals 1, 2 and 3 are technically untrue (AfDs can be closed early on procedural grounds), and proposal 4 is long and awkward. Proposal 4 also changes the subject from mere assertions that sources exist out there somewhere to assertions about known, specific sources. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 18:06, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Unsure why BilledMammal has wanted to change the whole passage besides just current or changing practices. I just wrote proposal #4 in effort to appease BilledMammal and expect some compromise. As I see so far, no consensus to change the passage has been formed yet.

Nonetheless, regarding assertions about known, specific sources, I've had issues with (non-)notabilities of reality TV winners, especially those on The Great British Bake Off, Survivor (American TV series), and Big Brother (American TV series). Recently, the consensus at an AFD discussion (link) favored deleting this article about this woman associated with Jeffrey Epstein: Melanie Walker (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). George Ho (talk) 18:29, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

If someone challenges an unsourced or undersourced article, I would expect the person asserting notability to at least name the sources they want other editors to consider. Usually it's pretty clear if the sources are reliable and independent and significant, but there are always edge cases that need to be discussed for consensus. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:59, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Discussion of WP:V

As some of the discussion of WP:V is getting a little off topic, I've opened a discussion at WT:V#Update WP:V to require verifiability through article sources. BilledMammal (talk) 03:51, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Notability criteria for restaurants at WP?

It would seem that guidelines for notability of a restaurant at WP failed as a proposal and falls to WP:CORP, but what does actually separate a simple restaurant from a corporation? I say this in light of recent articles being created on diners: Rosedale Diner, Patrician Grill, Lunch Lady, Jethro's Fine Grub, Hey Meatball, etc. A pattern seems to be emerging in a rush to list as many diners with no actual article content based on very little notability criteria except maybe a single award or mere feature on a TV show. How can a now defunct restaurant that was only open from 2011-2016 classify as WP:CORP notability? or this one: Ludi's? As I said in a Teahouse discussion, there are over 800 restaurants "featured" on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives to date, and that is just one show on the Food Network. There are over 70 shows on that Network that model this type featuring of over 3000 eating establishments. Are all notable for inclusion at WP for this reason alone warranting a one-line article? What am I missing? Maineartists (talk) 23:05, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

So, knowing a bit about DDD and other Food Network programs (i'm a TV reality show junkie), those should be taken as promotional. Restaurants write to FN to get featured, and they select a portion of those - Guy F. is not going out and "discovering" places. Promotional sources are a no no under NCORP.

This is generally why restaurants should require notability that goes beyond the quality of their food, but with sources discussing the restaurant's history, its route to fame, its impact on the local economy, etc. Masem (t) 03:36, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

+1. Valereee (talk) 13:28, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

+1 This is also what's needed to have an enclyclopedic article on the business rather than just restaurant review type material. North8000 (talk) 17:06, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

We are not a dining guide and do not want or need stand-alone articles on every restaurant that gets reviewed in the local paper. That's well established, and a review of this year's restaurant AfDs shows we are doing a good job of weeding out non-notable restaurants. E.g. Lung Pha, Tin, Lori Caffe, Joey C's Roadhouse, Licious, New Casdadia Traditional, Andwells Brewery, Lauretta Jean's, The Lobster (all deleted or draftified) and compare Armani Ristorante (Michelin star kept) and Hey Chicken! (restaurant chain kept based on presentation of numerous Chinese-language sources at AfD).

I do not see the justification for Masem's proposal to impose far more rigorous standards than we have in NCORP. We should not require coverage of a restaurant's route to fame or, even more concerning, impact on the local economy. That is not a requirement we impose on any other business, and it would mean we could only have articles on large restaurant chains (Cheesecake Factory, P. F. Chang's, etc). I doubt we could find coverage of "impact on local economy" even for most Michelin star or legacy restaurants. For example, our articles on such major restaurants as The French Laundry and Le Bernardin don't include commentary on "impact on the local economy". Just continue applying our existing notability standards rigorously, and we will be fine. Cbl62 (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Rosedale Diner, the first diner cited in the opening comment, has true SIGCOV in national media outlets ( Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and Toronto Star). That seems like a probable "keeper" to me. Cbl62 (talk) 19:08, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Here's me being a broken record: CBC, yes. Toronto Star and CTV News covering a restaurant in their own backyard, I'd likely try to find another source outside of Toronto covering the restaurant before I decided I had my three instances to bulletproof the article. Valereee (talk) 19:23, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

CTV News is a national television network, not a local media outlet. And Toronto Star is the leading newspaper in Canada. That's three major, national media sources publishing SIGCOV on Rosedale Diner. On the broader issue, however, my review of recent restaurant AfDs shows that the system is not broken. Purely local coveragedoesn't cut it under NCORP, and that's how the AfDs are being decided. I fail to see any evidence that the current notability system is broken. Cbl62 (talk) 22:57, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

CBC and CTV are national networks with national news operations, but they also have local news operations. The Toronto Star too has lots of local news coverage. In my view, it's not enough to look at the publisher to evaluate the appropriateness of a source to determine if the standards of having an article are met. The specific cited source has to be examined. (The CBC citation for the Rosedale Diner is local news coverage, so it is influenced by the local community's expectations of the types of stories it wants to read. I can't read the Toronto Star citation.) isaacl (talk) 03:11, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with "the local community's expectations of the types of stories it wants to read". That's what keeps a news outlet in business. As they say, the first duty of a newspaper is to stay in business. You have to stay in business if you want to be able to do anything else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:46, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Sure; I didn't say there was. isaacl (talk) 05:17, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't think Masem was saying each of those need to be present in sources (or articles), only that coverage other than simple dining reviews need to be present in sources. Masem was providing examples of such coverage. The Pine Club, for instance, in Dayton, Ohio, doesn't include info about impact on local economy or route to fame. It does talk about history, business model, unchanged menu. Valereee (talk) 19:16, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

this. Simply because the food was reviewed does not make for notability particular as many sources that do these reviews verve on promotional (like DDD). Things like earning Michelin stars, which is a process beyond a simple food review, are far more valuable. The other examples are types of things id expect as examples of coverage not related to food reviews. Masem (t) 20:01, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

We agree on the significance of a Michelin star - frankly, such an achievement should result in a presumption of notablity. Such a presumption would avoid AfDs like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Armani Ristorante. But I don't agree that there needs to be in-depth coverage beyond the food. A restaurant's notability and prestige are built on its food and the chef who creates it. The coverage needs to have true depth under WP:SIGCOV, but it need not IMO go beyond those core elements. Cbl62 (talk) 23:07, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

If the restaurant's notability is only tied to the chef with no other details beyond reviews, who I'd presume is already notable, then there's no need for an article on the restaurant, that can be a redirect to the chef. However, I doubt the case that this thread started from , that be restaurants featured on Food Network, are going to be the type headed by notable chefs.

I do not question that the food a restaurant serves could also make it notable, but it would about how that type of food is specifically connected to a restaurant, and not a simple review of it. A case I know of is Zingerman's, a non-kosher sandwich place that built out and expanded on those food ideas. It's about how it has thrived by what food it serves, and not based on the reviews of its food. Masem (t) 23:58, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Shall one of us invite/ping Another Believer, who wrote those stub/stub-ish articles about such restaurants and diners featured in that Food Network show? We have a past thread from WT:WPTV (archived discussion) about Another Believer creating articles about Drag Race episodes.

Meanwhile, I've developed the following somewhat extensively: The Square (restaurant), Mister Jiu's, Bistro Na's, Sazenka, A. Wong... (Maybe more?) I even regrettably or reluctantly improved Tom Aikens (restaurant) when my attempt to merged into one about its eponymous chef was thwarted especially by both of their own notabilities. George Ho (talk) 05:56, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite, but I won't be beating this dead horse. We've had this discussion over and over and over and nothing ever changes. The same phrases and acronyms (NCORP, GNG, AUD, the essay "run of the mill", etc.) get thrown around and all we learn is that different editors define and interpret these differently. I've created probably thousands of restaurant articles. I understand some editors do not like this and seem to view restaurants as evil corporations unworthy of space in an encyclopedia. But other editors like me see cuisine and restaurants more as a reflection of culture and history. If there are enough reliable sources covering a restaurant's history (origins, evolution), operations, cuisine, reception, etc, then in my opinion we should give them space on Wikipedia. I don't think this should be so controversial or problematic. I love visiting a city and using Wikipedia to learn which restaurants are local institutions, or have been nominated for notable awards, or are known for offering something unique or extraordinary. There seems to be this fear of Wikipedia becoming a restaurant directory even though no one is advocating for entries for most restaurants.

George Ho, I'm not sure what you're implying re: Drag Race episode articles, but since that discussion I've submitted approximately 150 drafts about Drag Race episodes at Articles for Creation and ALL of them have been accepted. It is clear to me that the opinion of the editor who said I was in the wrong for creating those articles does not represent the wider community. I think a similar thing happens with restaurant articles -- there are some editors who work hard to purge Wikipedia of restaurant entries, but even more editors who see value in them. So, we see AfD after AfD after AfD, and at the end of the day most restaurant entries started by me are kept. I get thanked (via notifications, emails, and even in-person) all the time from editors who appreciate my restaurant work and encourage me to keep going despite the non-stop onslaught of deletion nominations.

Again, the vast majority of restaurant articles I've created that have been nominated for deletion have been kept, yet some editors continue to paint me as the problem and seem to enjoy the battleship-like game of "let's try to sink another ship". When it takes 10 seconds to nominate an article for deletion and significantly more time to defend it from deletion, eventually one gets exhausted enough to just stop fighting the fight. And that's where I am at... I don't even bother expanding articles during an active AfD as much because it feels like this uphill battle against deletionists where any sources you add including newspapers of record are dismissed. I think too often there is a jump to delete short entries, rather than at attempt at article development or a serious source assessment. I'm all for editors having this discussion and I'll happily follow along out of curiosity, but I probably have little else to say that's not already been said. I'd rather be writing about restaurants than debating restaurant notability, so I'll get back to editing! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 14:49, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

George Ho, I'm not sure what you're implying re: Drag Race episode articles, but since that discussion I've submitted approximately 150 drafts about Drag Race episodes at Articles for Creation and ALL of them have been accepted.

Sorry for mentioning/referencing that old thread and making you assume my implications about you. I just found out who created the articles about such restaurants all along and then saw your username. That's when that old thread lit my light bulb... too brightly.

Well, thanks for your... extensive reply. Come to think of it, I've yet to see your past replies here when searching through archives. Your tone, however, might imply you don't wanna frequent much in the talk page about this very important guideline ever made, which may... well, sadden me perhaps.

Anyways, stub articles have been usually frowned upon over the years since the project's establishment. No, really... I expected WP:stub to be an essay, but I found out just now it's been still a guideline for at least two decades since it was converted from a redirect in 2005. You can challenge its "guideline" status at WT:stub if willing. George Ho (talk) 20:46, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Since I was the one who brought the question here to the Talk Page regarding the articles mentioned, I guess my main issue was that the editor who created them is a very good editor and writes WP:GA in comparison; so it made me question the reason behind what seemed to be an attempt to hurriedly list as many diners in a relatively localized area (Toronto) with very little content and hardly any sources. I have noticed that since this thread discussion has occurred, more sources have been added to each "article" but no further content; which is troubling, since as I said, the editor has created well-written articles on the same subject Blueplate Lunch Counter and Soda Fountain with proper background, description, history, reception, offerings, et al. The "listings" that occurred in a rapid fire manner are little more than entries; and since when I create articles, I make sure I dot all my Is and cross every T, trying to follow WP:GACR the best I can, knowing full well there are more experienced and knowledgeable editors at WP who will (rightly so) hold my feet to the fire in not only proving notability, but carrying through in contributing fully, productivity and thoroughly to an encyclopedia for its readers to access and rely upon on any given subject. But that's beside the point. In today's world where practically everything is covered / mentioned in a struggling news reporting media atmosphere, and most areas such as cuisine and art must keep in the public eye by constantly contacting such media for exposure, it's hard pressed not to find coverage on practically anything that exists nowadays. That does not necessarily mean it's notable for inclusion at an encyclopedia. WP:SIGCOV is vague at best and sparse in its criteria. Perhaps I jumped the gun in bringing this here; but it did give me pause when I saw several diners being published in a short amount of time with even shorter descriptions with content that was nothing more than "known for large pancakes" and "they closed." I do question some of the notability on this page, since many of the diners share much in their location: Portland, Oregon (19 listings?). Considering there are currently 8, 720 diners in the US; with (I'm sure) SIGCOV in some fashion to meet notability standards at WP for restaurants / diners, my question is: when does it all end? Perhaps the page should be renamed: "Notable diners"; such as Tom's Restaurant, Moondance Diner. In rethinking my initial quandary, I guess I'm have difficulty with the page in general and wonder what the criteria for notable inclusion actually is to list a diner on this page? Simply because it's a diner? I'm sorry, but Patrician Grill - "Patrician Grill was a diner in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[1][2][3][4][5] Terry Papas and Chris Slifkas were co-owners." - cannot be it. That's all. Have a nice day. Maineartists (talk) 14:05, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

You describing Blueplate Lunch Counter and Soda Fountain as a well-written article (I appreciate the compliment!) helps demonstrate my point about sourcing. This restaurant did not win a Michelin star (Michelin is only applicable to select markets, by the way), but has been covered by a wide variety of sources including the Food Network, guide books, magazines, and review websites, as well as local, regional, and national newspapers and other journalistic outlets. There's enough coverage and material for a description and overviews of history and reception. I fully support Wikipedia having more articles like this. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:24, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't - I think we should be as strict as possible on restaurants, which generally are nearly all American. Restaurants often have a short life span, and we risk cluttering up Wikipedia with restaurants once popular with students that closed long ago. To some extent this is already happening - for example it looks as though all the bar/restaurants you have taken to GA have now closed (top of your list anyway). Assuming a restarant still exists, it is rarely hard to find out the important stuff by a basic google search. Since we don't do menus, prices, or take bookings, it is hard to see what a WP article really brings to the party. Johnbod (talk) 15:34, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Right, some editors do, some editor's don't -- this is why we go around and around in circles at AfD. Maybe some other editors can weigh in re: the tension between NCORP, GNG, AUD, the essay "run of the mill"? I happen to think this is where we need to put focus. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:42, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that notability does not vanish once it is determined to be there, a restaurant that opened, got more than a burst of in-depth significant coverage, (eg, more than just opening day announcements), and then closed a few years later, that would still be notable for WP. We cover canceled projects, films, etc. as long at while in development there was significant coverage of what could happen.

However, its getting to that enduring coverage while a restaurant is opened is the tough mark to get. I'd expect a new restaurant will get a flood of opening day coverage, but after that the coverage dies down, and in such a case, that would not make it notable. Masem (t) 15:44, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if posting links to active AfD discussions here is encouraged or discouraged, but I would say Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lauretta Jean's (2nd nomination) is relevant as it is mentioned above. To me, this entry covers an obviously notable topic (the average bakery dreams of getting this much coverage), yet despite successfully submitting an expanded and improved draft at Articles for Creation, the entry is tagged for deletion (again). I clearly was not alone in my thinking that this is a notable topic, but there is disagreement plus the added bonus of a mischaracterization. I can take being called wrong, but my point is this keeps happening over and over, so the community keeps having the same discussions at AfD on repeat. Instead of doing that, shouldn't we be having a discussion around NCORP, GNG, AUD, and the essay "run of the mill"? If no editors are interested in doing that, ok!, but I'm flagging that this is where unclear notability criteria are causing friction. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:55, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

WP:AUD is part of WP:NCORP, while GNG and WP:SNG are part of the WP:notability guidelines. The last time the whole issue with notability was discussed was a few months back (archived discussion). Wanna discuss GNG, notability rules, NCORP, or....? I mean, what do you want to do personally? Me? I've been cautious about writing an article about a restaurant, especially a non-Michelin one. (Right now, Bistro Na's no longer has a star.)

If no editors are interested in doing that, ok!, but I'm flagging that this is where unclear notability criteria are causing friction.

The attempts to change GNG tremendously might have failed from what I can see, but I can stand corrected. I know that debating notability is tiring, but reading comments from both or more sides helps me learn that the real world is more complicated than just obeying rigid rules or just trying to change them. George Ho (talk) 23:47, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Do notability rules create an unintended bias in favor of the rich?

Since a large majority of mainstream media is controlled by only five or six corporations which are mostly if not entirely controlled by multimillionaires and billionaires and the next dozen of major media outlets are also controlled by the rich, relying on them for notability is heavily biased in favor of the wealthy and those supported by the wealthy. I could provide many more sources for details of this claim by request, but I suspect well informed people know this is true.

Wikipedia has the potential to correct this large bias, and, at times it already has. But at other times rules, including those about notability restrict efforts to provide a fair balance. I think reasonable recognition of alternative media would help this, although I certainly admit not all alternative media is reliable; but the best alternative media is often more credible than MSM.

This is especially important when it comes to good academic work. One time, about 15 to 17 years ago, when I was more active on Wikipedia views from Ted Nugent on gun control were considered acceptable because he was a famous celebrity, not because he had any expertise. At the same time Professor James Garbarino was rejected because he wasn't considered "notable" even though until a couple months ago when he passed away he was among the best and most credible academics when it comes to preventing violence by addressing all contributing causes or solutions, not just gun control.

This was of course outrageous.

If anyone's interested this just came up in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whitney Webb which I opposed. This article isn't nearly as important as the bias in favor of the rich, or rejecting good research about preventing violence which Professor Garbarino taught, but I think correcting policies for this article and all others is important. Zacherystaylor (talk) 02:39, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Ted Nugent, James Garbarino, and Whitney Webb are US-born, apparently. (FWIW, Income inequality in the United States or articles linked in now-archived thread from WP:REFDESK, like redistribution of income and wealth, can give you concept about huge divide between two (or more) income classes.)

For a more global perspective, how about the Tank Man, British prime ministers, London mayors, a teleplay Cathy Come Home (...'nuff UK-based examples), artist Harold Thomas (who designed the Australian Aboriginal flag)....? ....can't think of anyone else to exemplify your point... but then you pointed out academics, so Category:Academics by nationality should do also.

As for the rule itself, we tend to be bound by rules about notability. Hopefully, wealth alone is inadequate to make that person notable. Indeed, for instance, winning US$1 million on a cash-based reality TV series alone, like Survivor US or Big Brother UK, might not suffice for a longstanding standalone article. Of course, most of The Great British Bake Off winners may not have been as rich as the wealthy and no longer have their own articles.

However, even I'm doubtful that kinda(?)-notable Tom Westman became that "wealthy" when he won US$1 million, retired from firefighting, and then worked for an insurance company. Or even Todd Herzog. Or even Aubry Bracco (now a redirect to Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans; even Draft:Aubry Bracco was recently deleted for its LLM-influenced content).

'Nuff about reality TV winners. How about reclusive upper-class women seen in Grey Gardens documentary? ...Hmm... that might prove your point, I guess. The list of oldest living people, list of supercentenarians (and British ones), and list of oldest people... Unsure whether they prove your point about bias favoring the wealthy and against the non-wealthy. Unsure as well whether I successfully counter-argue your point. George Ho (talk) 03:55, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether you're opposing my point or not; but to make it clear, since the wealthy control virtually all of mainstream media they decide who is "notable" by simply declining to cover good, or even mediocre critics, of the wealthy preventing from getting name recognition. Ironically, they often cover the worst critics of the wealthy than the best making the wealthy seem more credible than their critics.

I also agree that simply being rich shouldn't make people notable, especially from trivial reality TV shows. And it's even worse when it comes to political candidates, with the media only covering those rigging the economy for the rich, including some that pretend to defend the working class, while refusing to cover those that actually do defend the working class. And even though rules might say something like "it's not Wikipedia's job to correct this" I disagree, especially since many lower income people or less biased people contribute to Wikipedia, and often improve it, especially compared to mainstream media. Zacherystaylor (talk) 20:55, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether you're opposing my point or not

Pondering this, I realized that I was just challenging your US-centric use of examples, not your convincing point overall. Well, I didn't see non-US figures in your OP. Just trying to make you see broader global perspective, though admittedly, your points would remain the same.

I don't plan to counter or defend your main point too much, though your points about "wealthy"-owned mainstream media make me wonder what you've thought about other types of sources, like academic journals and others now defunct.

while refusing to cover those that actually do defend the working class

Well... those defend[ing] the working class tend to be probably usually low-profile, IMO, and wanna avoid media circus and all. Many living people of such type notable for just their own one-time candidacies are still subject to WP:BLP1E and WP:NPF. Maybe you can find the deceased who might be subject to WP:BIO1E... or not, hopefully, but then I would expect more of pages about individual US- and/or UK-born figures who really care about the working class in the foreseeing future.

@your comment about the best (i.e. positive) critics of the wealthy: Any (non-)notable positive critics of the wealthy who cross your mind?

And even though rules might say something like "it's not Wikipedia's job to correct this" I disagree, especially since many lower income people or less biased people contribute to Wikipedia, and often improve it, especially compared to mainstream media.

...Let's be thankful for the notability of the list of Wikipedia people. Hopefully, we aren't too biased against editors with huger salaries, are we? Oh wait... We had billionaires attempting to rewrite articles (Signpost issues: Nov 2020, Feb 2021, March 2022). Compare those reports to entries of Category:Wikipedians.

(Note: just trying to make a [hopefully neutral] reply rather than take sides... yet.) George Ho (talk) 21:47, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I certainly didn't intend to exclude people outside of the US, but the people I focused on obviously were from the US. Academics are more likely to come from upper classes, since poor people can't afford college, but many of them do challenge the establishment and those are often driven to the fringes by the establishment, with a handful of them getting attention anyway.

Some of these include Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, others that never got much attention include Randall G. Shelden, Jeffrey Reiman, Avi Shlaim, and who knows how many others. If I reviewed books that I read that weren't promoted by Mainstream media I could cite dozens if not hundreds, including many very credible ones. Zacherystaylor (talk) 21:59, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky... okay. Out of three not having much attention, Avi Shlaim page now exists... but is EC-protected. Have you considered writing the following drafts and using the WP:AFC process?:

• Draft:Randall G. Shelden (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  • or Draft:Randall Shelden (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Draft:Jeffrey Reiman (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

George Ho (talk) 22:39, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Good suggestion, of course, and I'll consider it; but I'm not nearly as active on Wikipedia as I used to be, and this conversation is the most active I've been in a while. I don't have much more information on them than a copy of at least one of their books, I'm sure I read at least two or three of Sheldon's. If I do so it will be a short draft on my page before creating an article and welcoming input by others, which is the usual way. Zacherystaylor (talk) 22:55, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

PS I'm going back to my book now but if I don't check back for replies from you or anyone else tonight I will tomorrow. In the mean time feel free to check Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whitney Webb with your input. Obviously I prefer you vote to keep if you vote at all, but that's your choice of course. Zacherystaylor (talk) 22:59, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia’s insistence on source publication to be reliable creates a bias to those with resources to have their interested published in reliable publications.

It is not the role for Wikipedia to correct or this bias. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:21, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Requiring reliable sources is good and helpful, in the case of James Garbarino, who I mentioned years ago, he was among the most credible in his field, yet not well known outside of it and on one article at the time his credible work was rejected while Nugent was accepts because he was more famous, not more qualified.

As I just said, there needs to be someplace to correct this, and since a large portion of contributors to Wikipedia are more representative of the general public than the mainstream media, and often more informed or less biased, I see no reason why it could help correct this bias, even if flawed rules seem to be designed to prevent important solutions. Zacherystaylor (talk) 21:01, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Do you really think that this bias has anything to do with the mainstream media being owned by wealthy people? I think that a glance through some newspaper archives from the early 20th century, back when newspapers were mostly individually owned and locally operated, will show you that a lot of attention was paid to the rich back then, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:23, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't see how there can be any doubt that bias in favor of the wealthy by Mainstream media is caused by the fact that they own the media. You're right about media paying more attention to the rich in the early 20th century. One good source discussing this is "The Brass Check" by Upton Sinclair which was written in 1919 and never Copy-written so it can be read free online. Zacherystaylor (talk) 21:05, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Here's the thinking that I object to:

• In the 19th century, the mainstream media was not owned by the wealthy, and the mainstream media disproportionately covered wealthy people.
• In the early 20th century, the mainstream media was not owned by the wealthy, and the mainstream media disproportionately covered wealthy people. (Even by the 1920s, when Hearst's presence was clearly felt, only a third of all daily newspapers sold were from large businesses, and by percentage of publication, rather than circulation, it was heavily biased towards the small-town printer with small-town budget.)
• In the mid 20th century, the mainstream media was still mostly not owned by the wealthy, and the mainstream media disproportionately covered wealthy people.
• In the late 20th century, the mainstream media is mostly owned by the wealthy, and the mainstream media disproportionately covered wealthy people.
• In the early 21st century, the mainstream media is largely owned by the wealthy, and the mainstream media disproportionately covered wealthy people.
• In all time periods and under all ownership systems, mainstream media disproportionately covers wealthy people. Ergo, that proves that having the mainstream media owned by the wealthy causes the media to disproportionately cover wealthy people.

This isn't logical. The fact is that media covers wealthy people. Mainstream media covers wealthy people. This is just as true when it's owned by a wealthy person as when it's owned by a middle-class person. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

The media covers powerful people. The wealthiest get to choose to what extent they're in the media. Orange sticker (talk) 12:34, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Many of your claims are either false or misleading which you might know if you read the source I already recommended, "The Brass Check" by Upton Sinclair, which as I said is available free online. Sinclair explains how biased in favor of the rich most media was in his time and that they controlled much more of it than the working class. Also, media controlled by middle class people, like labor organizations, or in the nineteenth century abolitionists, were considered "fringe" or "radical." It's not just who owned the media or who they covered but how they covered them, as Sinclair also covers. In many cases the rich indirectly influenced the media without officially owning the media.

I don't know what sources you drew your conclusions from but some good ones on the media or related subjects include Upton Sinclair, as I already mentioned and:

Robert McChesney "Rich Media Poor Democracy"

Robert McChesney "The Problem of the Media"

Ben Bagdikian "Media Monopolies"

Michael Parenti "Democracy For The Few"

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky "Manufacturing Consent"

I would welcome sources for your claims if you have them, but it's hard to imagine how informed people can deny how the media has been heavily biased in favor of the wealthy or why so many people look for excuses not to correct this obvious bias. Zacherystaylor (talk) 15:04, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Man, I wish you'd have looked up articles about and then wikilinked (...well, US-born still) individual writers you're citing: Robert W. McChesney, Ben Bagdikian, Michael Parenti, and Edward S. Herman. George Ho (talk) 15:30, 29 May 2026 (UTC); amended, 15:33, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

These are sources I'm familiar with, I'll link to them in the future. Zacherystaylor (talk) 18:03, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Struck out potentially bad-faith in my part. I still can't help wonder whether you'd searched for such writers within Wikipedia, honestly. --George Ho (talk) 15:33, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Is this question about notability of rich people, or about notability of arbitrary topics being determined by rich people because they own the "generally reliable" sources? I thought the latter upon reading it, but the replies so far seem to primarily address the former. Anomie⚔ 11:22, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I thought the latter as well. Though the answer is similar. We need a reasonably objective standard to measure eligibility for an encyclopaedia entry, and our goal of verifiability means that we need something more than someone's word to base the article on, so the subject has to have been written about somewhere, be that by journalists or academics or other writers. Systemic bias will always be a concern (we even cover that, cf. Systemic bias on Wikipedia!), but I don't think unverifiable articles about under-represented subjects is the answer. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:21, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Mostly the latter, but it could include the former. Some of the best academic work trying to correct bias in favor of the rich gets no coverage in mainstream media. This includes many sources that are more reliable than Whitney Webb, who I consider mostly a good researcher, but she does have her flaws, which can be pointed out.

This needs to apply to all academics or researchers, including Webb, who includes extensive footnotes some I recognize as credible, others I might not be so sure of, but she is well known and if some of her sources turn out to be flawed someone can check them, which is the way peer review works. Zacherystaylor (talk) 21:12, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

From a UK perspective, a lot is overlooked and omitted from our news coverage, at least contemporaneously. On the otherhand, news outlets like Reach plc in particular employ churnalism and clickbait techniques to the point that many an aspiring entrepreneur or fame hungry starlet could quite easily seem notable if they play their cards right. We're certainly not in a golden age of journalism. I suppose we just have to remember Wikipedia is not a newspaper and hope that in time independent, secondary accounts will be published that balance things out. Orange sticker (talk) 12:07, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia and related Wikis do provide News related educational material. And, as I pointed out above, it's contributors are more representative of the general public than mainstream media which is controlled by the rich. I see no reason why the general public shouldn't be able to correct biases, especially those that are better informed. If the rules are designed to prevent solutions, change the rules. Zacherystaylor (talk) 21:19, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Well not just the rich, but also (well, how to say it non-offensively), people whose "talent" is how they look. But yes, the rich get more coverage just by being rich. Slatersteven (talk) 12:37, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

people whose "talent" is how they look

Socialites and supermodels, for example? (Entries at Category:socialites and Category:Models (profession).)

But yes, the rich get more coverage just by being rich.

(trying to find non-notable upper class figure to counter your point...) By the way, what about the history of coal miners or entries of Category:miners? George Ho (talk) 16:37, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

People who's talent is based on how they look are often promoted by the rich when, and only when, they go along with the ideology of the rich. Zacherystaylor (talk) 21:21, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

• Kind of, in the sense that we have to reflect coverage and wealthy people get more coverage. (And from a certain perspective you could argue that wealth makes someone powerful which is a source of notability; seeing this reflected in the sourcing is expected.) But there are some important caveats to what you said. Expertise matters a great deal, especially when citing outside of their own article, on articles related to broader subjects. You mentioned this: Ted Nugent on gun control were considered acceptable because he was a famous celebrity, not because he had any expertise. At the same time Professor James Garbarino was rejected because he wasn't considered "notable" even though until a couple months ago when he passed away he was among the best and most credible academics when it comes to preventing violence by addressing all contributing causes or solutions, not just gun control. It makes sense for us to cover Ted Nugent's views on gun control on Ted Nugent. I wouldn't automatically include them anywhere else unless there's strong secondary coverage. If James Garbarino is an expert, then we could cite them based on that; but the best sources are eg. high-quality academic publications, so while theoretically we can cite Garbarino via WP:EXPERTSPS, if you want to give him significant weight you'd want to look for highly-cited peer-reviewed research he published. Assuming we have that (from Garbarino or whoever) it would absolutely not be appropriate to give Nugent equal weight just because he's rich or a celebrity or whatever. Basically, there are different kinds of coverage; being wealthy, or a pop-star, or an opinion columnist or whatever might get your opinions published, but without expertise or strong secondary coverage the weight given to it ought to be low. On highly controversial subjects like that one there's the added issue that there are a lot of opinions published, far more than we could ever possibly cover; articles sometimes get cluttered with "nose-counting" where people try to include every possible opinion they agree with - or including non-experts making arguments in opinion pieces solely to introduce those arguments to the reader in an effort to convince them, rather than because those opinions or arguments are treated as significant by high-quality sources or experts. In that case the thing to do is to identify broad strands of arguments and weigh them based on the top-tier coverage they receive, rather than turn the article into a WP:QUOTEFARM of dueling quotes by non-experts, talking heads, people whose only qualification is fame or money, etc. --Aquillion (talk) 17:42, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  I agree that it would be appropriate to put Nugent's views on gun control on his own page regardless of how credible they are, although some might point out the flaws. In the case of Garbarino there's no shortage of academic work by him available, some listed on his Wikipedia page, with much more in academic journals, unfortunately a lot of this is behind paywalls. A few years before Professor Garbarino passed away he indicated that he was sympathetic to concerns about research being behind paywalls but that he was having health problems and wasn't inclined to do as much as he might have when he was younger if it was brought up.

  There was one example over 15 years ago where they did what I said, giving Nugent coverage while rejecting Garbarino, partly because of a Wikipedia Moderator that was openly admitting to be a Libertarian and member of the NRA showing his bias. When I checked a couple of these potential articles just now, I see that neither are mentioned, although it's possible other related articles still reflect this bias. Zacherystaylor (talk) 21:32, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

• (my prior reply to you above is lengthy, so....) For further context and understanding, since you used individuals as examples, I wonder whether you've read WP:NPROF and WP:NBIO. Also, why not visit WT:NPROF and WT:NBIO? George Ho (talk) 18:48, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, the rich have a leg up when it comes to receiving significant coverage in reliable sources. So do celebrities. So do athletes. So do generals. So do politicians. So do prelates. So do a number of members of favored groups.

So who decides who the "worthy" are? You? Me? Whatever loudmouth gets enough of a claque together to write and defend WP:PROF? (Bet if I typed "WP:PORNBIO" the visceral response would differ.) And only up until such a time when a tipping point of editors say enough is enough, as with PORNBIO and NSPORTS? What makes the views of an academic on gun control more valid than Ted Nugent's? (Yes, yes, studies. I know of a published medical study based on only twelve subjects. Eleven of them were grad students at a particular university, none over 24 years old. The twelfth was me; an alumnus of the same university, twice that age at the time. You can understand that with methodology like that I took the conclusions with a giant grain of salt. I'm not minded to unquestioningly assume that academics Know The Truth.)

We all have biases, and I hope you recognize that your own biases are showing. Flawed though it is, incomplete though it be, the relatively subjective measure of significant coverage in reliable sources is the least biased approach at our disposal. Ravenswing 22:05, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

your opening paragraph indicates you recognize the problem and implies you recognize it needs to be fixed. But then to throw up your hands and say we all have biases, which is of course true, and imply there's nothing we can do doesn't make sense, perhaps you didn't intend this.

This requires reasonable discretion. No doubt there are many academics with major credibility problems, and this often happens because they cater to ideologies of the rich helping them get ahead; but other academics are much better, including James Garbarino.

It takes time to read up and check facts, but that's what we need more people doing. Zacherystaylor (talk) 22:18, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

You're missing the point; who decides? What makes Garbarino "much better," beyond that you favor his ideology? What tags those other academics with "major credibility problems," beyond that you dislike their ideologies? That's a bias in action, and I wonder whether your "reasonable discretion" translates to results which favor right-thinking subjects. And no: I don't think that this is a problem that can be "fixed" to anyone's satisfaction, short of turning this into Worthypedia ... nor am I convinced that there's a problem at all. I agree that the political credibility of a washed-up rocker who passed his sell-by date over four decades ago is next to nil, but trust me, no one wants to see a Wikipedia where my personal opinion is the bellwether of policy. Ravenswing 22:30, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

There are plenty of the most credible academics who will say that Garbarino is among the most credible, and it will help to read his work. We need peer review and within his field he gets some of the best. If you want to start with a couple of his books they're probably at your local library, like most libraries, or a couple books are free online including "No place to be a child: growing up in a war zone" and excerpts for "Children and Families in the Social Environment" which has free excerpts online; the second and several others used to be on the Internet Archive, but they withdrew them for legal reasons. You can Google them and find them or I could provide links. Zacherystaylor (talk) 22:47, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Its not Wikipedia's purpose to change the world, but to reflect it. So biases in the real world are reflected in Wikipedia, this isn't an issue that's limited to notability, in fact notability is one of the smaller parts. How Wikipedia describe many subjects is biased, in the same way those subjects are handled outside Wikipedia. The solution to this issue isn't Wikipedia, it's challenging those biases out in the real world. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:30, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Is it Wikipedia's purpose to reflect the world accurately? If so attempting to be neutral means being unbiased, not repeating the biases created by media that is controlled and biased in favor of the rich. Zacherystaylor (talk) 19:36, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Off-topic perhaps, but WP:NPOV policy itself has been discussed or debated, especially at WT:NPOV. You can join there and raise the issue if you like. George Ho (talk) 20:12, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

No Wikipedia's purpose it to neutrally reflect what is found in reliable sources, it says so in the lead of WP:NPOV. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:21, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

A "Neutral point of view" doesn't mean simply repeating biases created by those controlling the media, which means the wealthy, although the way it's interpreted seems to mean rubber stamping those biases. Just because the wealthy repeated their ideologies over and over again doesn't make them accurate. The same goes with the most fundamental principle of Propaganda; "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth" or at least it seems to especially if it's not challenged by the truth. This is what wealthy people have been doing with their control of the media for centuries. Zacherystaylor (talk) 15:10, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

As I see, you've continued to spew crap about "rich"-owned media. Even referring to African-American upper class or a Japanese buzzword "upper-class citizen" wouldn't probably change your mind. Even the article about concentration of media ownership would further enhance your views about the media.

Need I remind you that WP:RSP has a list including "rich"-owned sources, like questionable Fox News and "wealthy"-owned NBC News. WP:RSN would be the way to go if you wanna challenge the whole list that WP:RSP has. If you'd like to challenge also the sources seen in WP:VGRS (ones covering video games), then... I'll allow you to do so. George Ho (talk) 15:44, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

If the source is publishing lies then it's not a reliable source, and shouldn't be considered when writing articles. However yes we should absolutely reflect reliable sources including their biases, and not our own opinions on what the 'unbiased' truth is. Everyone is biased, you're biased, I'm biased, every editor is biased, and relying on our own interpretation of the truth only introduces editorial bias. Trying to neutrally reflect the views found in reliable sources, even if we personally disagree with them, is more neutral than our personal feeling about those sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:31, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Of course we shouldn't use sources publishing lies, at least not without calling them out; but MSM has a major subtle bias in favor of the wealthy, often by omitting criticism of the wealthy, not always outright lies, since they're owned by the wealthy and we shouldn't ban sources that try to correct this. Zacherystaylor (talk) 21:14, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Omitting reporting is bias, and bias doesn't make a source unreliable (WP:RSBIAS). Finding other sources reliable sources to balance that bias is a good thing, but that doesn't mean using random substacks and blogs because we agree with their content. There are reliable non-MSM sources, ones backed up by use by others or from recognised experts. But all sources need to have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:37, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

I agree, of course, that omitting reporting is bias, but it's also routine especially when it comes to class differences, which is why I started this discussion, and often alternative media or researchers are more credible than those accountable to wealthy owners of media, when they do good research. Whitney Webb isn't the only one, of course, but she's the one that inspired this discussion, and her sources are extensive.

In the interest of disclosure, a recent comment which was deleted was correct about my creating James Garbarino's in 2009 and that it wasn't rejected, but this was shortly after his research was rejected on other articles about school shootings while in at least one case Ted Nugent's views were accepted partly because an administrator was an open supporter of the NRA and other Wikipedians ignored this bias at the time. I didn't intend to cite this as a current conflict, but as a past one that I was familiar with.

But the point I tried to make in this discussion is that there's an obvious bias with our media controlled by the wealthy and that we should try to correct this by an reasonable means, and that rules about neutrality shouldn't be used to preserve those biases instead of correcting them. Zacherystaylor (talk) 18:49, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Regarding Garbarino's research being rejected on articles about school shootings, what is the context of that? It is because they were thought to be primary rather than secondary sources? It seems his research would be germane to these types of articles, so I am trying to understand the context. Nugent's views could only be accepted on Wikipedia if they were covered in acceptable (reliable) sources per the definition in something like WP:GNG. This does not mean that Nugent's ideas are either credible or not credible. Also, on the face of it, I have a hard time believing his perspective was accepted into an article due an Administrator's views, while at the same time, other editors chose to ignore information not supported by reliable sourcing. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 19:45, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

This was a reference to an old conflict, more as an example of bias than as something I intended to re-argue. It did happen and I'm sure it's in the history somewhere, but when I looked at the related articles recently I noticed that neither of them were mentioned. I was surprised at the time that so many people accepted his views, but apparently it happens from time to time, I don't think this is typical of Wikipedia, in fact the vast majority of my edits didn't result in disputes, and if you exclude controversial subjects or conflicts of interests most Wikipedians are quite rational and helpful. The reason for the bias appeared to be opposition to gun control but it also led to opposing all research by an academic who covered other contributing causes of violence. Zacherystaylor (talk) 20:12, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

If alternative media sources have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy they can be used. Just because a source omits a report is completely irrelevant, if reliable sources comment on what hasn't been reported elsewhere it should be included weighted by how much it has been reported. If you want more than that you want to change the world, not Wikipedia. If Webb's sources are extensive you should be able to convince other editors if that, if you can't then look to the strength of your arguments.
As to whether independent researchers or alternative journalists are more credible, some of them are and many are cranks who couldn't get hired anywhere due to their 'unique' ideas. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:31, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

This is true, some fringe reporters aren't reliable, but in order to determine the difference it takes time for people to read the book and sources. I don't know if anyone else is actually reading her book, I'm just under half way through her first volume and at the rate I'm reading, with only a short time at the end of the day reading, this will be decided regardless of what I find. Did you or anyone else read her book? Zacherystaylor (talk) 21:21, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

A single book wouldn't helpful with notability, significant reviews of the book would count towards the notability of the book though. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:21, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

As editors, giving our opinion on the content of the book itself or the sources it has in its notes section or bibliography will not count towards notability. There has to be acceptable other secondary or third party sources that significantly discuss the book for it to merit inclusion on Wikipedia. And since the article is supposedly about the author, the same criteria applies to her. The discussion in this thread does not change how this works.---Steve Quinn (talk) 12:00, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

The problem you're describing sounds more like a specific quibble with WP:ACADEMIC.

The GNG absolutely is biased in favour of the rich and otherwise powerful, because as a tertiary source, Wikipedia reflects what sources say and those other sources are shaped by the power dynamics that exist in the world. Any correction to that would come up against WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and WP:BALANCE among other policies, and likely require reevaluating Wikipedia's relationship with sources on quite a fundamental level. I am not entirely opposed to the idea personally but I think the chances of getting anything approaching consensus for such a change are nil. People would, not unreasonably, point out that once you open the door to Wikipedia taking an active role in trying to correct or account for systemic problems in the media/social/political system then things get messy very quickly. It would change the character of the project quite fundamentally.

But if your main example of the problem is that academics who are influential in particular policy areas fail to get articles, I think that's just an argument that ACADEMIC is a bit too stringent, rather than a systemic issue with how notability is assessed. That's a much smaller and more actionable issue. AntiDionysius (talk) 12:51, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

My point is that we shouldn't repeat or rubber stamp the biases of the rich; and trying to support the closest thing to the truth means trying to correct all biases, including this one. My objection to them not accepting a good academic, Professor Garbarino, from years ago was because of the fact that at the time they rejected his academic work in other articles while allowing Nugent's non-academic work, but they did allow an article about James Garbarino.

The more recent one that inspired this concern Whitney Webb isn't what I would consider quite as reliable as Garbarino, although her work is well sourced, and she obviously researches different subjects, but since she's highly critical of the wealthy mainstream media avoids drawing attention to her. There are plenty of Alternative media outlets who give her, and many more researchers, more coverage they deserve. I think this should be considered "notable" allowing the majority of the public more influence about it, which would reduce MSM bias in favor of the rich. Zacherystaylor (talk) 20:00, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

We're not trying to "support the truth" (Truth? What is truth?); we're trying to "reflect the reliable sources". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:12, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that many people editing Wikipedia would agree that they don't "support the truth" and if perceived "Reliable sources" have biases it's in our best interests to correct them, not argue in circles. Zacherystaylor (talk) 15:13, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

trying to support the closest thing to the truth means trying to correct all biases - that is not what Wikipedia does. In fact it's explicitly against some very core tenets of Wikipedia policy. This is what I meant when I said that what you're seeking would require a very fundamental change in how the project works. I'd suggest reading WP:VNOTT; it's not itself a policy but it explains the relevant policies in this area well.

Your aim is laudable, but I do not think it's practical. That is partially because of the aforementioned can of worms it would open, but first and foremost because of the practical difficulty of rewriting such a volume of policy and getting consensus for it. AntiDionysius (talk) 08:38, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

• Okay, 'nuff about examples of individual persons. To further exemplify things supported by the wealthy, how about broad concepts? Concrete ones? Any other non-persons topics? E.g: rainbow, events, AI-related concepts like AI takeover, films, other pop culture-related stuff, colors like blue, moon landings, etc. —George Ho (talk) 01:25, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

There are a zillion factors which would correlate or cause more often meeting wp:notability. Being famous, infamous, rich, influential, accomplished, holding high positions, committing major crimes, radical activities or actions, power, excelling in their field, etc. While one could say that such correlation or causation is Wikipedia "bias" towards each of those attributes, such is just reality rather than a systemic problem. North8000 (talk) 01:42, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

This is (yet again) really an off wiki issue, create the notabilty. Otherwise, we will have 6 billion articles. "Well, I am the first person in Scumley under muck to post on Wikipedia, which makes me notable." Well, I am the first person to post arse boggers in Wikipedia, which makes me notable". This is a recipe for disaster. Yes its unfair, but so would having to police such a mess. Slatersteven (talk) 13:10, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

You are actually referring to WP:WEIGHT, not Notability. The current policy is to provide greater weight to mainstream views. Fringe views, such as Ted Nugent's, are only covered to the extent that mainstream sources report on them, but articles should be clear that they are regarded as fringe views in mainstream sources.

Of course, mainstream opinion is biased, as are all opinions. But there is always bias in deciding which opinions to report and what weight to give to each of them. It would be unworkable if editors were to determine which opinions to emphasize, based on their own perspectives.

TFD (talk) 16:15, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

• The question is never "are there systemic biases" but "what policy would reduce systemic biases". A lot of proposals to reduce bias end up making bias worse, particularly as it would lower the standard to include false or misleading information from unreliable sources. I am always open to constructive suggestions. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:28, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Sports championships

Hello. I would like all articles about any world or continental championship in any Olympic sport to be considered notable by default. It's very frustrating when I struggle for two days with such an article and then someone comes and immediately tags it with the {{Notability}} template...
Thanks, Maiō T. (talk) 16:25, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Is there anything such thing as notable by default on Wikipedia? I haven't checked the notability criteria for sports or athletes lately. There used to be "presumed notable" caveats, which I didn't always agree with. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 18:43, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

No need to amend our guidance. Despite the fact that there have been some very odd “sports” that have been events in the Olympics over the years … it is highly likely that any sport that was chosen as an Olympic event has been covered enough to qualify for notability under WP:GNG. Blueboar (talk) 18:55, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

The articles here are not about the actual world or continental championships though, but about youth championships. No automatic notability should be assumued for those. Fram (talk) 07:11, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

looking at your contributions and one of thd recent you created that was tagged 2024 World Aquatics Women's U16 Water Polo Championships, the fact that this only sourced to one publication is a notability concern. You want to should better sourcing to avoid that type of insta tagging. Masem (t) 19:01, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree with MASEM. I don't see what there is to complain about. Having independent reliable sourcing is par for the course on Wikipedia. As an aside, personally, I don't see the usefulness of articles such as this. This and the 2024 World Aquatics Men's U16 Water Polo Championships Wikipedia article is a bunch of colorful tables and statistics. This information is already in the primary sources that these articles claim as sources. And, interestingly, it seems the Men's competition primary source article has much more descriptive prose than the related Wikipedia article . And I am thinking that each section of the article should have a reference or two. But maybe I am wrong on that last one. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 19:49, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

• I also agree with Masem. Under WP:GNG, we need to see WP:SIGCOV from WP:INDEPENDENT, reliable sources to establish notability. In the case cited by Masem, your only source is the organization sponsoring the event, i.e., a source that is not independent. Unless you are able to find SIGCOV in independent, realibale sources, experienced editors such as User:Fram will properly tag the article for notabiity concerns. You can solve the issue by adding the needed coverage. Cbl62 (talk) 19:57, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Most of your articles suffer from the same lack of indepenent SIGCOV. This is something you need to work on. E.g., 2025 Pan American U17 Water Polo Championship – Women's tournament, 2014 FINA World Women's Youth Water Polo Championships, 2025 FIBA U17 Women's Oceania Cup, 2026 IIHF U18 Women's World Championship Division I. Cbl62 (talk) 20:16, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

There is the matter that coverage of U## tournaments should probably fall under the same strict sourcing requirements as the athletes that play in them, for the exact same reasons. (It's also why, even when NSPORTS was more permissive, U## athletes never qualified under it.) —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Object Class: Drygioni} 15:32, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Standards for notability prevent many famous people from having an article on Wikipedia

For example, Joe Bartolozzi, who has almost five million subscribers on Youtube, does not have his own article on Wikipedia. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 15:20, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't know how I'm supposed to this but this discussion is closed. I don't know why I said effectively removing parts of history, that was dumb. Notability does not equal fame. Look below to find out why. Consensus was reached that there will not be a Joe Bartolozzi article unless someone can find independent reliable sources about him. Goodbye. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 01:05, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

(Originally from another thread (diff), intended for this thread. --George Ho (talk) 02:02, 7 June 2026 (UTC))

You do realise YT subscribers can be bought, right? —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Object Class: Drygioni} 15:22, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Youtube subscribers can be bought, sure, but he has had over a million for a long time now, and if he had bought his subscribers, Youtube would most likely have removed all the bots by now or taken action in some way. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 15:24, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Youtube subscribers can be bought is precisely why we do not use sub count as a measure for eligibility, regardless of how YouTube enforces its policies. I think the bigger issue is WP:Verifiability - a Wikipedia article should only be a summary of what third-party sources with editorial oversight say about a topic, and unfortunately there is a dearth of actual journalism focused on online circles. eAthletes have the same issue - dearth of acceptable sources. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Object Class: Drygioni} 15:29, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

It's highly unlikely that somebody can bot millions of subscribers and nothing is done about it for months. Also, consider the fact that Joe Bartolozzi and content creators like him also have millions of followers on other social media platforms. It seems like a misunderstanding of what is happening in the modern day to basically say sub count doesn't matter at all for eligibility. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 15:35, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

It isn't a misunderstanding. It's you having too much faith in Google. We've long learned not to have faith in them. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Object Class: Drygioni} 15:38, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't matter as much now, see my last comment, but it's not just Youtube that is showing a high sub count. On Instagram, he has a million followers. He has millions on Tiktok as well. Wikipedia has taught me that the more sources you have, the better. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 15:45, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Then you took the wrong lessons away. Quality of sources matters much more than quantity. (And once again, social media followers can be bought.) —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Object Class: Drygioni} 15:54, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

This is an acceptable way of going at it, it just means that certain people like eAthletes (as you previously mentioned) have a way lower chance of having an article on Wikipedia. That was my main issue. Dege31 convinced me otherwise. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 16:00, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Nobody is able to buy millions of followers on multiple social media platforms and nothing is done about it and nobody finds out. You can't name me one example of that happening where the person isn't alreadly famous.~2026-31752-66 (talk) 01:18, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

If people are famous, and part of history, then they will surely have been written about by independent reliable sources, so passing our notability guidelines? Phil Bridger (talk) 15:34, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Some famous people are not doing anything controversial that would warrant being talked about by indepedent reliable sources. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 15:36, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

"Fame" implies someone is writing about them somewhere. I invite you to think about my words above in re lack of journalism for the online sphere. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Object Class: Drygioni} 15:39, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

It is undeniable that Joe Bartolozzi is famous, but I guess there is a huge difference between notable and famous. My apologies. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 15:41, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

I never heard of the guy until today. (Don't post links, I am not interested.) —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Object Class: Drygioni} 15:53, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

You not knowing about it doesn't mean millions of others haven't. I don't even think I'm allowed to post links in Wikipedia, I don't know. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 15:55, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

You are, but yes there is a distinction between fame - which is often limited to a specific population and is fleeting - and notability, which is documented in third-party sources that we can summarise to write an article (and that we would absolutely need to) and thus more global and durable over the long haul. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Object Class: Drygioni} 15:59, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Correct. I acknowledged this in my previous comment. Should I put a message in the Joe Bartolozzi talk page talking about the difference between fame and notability? ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 16:03, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

I think the idea that someone would only be written about if they did something controversial to be rather suspect. Sesquilinear (talk) 04:52, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

I am talking about streamers. Joe Bartolozzi hasn't been talked about because he is just a normal popular streamer. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 22:28, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

It's not quite true that there are no sources that mention him. I found his name in two masters theses: . However they both only briefly mention him, so they do not provide the significant coverage that would be needed as evidence for notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:35, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

See my other arguments about him not being controversial enough. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 22:41, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, some subjects are intentionally prevented from having articles. I think it is a pretty bold claim that it is "removing parts of history"- I don't know for sure, but I suspect Wikipedia was never responsible for such an omission. In the rare case of borderline notability, if this really somehow happens, I can see an argument being made on the basis of ignore all rules. Regardless, this is definitely not the case for a YouTuber with five million subscribers: no history is removed by the absence of a Joe Bartolozzi article. Dege31 (talk) 15:44, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

That is respectable. He is just a twitch streamer after all. If he hasn't done anything controversial enough (positive or negative) that has been talked about by any indepdent reliable sources, then whatever tiny amount of history that is being removed probably doesn't matter. Sorry for wasting everybody's time. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 15:48, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

"If he hasn't done anything controversial enough"

No need for controversy: just enough coverage for him to be notable. Selbstporträt (talk) 15:11, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

What is needed for there to be coverage for streamers? Controversy. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 01:37, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

• I mean the bare minimum standard set by the WP:GNG is the bottom line needed to write a neutral, verifiable article. If he doesn't have even that much, then we can't really write an article on him without either performing original research or putting too much weight on a single source, neither of which are encyclopedic. --Aquillion (talk) 16:13, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

  Do you think it would be useful to write about him within another article? ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 16:18, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Fame does not equate to notability. Masem (t) 17:00, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

"It is undeniable that Joe Bartolozzi is famous, but I guess there is a huge difference between notable and famous. My apologies." What I said before to Jeske Couriano. Unfourtunately, +1 to consensus from me. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 00:46, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't help your case that there are four different drafts about him (at Draft:Joe Bartolozzi, Draft:Joe bartolozzi, Draft:Joe Bartolozzi (streamer) and Draft:Joseph Bartolozzi). Such things usually indicate an organised campaign to get an article about a topic. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:00, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Such things usually indicate an organised campaign to get an article about a topic. Completely agree. That is what appears to be happening here. If this guy is so famous and influential, there should be SIGCOV about him in multiple reliable, independent sources. None of the four drafts includes any such coverage. Cbl62 (talk) 22:55, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Think about it. If you are just a twitch streamer, and you never do anything controversial, bad or good, there's no reason for there to be reliable indepdent sources about you. There is no level of fame with nothing else within the streaming world that could propel you to notability if there isn't any controversy surronding you (if you don't do anything else than stream and play games.) ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 00:58, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

I would say that "an organized campaign" is a little too exaggeratory. It's simply that he has a lot of fans. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 00:55, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

+1 to the consensus here. Erm, Wikipedia is not the worldwide guarantor of "history" -- people with enduring importance will endure (or not) regardless of whether they have an article here. There've been ephemeral shooting stars for the whole of the history of mass media, and I wager if I named some of them from over the last century, your reaction would be "Who?" And that's the reaction that'll happen ten years from now when someone asks a man on the street "Do you know who Joe Bartolozzi is?" The followers will have long since moved on, the same way they've moved on from previous social media shooting stars. Ravenswing 19:47, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

You are welcome to go around the streets where I live now asking random people that question. I very much doubt that you will find anyone who has heard of him. He's simply not famous. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:23, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

I certainly never had, for what it's worth. (Which, granted, is not much.) Ravenswing 05:20, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

My evidence may not be from a "reliable indepdent source" but Joe Bartolozzi having millions of followers across different platforms owned by different cooperations for months is better than "well if you ask people around I BET nobody would know who he is". It is insane that maybe not you but others in this discussion are unable to believe that there is an extremely low chance of it being botted. 25 million followers on tiktok does not equal not famous. Please come up with better arguments. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 22:34, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm simply basing my comments on the English word "famous", whose definition is based on people knowing who he is, not on numbers of social media followers. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:13, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

The number of social media followers definitely can reflect how many people who know who he is (and the amount of followers is most likely way less than the number of people who know him, common sense) , and there is an overwhelmingly high probability that it does in this case given the information I've given you. This argument we are having is useless anyway because fame does not equal notability. That is why I closed the discussion. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 23:24, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Moving on does not mean that the influence he had on their younger selves diseapears even if he was just entertainment. Just because they will endure without an article does not mean that they do not deserve an article. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 22:38, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

I think it's a bizarre claim you're repeatedly making that there's absolutely no way that a reliable source would want to discuss his influence unless something controversial happened. Sesquilinear (talk) 22:57, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

It's bizarre in the case of other types of entertainment sectors. The news will talk about the new album, the new single, the new world record sprint, how fast Usain Bolt couldve ran his world records. No indepdent reliable source maker would care that some seemingly random streamer with 10k viewers hit a million subscribers on Youtube. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 23:27, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Well… if independent reliable sources don’t care, why should Wikipedia? Perhaps merely having a large following on social media isn’t really a notable achievement? Blueboar (talk) 01:02, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Many other people have reached Joe Bart's level of success, sure, but the main point here is that streamers as a whole are underrepresented. That is why Wikipedia should care even if indepedent reliable sources don't. However, you do make a great point. Joe Bart is one of over 69,000 youtube channels with over one million subscribers. Reaching it isn't exactly a notable achivement like you said. Putting all of those youtubers on Wikipedia would take too much space. He may be famous but he is not notable. Bot only is he not notable because of not having any indepdent reliable sources talking about him, he is also not notable because he has no notable achievements. Sorry for wasting everyone's time. ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 01:25, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

You are correct that people can do important and significant things without having independent reliable sources. We need independent reliable sources.

You may be interested in reading a page called the Wikipedia:Amnesia test. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:11, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, if RS do not care they are not all that famous. And 5 million does not even put you in the top 100 YouTubers. Hence why RS does not care. Slatersteven (talk) 15:14, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

What is RS ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 01:34, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

WP:RS means reliable sources Sesquilinear (talk) 01:42, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Could just say reliable sources but I digress 5 million people just on youtube on tiktok its 25 million why argue that he isnt famous when the stats clearly say otherwise and you guys already won since ive accepted fame doesnt equal notability ~2026-31752-66 (talk) 03:22, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

"One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; and other guidelines on appropriate stand-alone lists."

I fail to parse this sentence. We say that, on the one hand, one reason for notability is its discussion as a group. That repeats what has been said earlier—in fact it merely states that one reason for meeting N is that it meets N. But fine: what's on the other hand? "Other guidelines". Doesn't look like a reason.

Also, the "other guidelines" refers to SALAT, which simply says that a topic should not be too broad or too specific. This section provides weak support for notability at best. Selbstporträt (talk) 15:07, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand your question. A list topic is notable if the items in the list have been discussed in reliable sources as a group or set. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:14, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

That's not "one" reason: it's necessary. No list can bypass that requirement. So the first part is not an example at all.

The question is about what that sentence is supposed to mean. Sometimes we need to answer a more general question: what do we want to do with it? If we mostly want to plug in SALAT, then we should separate the two ideas in two differente sentences and tell readers in the second one: make sure your topic isn't too broad or too specific. Again, not a reason at all!

As I see it, the sentence wants to do two different things. It fails both. Selbstporträt (talk) 15:20, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

no,we can have lists where the topic grouping itself is not notable but each element is a notable topic that falls within well defined, objective criteria. For example our alumni lists like List of Harvard Law School alumni. Masem (t) 15:24, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

We can't have a list that isn't notable as a group unless we rewrite:

Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group.

What we can have is a list that we have not seen anywhere else. Selbstporträt (talk) 15:31, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that is what is says, we do not need RS to list something as a list. We can create our own lists. As long as the items on the list are notable. Slatersteven (talk) 15:35, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Items of a list don't need to be notable: their membership needs to be! Selbstporträt (talk) 15:37, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Besides, and perhaps more crucially, we do need to source the membership.

We don't need reliable sources that establish the notability of every guy who played one game in the NFL between 1929 and 1930. What we need is sources to establish the fact that they did!

I'm not saying we should lean one way (membership for every instance) or the other (membership as a whole): I'm saying that the text should! Selbstporträt (talk) 16:01, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Besides, it's not hard to find lists of Harvard alumni:

https://www.businessinsider.com/most-famous-harvard-law-school-alumni-of-all-time-2016-7

https://hls.harvard.edu/today/harvard-law-faculty-and-alumni-among-100-most-influential-lawyers-in-america/

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/14/10-of-the-most-famous-harvard-grads--and-dropouts--of-modern-time.html

https://www.gibbsbruns.com/gibbs-bruns-noted-for-its-number-of-harvard-law-graduates/

https://www.ivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-blog/ivy-league/notable-harvard-alumni/

Finding more reliable sources might require some work. Selbstporträt (talk) 15:36, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

The guideline is indeed saying that one reason is the notability of the list topic as a whole. It is not saying this is the sole or necessary reason. There are other reasons but the guideline says there is no present consensus as to "what other criteria may justify the notability of stand-alone lists". The guideline does not specify the criteria for which there is no agreement. Thincat (talk) 15:40, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Meeting N is necessary to justify the creation of a page. Stand-alone pages are pages. The guideline needs to say that stand-alone pages must be notable in some way.

Again, the sentence follows the statement that N is based on the group. It is supposed to clarify it. It does not.

A page on N can't shy away from fulfilling its obligation by handwaving to "one" reason and then to no reason at all! Selbstporträt (talk) 15:47, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

No. Disambiguation pages, for example, are pages in main space. They are a type of list to help readers find their way around. They are not required to be notable. Thincat (talk) 16:00, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm not talking about talk pages either. I'm talking about stand-alone lists!

Perhaps you prefer a more formal derivation. Here is SAL:

Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists and tables.

Here is N:

notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article.

From this I infer that stand-alone lists needs to meet N.

Do you agree? Selbstporträt (talk) 16:05, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I think you're taking a too formalistic view of this. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:08, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I think someone who just said that "Disambiguation pages, for example, are pages in main space" should not complain about being formalistic.

Do you agree, yes or no? Selbstporträt (talk) 16:17, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about disambiguation pages. I'm not complaining either. I'm pointing out that you're reading the guidelines as if they're a legal code, rather than a collection of guiding principles established through years of discussion and debate. See my short essay. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:40, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

"I didn't say anything"

I didn't say you said anything either. In fact, I would rather say you're saying nothing at all.

I was rather replying to a comment in which we could read "Disambiguation pages, for example, are pages in main space", which, for some reason, you don't seem to identify as being "formalistic".

A simple "yes" or "no" would have been a more pragmatic way to respond. Selbstporträt (talk) 18:53, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Now that we're discussing lists (and I now see your past contributions to them), what do you folks think about the lists of The Great British Bake Off finalists? Does it exemplify what the OP was trying to point out? Also, I created the Draft:List of Project Runway finalists (seasons 1–5) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), which was declined as not notable as a whole group. Recently, I submitted the draft after some improvements made. George Ho (talk) 15:46, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I'd put it in the page. It's a good list, but not worth a page.

Still, that raises an interesting issue, for tables are meant to facilitate information gathering. It might be worth having a whole list of finalists instead of lists on different pages.

The whole SAL is a mess. We're caught in rules that made sense in...2010. And now I'm seeing that N itself is not much better. Selbstporträt (talk) 15:50, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

You're the only one here who thinks there's a problem. Everybody seems to get along fine with NLIST as it is. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:04, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

There was a mention to 32KB on the SAL page that dated back from 2010.

That was related to a browser limitation.

For some reason "everybody" got along fine.

See where getting personal leads? Selbstporträt (talk) 16:07, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Gonna say that the guideline links to WP:CROSSCAT and WP:NOTDIR. Well, not all lists are either notable or suitable (i.e. comply with WP:NOT) for this project. Even I tried unsuccessfully to have a draft list of Survivor US finalists, which got "rejected". (That motivated me into challenging many Survivor US winners, but that's another story.) George Ho (talk) 16:08, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Looks like "culturally significant phenomenon" is a way to circle back to N, and the second page you cite clearly says that the Wiki uses lists for "for internal organization or to describe a notable subject". Again circling back to N.

So as long as you meet N, you should be fine.

The issue here is quite simple: the sentence in my title is ungrammatical. That "everybody" did not spot since it was written is the lesser of my concerns. I could check BLAME for curiosity, but meanwhile I received multiple different answers, ones that may not even cohere with one another. Selbstporträt (talk) 16:15, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with the grammar of that sentence. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:18, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps you should step away for a while, voorts.

So far you have contributed nothing constructive. Selbstporträt (talk) 16:24, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Nope. I'm good. Can you explain what's grammatically incorrect about the sentence? voorts (talk/contributions) 16:29, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

You can always start by reading my first comment and addressing it instead of commenting on me or butting in what other people say. Selbstporträt (talk) 16:31, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

This is a discussion on a guideline talk page. Anyone can weigh in. If you don't want people butting in on your conversations, you can try email. As for your first comment, nothing in it explains what about the grammatical structure of the sentence is incorrect; you didn't even use the word "grammar" there. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:36, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

You're conflating "butting in" with "commenting".

Butting in refers to your reply to me in response to Thincat, and your reply to me in response to George, twice. And the three times it was to turn this into personal attacks. Your last comment repeats that pattern.

I used the word "parse" in my comment. Perhaps there's something about grammar that escapes you. Selbstporträt (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I haven't made any personal attacks. You're the one increasing the heat here. You do not have the right to control who responds to what comment in a discussion. This is an open conversation, not disparate ones that can only occur between two editors at a time. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:47, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, you used the word "parse". That doesn't explain what is incorrect with the sentence. You say there are grammatical errors; what are they? voorts (talk/contributions) 16:48, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

It actually does. Are you sure you read it? Here are all the sentences:

I fail to parse this sentence.

This identifies the kind of problem.

We say that, on the one hand, one reason for notability is its discussion as a group.

The "one hand" introduces the fact that there is a "; and", which often leads to difficulties, as real semi-colon clauses don't need an "and".

That repeats what has been said earlier—in fact it merely states that one reason for meeting N is that it meets N. But fine: what's on the other hand?

This indicates that I don't mind for now the problem of the first clause.

Yet *all* the comments so far stopped there.

Let's not wonder why for the moment.

"Other guidelines". Doesn't look like a reason.

Notice the grammatical problem here?

Also, the "other guidelines" refers to SALAT, which simply says that a topic should not be too broad or too specific.

That's more of a semantic issue: SALAT does not provide what we're supposed to find, i.e. reasons for N.

This section provides weak support for notability at best.

That's a pragmatic issue: handwaving to SALAT fails to do its job.

I hope your next comment will be more constructive. Selbstporträt (talk) 16:56, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

None of what you wrote indicates any grammatical errors in the sentence. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:30, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

You are certainly free to keep denying, voorts.

Just as I free not to spoon feed you anymore. Selbstporträt (talk) 18:06, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't know why you're being so dismissive. I'm trying to have a civil conversation with you. If your issue is a single semicolon, then change it to a comma. Other than that, you haven't pointed to anything that's grammatically or structurally incorrect with the sentence. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:09, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I did ; → , just now (diff). George Ho (talk) 18:27, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

That's your third personal remarks, voorst. So far you offered three personal remarks, and three denials, which you now present as not being dismissive. Let's try one last time:

One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines, and other guidelines on appropriate stand-alone lists.

How is "other guidelines" connected to "one accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable", again? If you could break it down in subject-predicate form, that'd be great. Subject-verb-object could work too. Selbstporträt (talk) 20:34, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

"per the above guidelines and other guidelines ..." is very clear. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:50, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Clearly incorrect, yes.

You still haven't connected "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable" with "other guidelines", which links to "Appropriate topics for lists", which isn't related to N, and isn't even "other guidelines". At best it should be the whole SAL, and "guideline" should be singular. Selbstporträt (talk) 20:59, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

X is true, per Y and Z. X doesn't modify anything after the "per", which starts a separate clause. I think you're misreading the sentence. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:22, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Z is unrelated to X. (It is also unrelated to Y, but that doesn't matter.) So your interpretation is wrong: the "per" is related to Y; Z refers to one section of WP:SAL. So one guideline. You should at least concede that the plural is kinda hand-wavy.

Wait— are we doing formalism now?

If we need to refer to content policies, WP:SAL has them: it's in a section called "Content policies":

Being articles, stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies, such as verifiability, no original research, neutral point of view, and what Wikipedia is not, as well as the notability guidelines.

Note the "as well as": that is well-formed! Still, it should be simplified. And clarified too, for as a section lead, it doesn't introduce to its sections, like the "Appropriate topics for lists" we cite.

So no, I don't think you're being constructive. At all. Selbstporträt (talk) 21:44, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Can you please stop making personal attacks and AGF. You're being needlessly snarky and aggressive. People are allowed to disagree with you. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:47, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Disagree with me all you want. Please stop gaslighting. Selbstporträt (talk) 22:02, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

It might be worth having a whole list of finalists instead of lists on different pages.

I split the whole of Bake Off finalists because, based on feedback, the list was getting long. Did you mean to imply that I should merge the lists back again? Also, lists of Star Wars characters were split into certain pages especially due to length. What's wrong with set index articles (of lists) or disambiguation pages using "list of X"?

BTW, the finalists list(s) themselves, like list of The Great British Bake Off finalists (series 1–7)... thoughts? George Ho (talk) 17:07, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Star War fans worked a lot on the lists they got, so I would defer to their editorial judgment. I like that tables are complemented with lists. That adds to the comprehensiveness of the pages.

Splits should be considered as last resort. That is, all the information is summarized as much as we could without breaking intelligibility. Readers don't read lists, they scan them. It's easier to search one list than many. Ideally, we would have one and only one list of GBBO finalists. The world isn't so ideal as to care about Wikipedia page size.

(One could argue that your split did not create two lists, but one, on many pages.)

In any event, at some point the page is getting too big. When that point is being reached is a judgment call. Most of the times lists can be made more compact and fit one page. Other times, like for dynamic lists, items keep being added.

Either way N applies. For everything worth noting it does. That's what "worth noting" means. Selbstporträt (talk) 17:25, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I originally intended to reply to your "last resort" part (unrelated to ArbCom itself), but reading the past discussions from 2014 and from 2020 has made me wonder whether splitting itself in general is worth re-discussing. Still, WP:splitting doesn't treat splitting itself as a "last resort" or something that could break "intelligibility", despite your "readers-first" approach. George Ho (talk) 19:37, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

You are referencing an information page that contains "size, notability and potential neutrality issues before proposing or carrying out a split". The size of a stand-alone list is related to how we summarize the information in a list, and MOS:LONGSEQ tells us to keep it "as short as possible". See also WP:SPLITLIST, which also explains why I say it's a last resort.

So first make it short, then consider a split.

The only split that matters here is between the two clauses I emphasized in my title. A comma is no better than a semi-colon: they're two unrelated clauses. One of them should go at the end of the section. Selbstporträt (talk) 20:17, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

You're discussing a sentence about (and beginning with) One accepted reason, aren't you? Let's not break the clauses apart please. Also, WP:SPLITLIST is... kinda vague about what defines and should define a "list", IMO. ...or rather MOS:LIST... unsure whether it mentions something like....

Look at Characters of Final Fantasy VII. Still probably a list, IMO, but it doesn't use "list of XY" format due to its structure and summarization of entries. Rather it's "Y of X". (Hopefully, I'm clear about X and Y, right?) BTW, characters of Final Fantasy is now a set index article.

On the other hand, look at list of Survivor (American TV series) contestants: very, very long with the table format, but there's not much incentive to split it up.... yet.

Just now, I changed from "list of The Great British Bake Off finalists" to "Finalists of The Great British Bake Off", hoping for consistency with "Y of X" especially on characters lists with extensive entries. George Ho (talk) 21:52, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I explicitly said "But fine: what's on the other hand?", right?

Here's what you find kinda vague:

Lists, tables, and other material that are already in summary form may not be appropriate for reducing or summarizing further by the summary style method. If there is no "natural" way to split or reduce a long list or table, it may be best to leave it intact, and a decision made to either keep it embedded in the main article or split it off into a stand-alone page.

What would you need to be clarified exactly? Selbstporträt (talk) 21:59, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Now I realized that I may have been discussing MOS:LIST as a whole, especially MOS:LIST#List styles, not just WP:SPLITLIST. Back to what you said, I just dunno whether WP:SPLITLIST applies to "Characters of X" articles (or "list of X characters"). If it does, then 'natural' way is open to broader, various, or subjective interpretations in regards to list of summarized/prose entries.

If you really think splitting up the GBBO finalists list isn't "natural" and that the list itself wasn't that "long", then please explain why. IMO, splitting up by BBC and Channel 4 seasons/series is "natural", and biographical entries of every winner and runner-up have made the list itself... kinda "long", no matter how you look at it. I can't help wonder whether you've read the finalists list (as a reader yourself). George Ho (talk) 22:16, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I won't adjudicate that specific case in a thread about 7 words from a sentence that should be rewritten.

As the quote shows, SPLITLIST applies to stand-alone lists. "Lists of X" are stand-alone lists. Why refuse the inference? There's nothing to gain from resisting it. The editorial process remains the same: find out if the list is too big; if so, find out why; if there's too much detail in it, cut that; if it needs to turn into a table, let's see if that preserves what is worth noting; etc. Only after that should we consider splits. At least in principle. That doesn't describe what keeps happening, which is more Brownian-like. Some effort gets lost. That's in the nature of the beast.

None of that is rule-based. Guidelines, policies, and principles are not algorithms that we can apply. They're norms that inform editors of how we do things. They may never replace editorial decisions.

Do as you see fit, and see what works. Selbstporträt (talk) 22:50, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

In re Guidelines, policies, and principles are not algorithms that we can apply. They're norms that inform editors of how we do things. They may never replace editorial decisions.

That depends on which bit we're talking about. Multiple guidelines, policies, and principles, such as WP:ELNEVER #2, are enforced automatically by software/algorithms. Editors are not allowed to make "editorial decisions" that intentionally violate certain rules (e.g., an editorial decision to have an article that violates NPOV: Editors may disagree over what constitutes a neutral article, but they are not allowed to decide that Version A complies with NPOV and Version B doesn't, but they have decided that Wikipedia shouldn't be neutral about this subject and therefore they post Version B). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:55, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Editorial decisions should indeed be framed within the confines of what's legal outside the website and authorized inside of it. I would not intend to caution scams, virus injections, or felonies, and was more thinking about editing decisions such as judging entry notability and splits.

Automation still keeps editors in the loop. There recently was an edge case about linking to an .xyz website. Editors (not me) came together and managed something reasonable. Besides the editorial part, there was a technical part involved too. Editors correct bot behavior all the time.

To keep lists as short as possible (but not shorter) is tried and true enough for our purpose. Not just here, but everywhere usability issues present themselves. It even works for diagrams, graphs, and everywhere involving whiteness or other presentation channels more generally. I don't need a WP: page to tell me how design works, I only need a WP: page to tell me and other editors that the Wiki is no exception.

"Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group" makes a lot of sense too. We may list rodents for the fun of it (it's a really big list!), our items can still be found somewhere in the world. Not in the sense that they are notable by themselves, but in the sense they're identified as rodents. When we list rodents, we want to make sure we list rodents qua rodents, were we to speak like the ancients.

We certainly could make norms about dynamic lists such as "List of X (N-M)" more explicit. Perhaps first we could try to make sure what we say about "List of X" is fine. For now, it's really not up to the task. Selbstporträt (talk) 00:38, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

One way to make NLIST clearer would be to say that if _____ (e.g., Rodent) is a notable subject, and _____ involves discrete instances (e.g., all the different types of rodents), then a List of _____ (e.g., List of rodents) is usually acceptable. A qualifier such as "usually" will be necessary because we don't actually want a single List of people, or even a single List of beetle species (since there are 1–2 million species of beetles). A clear statement about this might reduce the number of disputes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:52, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

That'd be one good way to clarify at least one meaning of "as a group". Worth a try at least. It could also replace the example we got, which isn't one.

We could replace "usually" with a ceteris paribus clause like "as long as all the other conditions for entry creation are met". Better, we could clarify beforehand that N (and by extension NLIST) is a necessary test for page creation, but is not sufficient. Once this is said and done, then there's no need to handwave to guidelines, policies or any "other considerations". We tell readers to go read SAL or any other relevant pages.

We should definitely distinguish N from page creation, for this confusion might be what bugs me about the sentence under discussion.

Looks like there is a List of beetles of Ireland and a List of beetle species of Great Britain. They are "of" lists, so presumably native to the territories covered by current countries. These titles express criteria that deserved some thought. Selbstporträt (talk) 06:27, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Any reference to "all the other conditions" will result in someone asking for a complete and authoritative list of all the other conditions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:29, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Someone could ask the same about the "other guidelines" to which we are alluding, and which are meant to tell us what would be an "appropriate" stand-alone list.

The SAL page covers a lot already. Hard to tell what would go beyond it, and why we would not be able to tell editors that edge cases can always be discussed or arbitrated. Selbstporträt (talk) 23:36, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

The OP text is a gold standard / high bar but per the wording not a requirement. The reality is guidelines give some thoughts but there really isn't a notability standard for lists. And the defacto standard is awfully loose. I think that criteria other than notability guidelines go into "notability" decisions. If we could acknowledge that some day I think we could tidy up some permanently messy areas. I think that degree of encyclopedicness / degree of compliance with wp:not and also degree of impact / importance go into nearly all "notability" decisions. I think that "degree of likely usefulness" would be a good one for lists. I.E. "is there a likelihood that someone would go to an enclyclopediato find this list? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:40, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Someone would go on the Wiki to find something if it meets N, at least insofar as encyclopedic content is concerned. There's nothing special about stand-alone lists on that matter.

That also applies to navigation lists, albeit indirectly. It would make little sense to have organization tools of non-existing stuff. That is, not fictional objects that are part of human culture and notable in some way, but something truly original. Selbstporträt (talk) 16:51, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

lists have always been treated as iffy with respect to notability, its why LISTN exists. There is not one single universal way that notability applies to list style articles, which is why its written in a very non assertive way, compared to the GNG. It is definitely not the case that the only way for lists yo.shpw notability is the list as a ehole shown notable, though that is the preferred approach. Masem (t) 16:56, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

"There is not one single universal way that notability applies to list style articles"

Yeah, that's what my "indirectly" was meant to echo. Navigation lists are said to include notable items, and so inherit it from these items. For stand-alone lists, that's not enough, as they're more than "front" and "back" matter, i.e. devices to orient the reader into the entries themselves. They must "stand alone", so to speak.

Here, the sentence (especially the second clause) is meant to clarify that "Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists and tables". How?

A simple reading of N tells me that the grouping itself needs to meet N. But the sentence that is supposed to clarify that is unclear as to what that implies. "Sometimes this" and "some other times" that does not tell us anything useful. More so that the "some other times" that does not even refer to reasons at all! Selbstporträt (talk) 17:10, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

because it never has been implied the grouping must be notable. For purposes of this discussion, navigation lists like for disambiguation are not covered by wp:n or listn. But we absolutely allow lists where the grouping may not be notable but there is some facets of notability, either the more specific topic the list extends, or individual elements on the list. Masem (t) 17:26, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Not only that the grouping must be notable has been implied, it has been said. Again:

Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists and tables. Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group.

It is really hard for me to understand why what I can read with own eyes is being denied.

I suppose it must come from some reading of "based on the group". What should that mean?

This is what the next sentence should clarify, not some vague waving that fizzles!

For it fizzles. SALAT starts is about the size and the scope of lists:

The potential for creating lists is infinite. The number of possible lists is limited only by our collective imagination. To keep the system of lists useful, we must limit the size and scope of lists.

What are these "other reasons" are we alluding to with "and other guidelines on appropriate stand-alone lists"? Consider:

(C1) We find a list notable because it's not too broad.

(C2) We find a list notable because it's not too specific.

That makes absolutely no sense at all!

If all we wanted to say is "we should respect size and scope", then we should definitely be more direct. And more importantly, we should say it in an independent sentence. Size and scope are "other guidelines", unrelated to notability! Selbstporträt (talk) 17:41, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Selbstporträt, what's special about lists is that that are something that is allowed to be an article but which has no operative notability requirement. North8000 (talk) 17:45, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

No need to characterize lists in general for now. Ideally we should ask set theorists. I do care about stand-alone lists, however. As for your specific question, there is NCC:

The criteria applied to the creation or retention of an article are not the same as those applied to the content inside it.

Which is another pet peeve of mind: people using N to exclude page elements! Selbstporträt (talk) 18:04, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

@Selbstporträt, you're expecting this to be logically tidy. It isn't. The community doesn't have a good shared understanding of when a list is suitable and when it's not. We don't always agree on what's a {{navigation list}} and what's a more article-like list, especially because an under-developed list with significant potential can look a lot like a navigation page. We don't agree on what it means for a subject to be discussed "as a group", even when we can find similar published lists. For example, Victims of the November 2015 Paris attacks was deleted, but Casualties of the 7 July 2005 London bombings was kept (it's since been redirected). Some editors think that the existence of similar lists in reliable sources means it's notable. Some say that it's enough to have non-list sources discussing the subject. Others even want meta-sources (reliable sources discussing the lists in other reliable sources). And then there's the problem of splitting off an embedded list from a regular article due to article size: This was good content for Wikipedia, but is the choice really proving its separate notability or deletion? Shouldn't there be a middle ground, in which the "List of books by Pam Prolific" isn't really a separate, stand-alone article, but is treated as a sort of physically separate subarticle?

We are inconsistent and divided. This is not a problem that can be solved this year, or necessarily even this decade. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

IMO a starting point for solving many dilemmas is acknowledging that "notability" is a decision process which includes criteria other than the notability guidelines, which purport to be only about GNG and predictors of GNG. This would allow those already-present other factors to be put into SNG's and would also allow a workable list SNG to be developed. North8000 (talk) 17:54, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I might be more cynical than you, WhatamIdoing, but I am still optimistic that we will be able to correct "and other guidelines on appropriate stand-alone lists" before the end of this year.

"One reason is...and other guidelines" makes little sense as is, more so when we click on the link. Selbstporträt (talk) 17:57, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Why doesn't it make sense to say "one reason is X" and "there are other guidelines covering this as well"? Those two statements aren't mutually exclusive. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:07, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Your third denial is duly noted. Selbstporträt (talk) 18:54, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Denial of what? voorts (talk/contributions) 20:53, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

That what I'm saying makes sense, basically.

Why should two clauses need to be mutually exclusive not to follow one another in a sentence, again? Selbstporträt (talk) 21:11, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

keep in.mind for kon list articles, notability is also not the only factor to allow a standalone article. An article topic failing NOT, NOR, or NPOV will be deleted even if GNG is met. This is the same for lists, just that WP:N has far less to say than other guidelines due to the difficulties in what is an acceptable list. Masem (t) 18:22, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

"N is not the only factor" would be a better way to phrase what is being said, yes. Yet "other guidelines" doesn't link to any other pillars. In fact it links to a very different kind of guideline. So if that's what we want to say, we should rather say that stand-alone pages need to abide all the other pillars, and link to 5.

However, the section is on notability of stand-alone lists, and the sentence starts by stating one "example" of one.

To drop logical notions like "incompatibility" after complaining about formalism is worth nothing. The issue isn't compatibility at all, but relevance. One does not simply mention "one reason" and then expect readers to get that there are not other reasons.

Related to N, that is.

Because that's how relevance works. Selbstporträt (talk) 19:02, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

there is a reason why notability remains a guideline, because it lacks the precision of policy, which is what you seem to be expecting here. Notability for normal stand alone topics is already finicky, it gets even more so for lists, which is why I dont think anyone responding here is overly concerned with the existing language. Masem (t) 19:10, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

That N is only a guideline isn't good enough for the edit I'm asking. As far as I'm concerned, we could delete the "one reason" if it's only an example. Alternatively, we could offer more examples.

The fact of the matter is that "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines, and other guidelines on appropriate stand-alone lists", now with a comma, makes no sense whatsoever.

These are two separate clauses. Dealing with two separate issues. If we insist in reminding editors that N is not the only consideration, then that should be done in the last paragraph of the section.

If discussing defensiveness is fair game, then I really am wondering who's being defensive right now. Selbstporträt (talk) 20:28, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

WAID above makes the appropriate point. There are too many examples to list and if we start enumerating some, it will get out of hand far too quickly. The one example, the list itself being notable, is well supported and likely will not be questioned at an AFD, but the other reasons are less iffy as to securing the presumption of notability that it doesn't make sense to present any of those. As long as we say that the GNG does not strictly apply to list articles, save for the case wehre the list can be shown to meet the GNG, that is far more than sufficient for the guideline. Masem (t) 16:46, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

As the guideline currently stands, there is no possible example that would go against it. There is not enough space between "notability of lists is based on the group" and "if it has been discussed as a group or set" to make any angel dance. If you disagree, produce a counter-example.

I tried, and could not. Not unless we distinguish two readings for "as a group", as we did when "per" appeared, in 2011. The "per" should go. We're not lawyers, and we can do better than to point at self-referential "guidelines" on a page we call a "guideline". To say that "Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists" is more than enough. We are already saying that. No need to repeat it.

Here could be one way to meet that specification:

−

Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists and tables. Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group. One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources per the above guidelines, and other guidelines on appropriate stand-alone lists.

+

Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists, whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs". Their notability is based on the group. Notability alone never suffices for a list to be created as a "stand alone" entry; as with articles, other considerations also apply.

This would distinguish conditions for N and conditions to create a page. It would bypass the need to mention a synthetic example that duplicates information we already have. It could include links to SAL. SAL should include everything we need to know about stand-alone lists. This is a page on N, and the section should be about notability for stand-alone lists. The conditions for creating stand-alone lists should go on SAL. Just as SAL should only borrow for its N section what we can read here, N should only borrow for its SAL section what we can read over there. Doing otherwise is why we end up saying different things on different pages.

This leaves open what is meant by "as a group". I'll let you decide which is which. Just like I will let you do whatever you please with what is to me a mere bug report. "Everybody" could live with a deprecated "32 KB" for more than 15 years. We sure can gloss over an incoherence that should not harm the encyclopedia. That is, until it does, like the "32 KB" that got 80% of a table destroyed because some well-meaning editor decided it made sense. Selbstporträt (talk) 20:34, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand the last sentence. North8000 (talk) 15:51, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Until last week, the Wikipedia:Common selection criteria had an outdated reference to "32 KB", which was page-size limit in web browsers about 20 years ago. It was removed after a discussion. We still need to figure out how to explain to people what a "short" (or at least short-ish) list means. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:54, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

There are editors who would rather keep that 32 KB limitation for fear that something might happen if that deprecated information disappeared from the page. So that other bug report will need to go into an RfC.

In this thread, I made two main points. The first is the sentence starts with "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable", and it ends with "other guidelines" that are content-related, so not N. The second is "if it has been discussed as a group or set" is equivalent "notability of lists is based on the group". In fact, what "one accepted reason" presupposes is contradicted by the sentence that precedes it. I'm repeating to remind everyone of the topic of the thread, but also to show I know how arguments work.

There has been a lot of feedback in this thread. So far, none has acknowledged what I came to report. There were various commentaries on notability in general and for lists, puzzles on orthogonal cases, expositions on commonplaces, personal remarks about how I should communicate. This dysfunctional process often leads to interesting exchanges. Yet the two points remain, as an open ticket. They don't disappear because editors prefer to focus on generalities or express concerns about specific wordings. I know that what I'm saying makes sense, even if in the end there's some yet-to-be-produced interpretation that I missed.

If we have no better way to deal with bug reports, then no wonder we're stuck with pages so old we rely on corporate memories to keep them alive. P&G is not something I care about enough to see me hanging around fifteen more years. I can return to conveying my editorial judgments without ever deferring to any WP-word at all. It's not hard. I know normal editing practices well enough to keep knights at an arms' distance, at least most of the times.

Since I've received several notes about how to do things with words, allow me to reciprocate. When someone tells you that what you said is contradicted by textual evidence, the response should not be to discuss another topic. It is more than annoying: in other settings, it can constitute misconduct. More so when that evidence is "snow is white" and is meant to support that snow is white. Agree, disagree, say something. Selbstporträt (talk) 18:48, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

One of these things is not like the other:

• You: "content-related, so not N".
• WP:N: "Editors may use their discretion" – including when their discretion is based on content.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Editors can at their discretion rather decide "to merge or group two or more related topics".

However, they must comply with content policies, or at least try:

The primary purpose of these standards is to ensure that editors create articles that comply with major content policies.

Right from the start, GNG's (2) tells us NOT must be met too. That doesn't imply NOT is N or a guideline. Dependency goes the other way:

Should any inconsistency arise between this guideline and the content policies, the policies take precedence.

We could say our guidelines are connected to our policies, or heuristics that guide our editorial line. We say N is a "test", but it only establishes presumption of merit. Yet once a page is deemed NOT, it's not far from being a done deal. Should we say that N could sometimes be dispositive? I'd rather say it (and policies in general) makes judgment more expeditive in the aggregate.

We wouldn't normally accept a properly sized list reliably discussed as a group that doesn't meet NOT or any other policy, be it for content or else. You might wish to be able to defend it with IAR once or twice, but I doubt it would survive long. Are there examples of pages that go against policies that survived AfDs more than say two times?

Your earlier example of beetles illustrate these abstractions more vividly and without any of the abovementioned fuss: there are 400K known species, with 1-2M known unknowns. We have not created a list of beetles, among other things because size matters! Your rule of thumb could also be a good addition: if X is notable, chances are that the list of X is too. Could be one way to make that "List of Xs or Xs" phrase do more work. Selbstporträt (talk) 21:44, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

If you want the canonical example of repeated IAR list retention that would be List of common misconceptions, with no less than six unsuccessful AFDs, and counting.

The reason those mega-lists don't exist is because surprising though it may seem common sense largely prevails.

I haven't reviewed the discussion thoroughly, but keep in mind that PAGs are largely descriptive rather than prescriptive. ~2026-34922-84 (talk) 05:38, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try to find back these AfDs. I did look at their selection criteria earlier this year, for an essay I'm currently writing. You might note that these lists explicitly state on their talk pages:

The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception.

This is the minimal sense that conveys "as a group". It is the meaning we should emphasize. As long as this is not done, we'll have more questions than needed about why we don't see our lists elsewhere. (I speak from AfDs experience.) That this misunderstanding has not been covered so far is on those who steward this page and others like it.

Bear in mind that there's no dichotomy between prescription and description. When a tailor tells you "we usually wear a three-piece for this kind of occasion", it's not pure description of human affairs. Editors read this page for guidance, not sheer curiosity. At least these are the readers we're trying to reach.

The same tailor might tell you "one choice I often make is to wear a three-piece suit with light colors and a classical fit", with the justification that "the various types of suits are per this document; colors and fit in that document". That tailor wouldn't tell you the choice of a three-piece suit is because of various documents, including one just about colors and fit. Tailors know that colors and fit also matter: it's part of the deal.

Tailors who master etiquette well enough not to be too rigid about it would also know they're supposed to help those who may not know about dress code at all, and they're in a sale pitch. They'd drop the "per". There are times for formal speech; this is not one of them.

IAR only leads to paradox when read rigidly. As editors, we have the agency to reinterpret policies and guidelines. Once reinterpretations kick in, P&G status changed so that what has been done in the name of IAR is now part of P&G. Selbstporträt (talk) 15:24, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

You can start with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of common misconceptions (6th nomination) and work backwards. The notice on Talk:List of common misconceptions has indicated for considerably over a decade that there is no single agreed upon inclusion criteria, yet the community has consistently decided to IAR to retain it anyway thought not everyone likes to frame it that way, so here we are. And why not? This is a wiki after all, in the end consensus can do whatever it wants.

The very fact that PAGs evolved from documentation means they hold much hard-earned wisdom, and it would be foolish not to take advantage of that. Still it would be wrong-headed to think one could simply reduce everything to algorithm or remove the element of human judgement much to the chagrin of many of the holders of various philosophies around deletion. The principles documented by PAGs have broad applicability, and therefore necessarily contain tensions both externally and internally. So when rubber meets road circumstance specific discussions are going to be needed to put principles into practice. Sometimes wisdom may counsel direct contravention of core content policies, rare but it happens. If a particular coincidence of circumstance occurs often enough it may be worth documenting, but care is needed to avoid bloat.

Embrace a bit of untidiness, on a wiki it's inevitable anyway, for better and for worse. ~2026-34947-78 (talk) 16:54, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

The "hard-earned wisdom", in our case, is a sentence that serves no real function except to conceal more than to clarify anything.

Lectures about the history of Metapedia are always welcome, including by number accounts. If you have any other, please feel free to share. Selbstporträt (talk) 18:37, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

I took a cursory look. As I see it, this page isn't an example of the community going IAR against its own P&G. It's more a case of NOT hasn't won.

The 2nd AfD is the best one, and there's a quote I like:

If there's consensus to not apply a policy, it's the consensus that's correct, not the policy.

Its author then went and corrected the problematic bit from NOT. This is in line to what I just said, and how I see things generally.

The other bit I like is the idea that encyclopedic value is determined by the context provided, and would add: not by any characteristic of the items. That echoes the idea of comprehensiveness I emphasize in the essay I cited in a previous comment.

Questions surrounding NOT will always remain with us, and too much of them will persist as long as we don't develop a more constructive interpretation of what is an encyclopedia. Selbstporträt (talk) 23:18, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Notability of National Geographic Bees

I am not seeing the notability of any entries in this template: Template:National Geographic Bee. I certainly can't see why they would be more notable than individual International Mathematical Olympiads, none of which have articles. Does anyone disagree? Melozone crissalis (talk) 19:53, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

I have the same opinion about the Template:Scripps National Spelling Bee entries. Melozone crissalis (talk) 19:57, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

The contests themselves were events and, IMO, should be subject to WP:NEVENTS, like WP:EVENTCRIT. Also, contestants themselves are perhaps subject to WP:BIO1E or WP:BLP1E. There must be secondary sources verifying notabilities of individual annual contests, like ones you brought up. ...Right? (Unsure whether this secondary source verifies notability of one contest.) Oh, and WP:NOTSTAT might be... more lenient on list of contestants participating in those past contests. George Ho (talk) 22:04, 13 June 2026 (UTC)