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RfC: Should Misplaced Pages:Notability (criminal acts) be merged with Misplaced Pages:Notability (events) and Misplaced Pages:Notability (people)?

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Misplaced Pages:Notability (criminal acts) is currently a notability guideline that touches upon the notability of 1) criminal acts and 2) people who are either the victim or a perpetrator of a criminal act. As an option to help alleviate a bit of redundancy within the growing number of notability guidelines, I am wondering if there is any support or opposition to merging the first section of that guideline with Misplaced Pages:Notability (events) and the second part to an appropriate subsection within Misplaced Pages:Notability (people). Location (talk) 06:03, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• I noticed this issue when we wrote WP:EVENT as the criminal acts guideline preceded it, but I felt it was better to get on with establishing the new guideline than trying to merge that one in too at the time. Thanks for raising this. I think a split and merge of this guideline as appropriate is a good idea. WP:PERP and WP:VICTIM are special cases of WP:BLP1E. Fences&Windows 23:10, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

• I had not seen this guideline before - and find it extraordinarily malleable. If it remains extant, it should be written with far more definitive language than it presently has, and thus is really unsuitable, as is, for merger into anything much at all. Collect (talk) 01:08, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

• Probably a good idea to combat CREEP. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:30, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

• Less guides is more better. --Jayron32 04:59, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

• Appears to be a good idea for making the guidelines less scattered. Now if we could just get people to stop creating articles about nonnotable murders and such. (Disclosure: I'm responding to a message the proposer of this RfC left on my talk page.) Deor (talk) 16:42, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. I personally think that Misplaced Pages:Notability (criminal acts) should be kept as is. The logic behind the policy and its appropriate interpretation is best understood when looking at both an event and the people involved in it. For example, a particular criminal event might be notable but not necessarily the individual people involved in that event. A splitting of the policy to different pages will make its subtleties less clear and less effective. A better solution would be to add a link to the policy on other pages.4meter4 (talk) 00:22, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. I think it would be best if Misplaced Pages:Notability (criminal acts) had it's title changed to Notoriety, and all pages left separate, since the pages aren't really all that close in topic. ☥United Accusations☥ (talk) 01:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Could you expound on the above? I don't understand why you think Misplaced Pages:Notability (criminal acts) should be renamed WP:Notoriety. I also don't understand what you mean by "the pages aren't really all that close in topic". The reason for moving the perpetrators and victims sections to Misplaced Pages:Notability (people) is to consolidate biography notability guidelines in one place, and the reason for moving the criminal acts section to Misplaced Pages:Notability (events) is to consolidate event-related guidelines in one place. None of this would directly make criminal events or criminal biographies more or less restrictive, but it would bring them in line with other events and biographical guidelines, as well as addressing concerns of WP:CREEP and Misplaced Pages:Recentism (since Misplaced Pages:Notability (events) specifically refers to recentism. The shortcuts to WP:PERP and WP:VICTIM would not disappear either; they would just redirect to their new places.Location (talk) 03:52, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

• Merge Criminal Acts to Events but not People A criminal act is a type of event. It is worth noting I made this suggestion before. However, a guideline for people should not be made common, because there are all different reasons why people are notable or not, and very often, this has nothing to do with any specific events. Sebwite (talk) 01:21, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
  • But there's specific advice about people related to criminal acts (or alleged criminal acts), such as being cautious about writing bios of people accused of a crime. Shouldn't that advice be retained somewhere? Fences&Windows 13:37, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

• Comment As it currently reads, this guideline duplicates what is said on the other 2 pages Fences and windows references. Further, it doesn't even address the one factor that affects the notability of crimes: notable crimes is a recent phenomenon. Prior to the last few centuries ago, there are few criminal actions notable enough to merit historical attention by themselves. Although this is off the top of my head, after some serious thought I can only think of two notable crimes -- as in single instances of an act -- which occurred before 1750: (1) Cain's murder of Abel, & (2) the murder of a patrician by his slave in the middle of an argument during the reign of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. (Every other possible example I thought of can be considered as a military or political event.) Now the first is adequately covered in the article on the two legendary personages, & doesn't need its own stand-alone article. As for the second, it is notable because of an old Roman law which stated that in the case of a master being killed by one of his slaves, all of his slaves must be put to death -- a requirement which shocked contemporary Rome in this case, & I believe this crime led to the relevant law being revoked or amended. (It was made with the assumption that any slave who killed his master acted with either the help or collusion of his fellow slaves.) Returning to my point, the notability of crimes need to be evaluated not only against coverage in secondary sources, but also against the policy at Misplaced Pages:Recentism -- something this policy fails to even consider. -- llywrch (talk) 15:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support as Misplaced Pages:Notability (criminal acts) is a slightly woolly guideline and was in need of a rewrite in any case. I recommend that Llywrch look out for "The Highwayman's case" (Everet v. Williams, Ex. 1725, 9 L.Q. Rev. 197) to add to his collection. I am surprised an article has not been written about it already, as I would think it would make a good DYK article. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 23:05, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

This guideline is harmfull and doesnt reflect concensus of the wider community

Again and again this guideline is used to justify the deletion of popular articles that the majority of editors want to keep, such as had just happened at Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Baxter_Building. Its claimned that this guideline has global concensus. But is that really true? Surely its more accurate to say this guideline reflects the concensus of a small group of very articulate editors who seem to permanently camp here to keep it locked down. Granted theres a requirment for significant coverage in reliable and indpendent secondary sources when it comes to high impact real world topics like BLPs, religion, politics etc. But no coherent case seems to exist for applying the same rigor to harmless topics such as articles on fictional characters or locations. FeydHuxtable (talk) 21:29, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Notability and the goal for encyclopedic coverage through secondary sources needs to be enforced for all topics, otherwise we get what WP was like when the project first started - a heck of a lot of articles with no chance for improvement. Furthermore, the last RFC affirmed that notability has community support for being a guideline, so its not some small group that's maintaining it. --MASEM (t) 21:35, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

There is admitedly some support beyond the regulars on this page. Regretably the last RfC was degraded from being a centralised discussion only hours after it was started, so we didnt get the wide participation neeeded to affirm whether this guideline really does have global support. FeydHuxtable (talk) 21:39, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

What was the last RfC? I don't recall such a thing, though I can't imagine I'd have missed it. For the record, I think WP:N does have consensous. I just wish that closers would treat it a bit more like a guideline than a law (though in this case the only fault I can find is that a redirect and merge might have been a good idea. Still might be. Hobit (talk) 22:21, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

It wasnt formally an RFC, but a village pump discussion and breifly a centralised discussion to. I dont know how to link to archives but you can see if from this diff. Apologies if Masem is talking about a different discussion. FeydHuxtable (talk) 22:40, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

This one. --MASEM (t) 22:59, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I think FeydHuxtable knows that Misplaced Pages is not able to function without this guideline, as the only other criteria for the inclusion of topics as standalone articles is subjective importance, which is open to abuse, particularly from editors pushing their own personal agenda, such self-promotion and spam. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 23:48, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

You attempted to downgrade WP:N to an essay back in April and it was the overwhelming consensus of the Misplaced Pages community that it is useful, necessary and should remain a guideline. Railing bitterly against it just because an AfD hasn't gone the way you wanted is unhelpful and a waste of everyone's time. Reyk _YO! 00:06, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

It might be time to have another look at WP:N via an RfC(it's been a while since the one Masem linked to), but I honestly suspect that could backfire. Hobit (talk) 03:01, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Notability is purely subjective, and it militates against Misplaced Pages being the comprehensive and inexhaustible encyclopedia of our day and age as Aristotle was in the Gothic period of the Middle Ages. It should never be used as the exclusive cause of deletion. I am of the persuasion that it should be removed from being a guideline in that all its provisions are contained in present guidlines. Notability=censorship--Drboisclair (talk) 03:10, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Notability is far from censorship, and should never be considered that. As below describes, it is meant to determine when a topic should have a standalone article. If it's not notable, it still can be mentioned in a larger topic (barring BLP issues). --MASEM (t) 03:31, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Then it should not be deleted because someone thinks that it is not "notable"; it should be merged with another article.--Drboisclair (talk) 03:33, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

03:10, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Notability is a bastion that keeps Misplaced Pages from being a gigantic dumping ground for an unbounded amount of unencyclopedic and inappropriate content and its lack would destroy any ability to ever be the comprehensive encyclopedia of our day and age. Notability=appropriate restraint on chaos.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:36, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

So long as it is not a stalking-horse for deleting willy nilly whatever one wants because it does not suit one. Even the subjective tastes of a sizable majority should not weigh against legitimate, sourced, verified data. One also has to reckon with the possible conflict with WP:NPOV--Drboisclair (talk) 03:50, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Censorship refers to content and WP:N is not a content policy. WP:N is the criteria for Misplaced Pages editors to arrive at a consensus for what should be a stand-alone article. Notability, the term of art to describe inclusion criteria, is partially objective and partially subjective: The objective part refers to the biggest, smallest, highest, lowest, first, last, etc. and the subjective part refers to an editor or editor's direct judgment alone or one supported by secondary sources that some person or topic should have a stand-alone article. patsw (talk) 18:21, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Bound WP:N's scope as a reason for deletion (consider merge before AfD)

One thing that doesn't seem to come through clear enough is that WP:N is only about whether there should be a stand-alone article on the topic. It does not say that any material should be deleted, if there is a plausible merge, or even just redirect target. See Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Abbediengveien for an example.

The text, and a section title, does say " not directly limit the content of articles", but it is not very prominent. The Nutshell "A topic is deemed appropriate for inclusion" has already, prominently, implied that WP:N is a reason for deletion. WP:DEL also is very suggestive that WP:N is a deletion reason.

I'm thinking that the language of WP:N should be more explicit regarding it's scope.

I suggest changing the Nutshell "A topic is deemed appropriate for inclusion" to "A topic is deemed appropriate for a stand-alone article". I also suggest adding to the lede text: "If a topic fails to meet the General notability guideline, consider turning the page into a useful redirect or proposing it be merged before prodding or listing at AfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:15, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't object to making the nutshell say something like "A topic is normally given a stand-alone article if..." There are certainly many topics that meet the standard criteria and still are better handled as part of a larger article.

I support I'm not sure that expanding the lead is necessary, although I wish that more people were aware of what this guideline says in the WP:FAILN section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:21, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps if this is the goal of "notability" it should be given a different name, and articles should not be summarily deleted but merged into more general articles of the same subject matter. I can see questioning whether an article can stand on its own, but then it should not be crassly deleted.--Drboisclair (talk) 03:28, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree about that change - we're only focused on when topics deserve stand-alone articles; failing notability doesn't meant the topic can't be included. There is probably a better word for notability than what we have now, but its going to be impossible to change that. --MASEM (t) 03:33, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't such a process potentially leave us with a number of unpleasantly large articles? Plus, what about when there is no "larger article?" For example, if an article on a musical artist is declared non-notable, what do you article to you merge that article to? Do we create an article titled "Non-notable musicians" that runs into the tens of thousands of kilobytes? Qwyrxian (talk) 03:35, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

At some point, we need to realize if a topic is non-notable and not tied to any larger topic, we can't keep it around. We merge as much as we can, but there's just a point where we have to drop a non-notable topic. The logic, if we had to keep all topics ever included, means that we'd have articles on pretty much every person that wanted to make an article on WP about themselves, or businesses, or garage bands, or .. etc. We are not indiscriminate about what we can include, but whenever we can , we can merge upward. As to size, that's what WP:SIZE and Summary style is for, to determine if a topic grows overly large for an article, with all the elemsents merged upwards, how to break it out to multiple articles. --MASEM (t) 03:39, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Then you are reneging on the scope of "Notability." I am grateful, though, that everyone sees the danger of the misuse of this guideline. There is probably more consensus on pursuing the right course in this ongoing debate.--Drboisclair (talk) 03:45, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not true. Notability's purpose is only to determine if we give a topic its own article. Everything else: merging, summary style, determining when a topic is indiscriminate, etc. as aspects of larger policy as relating to the work's mission, WP:V, WP:OR, WP:NPOV, and accessibility. --MASEM (t) 03:52, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The misuse of this guideline primarily comes from those who demand the merging of non-notable items as a tool to abolishing the project's inclusion standard altogether. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:30, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. Can you point to examples, or other evidence? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Dark Angels (Warhammer 40,000)#Section break: Dark Angels is a good example, but I think to have a real feel for it you'd have to have been involved in the AfDs around that subject at the time. I haven't really the heart to go looking for better examples, sorry. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:45, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that's way far fetched of a claim; first, merging of many topics into one has very little harm on the work since those topics are still covered. Secondly, if merge is the ultimate goal, AFD is absolutely the wrong venue for it (despite attempts to make it otherwise AFDiscussion and not AFDeletion). If someone was using it that way, the community would likely call them out (See: TTN). --MASEM (t) 13:28, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

To second Masem's point, the results of an AfD are often "merge and redirect," but this results (or should result) when the arguments for deletion prevail but there is still valuable content to be salvaged for another article. It is not (should not be) the nominator's intended result in the first place. I have to say that I think the system works pretty well. RJC _Contribs 14:59, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Relationship with more specialized notability guidelines

I tend to think in structure. I'm going to ask a question which I don't think that there is an answer to, but which I think is big. That is, with respect to an article meeting notability guidelines, what is the relationship between the (wp:gng) guideline and the more specialized notability guidlines, and, for writing brevity/clarity only, I'll randomly pick and use one of them as an example: wp:academics. Is it:

1. The criteria for BOTH of them must be met. That would mean that wp:academics establishes additional requirements that must be met beyond meeting wp:gng, and visa-versa
2. That wp:academics merely helps interpret wp:gng, i.e. is subordinate to it. I.E. passing or failing wp:academics on its own is irrelevant.
3. That wp:academics provides a second way to meet notability. So, if wp:academics is met, it need not meet wp:gng, and visa-versa
4. When a more specialized standard (such as wp:academics) exists, it takes the place of the more general wp:gng. So, only wp:academics matters, passing or failing wp:gng is irrelevant

Again, wp:academics was a random choice for wording simplicity, my question is about the general relationship between wp:gng and any more specialized wp notability guideline.

And, I don't think that the usual answer of consensus works, here, because AFD's are decided by an individual admin, often on the basis of interpreting the notability guidelines. Again, there may not be an answer to this. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:58, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

The usual way this is taken is your third option, where the specialized guideline provides an alternate way to meet notability in addition to using the GNG. Some guidelines are written more towards #1, where they require more than the GNG, but most are not like this. --MASEM (t) 20:25, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Number 3, with the caveat that editors at AFD can demand compliance with whichever standard they choose, not whichever is easiest to meet. For example, you could have a BLP that nominally meets WP:ATH, and an editor could still argue (successfully) for its deletion on the grounds that there really isn't any significant coverage in secondary sources (language from WP:GNG). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:45, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! North8000 (talk) 12:00, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

The second opinion is correct, because if a topic fails WP:N, then it has not been truely noted. The reason is simple: the general notability guideline provides a comprehensive definition what notability is, whereas the SNG's don't, as they are more focused on how notability applies to their specific subject matter.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:18, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Something can be noted without having significant coverage in secondary sources; coverage comes as a result of notability but is not an assured outcome. --MASEM (t) 19:34, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, no: notability means nothing but coverage. "That which is noted". What the secondary guidelines do is imply that a subject meets the GNG because we've established that certain classes of subject generally receive significant coverage in reliable sources regardless of what the exact subject is (for instance, all music singles which have charted). The secondary guidelines mean that we don't limit creation of articles on schools, songs and such to people who have access to the specialist or local sources which provide the significant coverage needed to demonstrate notability, instead relying on the implied GNG pass conferred by the sub-guideline while those sources are found. In the long run, any article on a notable subject should be able to show through the inclusion of reliable secondary sources that it passes the GNG without consideration to the secondary guidelines. This isn't accurately expressed though any of the four options provided. A better one would be:

5. The criteria for the GNG must be met. However, articles which pass wp:academics should not be deleted for failing the GNG as wp:academics has been designed such that any subject which passes wp:academics is implied to pass the GNG due to the existence of reliable sources which cover anything that wp:academics is applicable to. It's just a case of finding them.

Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:20, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

When reading wp:gng again in trying to respond, (with the thought of saying that my 4 cover all possibilities and that Chris's #5 would fall under one of them) I think I found the answer in the sentence: "A topic can also be considered notable if it meets the criteria outlined in any of the subject-specific guidelines listed on the right." And so I think that wp:gng says that it is #3. And so IF (and a big IF) wp:gng is considered to be the highest authority on this topic, then it is #3. I think that Chris's statement includes a sidebar statement that says that the specialized guidelines are written such that something that meets them will almost certainly meet wp:gng, but I would consider that to be a sidebar observation rather than operational instructions. I am just going by the structural aspects of the statements, I do not have experience or expertise in the area of Misplaced Pages notability. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:47, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Notability is "something that is noted", but being noted does equate exactly to "documented" which is what the GNG rests on. Notability is something that falls out from the wisdom of the crowds, and that can be both through what is certainly the most common way, documentation and sourcing, but can also be extracted from word-of-mouth passing. Everyone "knows" about that speed trap on 4th and Main, but no one is going out of their way to write it down.

The GNG is "great" for WP because it captures most of the "notable" topics when they have been documented, and also provides a good alignment of sources for meeting WP:V, OR, and NPOV. But it needs to be realized that the reason WP:N remains a guideline is that the GNG may get 99.9% of the body of notable topics, but fails to capture that last 0.1% that result from other means of being an undocumented but notable topic. Of course, w/o third party sources, a topic shouldn't be included at all (WP:V) so we're not talking urban legends or the like that have no foundation to write an article about. But topics can be notable but simply lack secondary coverage per the GNG. When that occurs is partially listed in the SNGs, and partially based on consensus at AFDs, but there's no way of writing down the how and when to encompass all possible cases.

So back to the point, the SNGs are written in a way as to try to include assuredly "notable" topics of that field based ont he wisdom of the masses that have a near guaranteed likelihood of meeting the GNG given enough time for sources to develop. (I want to make sure this is quite different than being a crystal ball and presuming a presently non-"notable" topic (there is no wisdom of the crowd knowledge of the topic) will eventually because notable and have sources appear - "I'm sure my garage band will make it in 15 years, just you wait!") Sometimes, those criteria may be wrong and after enough time, we should be free to consider merging or deletion of a notable topic that gains no significant sourcing, but the criteria in the SNGs should have been vetted that the frequency where this occurs is very very small. So this is still within the #3 point above - the SNGs provide an alternate means of showing notability, but we do expect that to eventually become documented notability and meet the GNG in time, with a heaping dash of common sense where needed. --MASEM (t) 12:55, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you to everybody. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:45, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

For each of the individual special guidelines, we can define how it relates to the general guideline, though usually we say its an alternative--we make the rules, and we can make whatever relationship between them we please. But the GNG is in my opinion the roughest of approximate guides, its a crude measure which we should get away from as much as we can, not the goal to which we should aspire. It leads to the perennial confusions of WP:V with WP:N. WP:N can be more or less than the g GNG guideline. I'm not actually all that much concerned with the topics that it leaves out, because I or any careful researcher who knows the subject can in most fields generally find two adequate sources for almost anything that would fit the other guidelines, though it can sometimes take a while. I'm more concerned as with the ones it will increasingly include. We've been using special rules for some of them, such as ONE EVENT and the various provisions of NOT, but this is going at it backwards, it';s saying basically include everything, unless there's some reason not to--a reason which bears no necessary relation to notability. Increasingly, the coverage of Google Books and Google News archive will provide sufficient sources to meet the GNG for millions of people and millions of books and other media who we would not ordinarily consider notable. I could probably meet the GNG for every building and every street in Manhattan, but we would not therefore include them, but find some sort of reason for not doing so. I could find such for most assistant professors at major universities, though they almost none of them meet the specialized more appropriate guideline of WP:PROF. We should define specific criteria which mean something for what we want to include, not rely on the accident of what people working here can routinely happen to find sources for. We can work with this guideline: we've gotten I think rather skilled at arguing for or against the sort of articles we do and do not want to include, but it would be much clearer to base our coverage on the importance of the subject, and refer not as much to articles being in or out, but to the extent of coverage, whether in a list, combination article, full article, or group of articles. DGG ( talk ) 23:55, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that there is a complex interplay of numerous factors.

• There probably needs to be an additional factor taken into consideration along with notability, and that is the degree to which the subject inherently has, or the article is likely to end up containing encyclopedic type information (sought under that subject) that is interesting or useful. I think that we all tend to intuitively "feel" that criteria, and try to implement it under the topic of notability even if it isn't truly a notability criteria.
• Misplaced Pages often uses publishing/sourcing as a practical, imperfect definition / arbiter for factors (outside of the core one of wp:ver) which are more complex, because it would be too difficult to develop and apply policies that are more targeted.
• I think that the subject areas where there is more of a likelihood of an article being put in as self-promotion, promotion for commercial reasons etc. get a lot more coverage in guidelines and a lot more scrutiny for deletion on a notability basis. If you put in a stub article on a sea slug that nobody has heard of, with no sources given, it is not going get taken out on notability grounds. If you did than about a professor, band, commercial product, it would get whacked. This double standard serves us well 3/4 of the time and misfires the other 1/4 of the time.
• Deletion of an article is the most "nuclear" of all options regarding articles, and, for most articles, the only available way to delete an entire article is notability. Now, couple this with the fact that despite this being the most nuclear of all options, it is also one of the few actions in Misplaced Pages that is decided by one person (the closing admin, and often one who hasn't been involved and due to time limitations may not be able learn it thoroughly). This gives notability a unique place where there is wiki-warfare going on.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:41, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

If a street in Manhattan has significant non-trivial coverage in reliable secondary sources then it deserves an article. The whole problem with the line of thought which says that some things which have reliable secondary coverage still fail the GNG is the result of bad-faith attempts to treat trivial, primary, or otherwise insufficient coverage as sufficient to establish notability. Were people to stop doing that, you'd quickly find that this was far less confusing than it's made out to be. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:25, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

We have no bright line on what counts as sufficient coverage according to the GNG. That's why notability is so fought over. It'd be so much easier if we just drew up a list of accepted reliable sources and counted the words/column inches a topic has received, awarding it with the badge of notability if it reached above a certain threshold... Fences&Windows 00:14, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

That's seriously a bad idea. First, the number of possible sources is effectively infinite for WP's purposes; there's no point in trying to quantify that. Second, it would put a lot of excess weight on topics that are simply duplicated across a number of sources without additional analysis over those that only are published once or twice with significant analysis. Third and most importantly, reliance on sources as the only way to judge notable topics fails to consider common sense ideas about inclusion, which is what the SNGs rely on. Notability is always going to be a subjective measure despite what people want to try to do to make it objective. --MASEM (t) 01:04, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Its a good idea, because what is common sense to one editor may make no sense to another. I agree with Chris, for this guideline is very clear what constitutes significant coverage, and why it is important to writing articles. We don't need to have article based on low quality content: trivia, mentions in passing and advertising. The threshold is very simple: if there is enough encyclopedic coverage to write an article about a topic, then Misplaced Pages can have an article about it. And if editors can't agree what is encyclopedic, then we look to significant coverage from reliable sources for guidance - that is the way Misplaced Pages works. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 01:33, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I was being facetious. Fences&Windows 20:05, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Its a town jim but not as we know it

Not sure if this is the right place. But what are the notability requirments for settlements?Slatersteven (talk) 17:08, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Notability (populated places) failed to gain community consensus, so there isn't a separate page for it. The general notability guideline applies. RJC _Contribs 17:58, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

No, the GNG does not apply. It is a long-accepted convention that populated settlements are notable, see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#Geography and astronomy. If you tried to delete a verifiable populated settlement, you'd get nowhere. The logic behind this is that if a settlement exists, people will have written about it. Fences&Windows 00:26, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

That is not true. There is not policy that says settlements are exempt from WP:N: that would be an example of WP:ITSLOCAL, which is an entirely discredited argument. There is no such convention, official or otherwise. They have to be notable, like everything else in Misplaced Pages. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 01:02, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Thi9s was promted by the idea that tghere are steelements so isolated and remote that it is difficult finding information about them.Slatersteven (talk) 13:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

There are contradictions above. What sort of verification would exist for a settlement so isolated and so remote that it would be difficult to find information about it? An editor wanting to create an article must deal with the difficulty of finding verifiable information about what they are writing about. patsw (talk) 20:43, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

"There is not policy that says settlements are exempt from WP:N." I didn't say there was a policy, I said it was a convention (and WP:N is just a guideline, remember?). This convention may clash with your single-minded obsession with notability, but it's true: it is almost impossible to get an article about a verified human settlement deleted. If we can't even verify its existence then that's another matter, and small areas within larger settlements also don't get a free pass. Fences&Windows 20:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

A convention, what is that? Is that a type of unwritten policy or guideline known only to a select number of editors? I have not heard of such of thing. I thought that there nearest thing we have to convention is WP:ITSLOCAL, which actually debunks this notion. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 20:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm curious, what's the value to a reader of having a stand-alone Misplaced Pages article (as opposed to a mere listing in an article) of a settlement whose existence can be technically verified as a dot on a map, or an entry in an official listing of settlements, and yet, for which the editors cannot find any content which conforms to WP:RS? I will answer my own question: such an article would be deleted under WP:INDISCRIMINATE (which is part of policy WP:NOT). patsw (talk) 01:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

If someone writes an article about a settlement so obscure that there is nothing to verify its existence, the article will be deleted, but that will be due to the article failing WP:V requirements, and not anything to do with notability guidelines. People will not vote to keep stuff which are hoaxes. However, verifiable articles about any settlement of small village size or above are invariably kept at AFD, usually unanimously. (Isolated farms are generally not kept.) The settlement's presence in census tallies is generally sufficient for it to be kept. While there has been dissent from this practice on various notability discussions, I do not know of any examples of good faith articles on verifiable settlements being deleted, even if they are very obscure. There is some difference of opinion as to why that is the case (one user held that this is the case because Misplaced Pages contains some functions of being a gazetteer, others are of the opinion than settlements are notable per se and are bound to be sourcable, my opinion is that covering details of human geography is such a core part of an encyclopedia's purpose that deleting towns and villages runs directly counter to that purpose). Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I can see both sides of the argument, but the problem with a "conventition" that makes settlments an exception to WP:N is that it is open to abuse: it would not be difficult to create a barebone list on a website and link it to Misplaced Pages in order to earn advertising revenue. To some extent, this is already happening with books, which have been linked to the Worldcat website in the last year. Books with little notability, such as Amber and Ashes get an OCLC link to a catalogue entry, and Worldcat get advertising income from the listing of retailers who stock the book. Its not overt abuse of WP:SPAM, but it does weaken Misplaced Pages's claim to be independent of commercial influences. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

To the "every settlement ought to have a stand-alone article"-inclusionists, is it your position that a verified settlement -- according an official listing whose entire content is "Nanoville, pop. 1" -- should have a stand-alone article reading "Nanoville, pop. 1 (according to source)"? If not, then what's the threshold for content for a stub? patsw (talk) 14:05, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

It is very rare that you can only find the settlement's population without having some basic information on location; at the very least, the country where it is. "Nanoville is a settlement in Yinia with a population of 1 according to the 2005 census." is less ridiculous than the sentence fragment you mention. There are places with a population of 1 which are notable, I wrote one of those articles!. Note that "settlement" here refers to an entity which is recognized as a settlement by the authorities, (or in some cases by convention); local neighborhoods outlined by property developers do not qualify as settlements, are often held to higher WP:N-style notability standards, and deleted if they don't meet them. The fact that verifiable settlements are routinely kept does not mean there will be an article for every dot on a small-scale map, as many of those dots indicate isolated farms, which are generally not considered any more notable than local streets. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:35, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The question is not "Are cases like Nanoville rare?" but "Should Nanoville have article reading in full: "Nanoville, pop. 1 (according to source)"? Can anyone articulate why Vibrandsøy should have an article in the Misplaced Pages and Nanoville should not? patsw (talk) 16:14, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Forgive me but what is notable about that settlement?Slatersteven (talk) 15:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The fact that ten separate sources wrote about it. The basic rule, after all, is that if sources write about it, it's probably notable (even if you think it's unimportant), and if they don't, it's probably not (even if you think it is). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

But this is not a seperate settlement, but part of a larger municliply (I also not that many of the source do not appear to be indepemdant of the local, with at least one being a sales brochour).Slatersteven (talk) 12:31, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

GNG nominally requires the existence of just two sources. If there are ten separate sources already cited in the article (not merely existing, but actually named) -- or nine, if we correctly exclude the sales brochure -- then it probably does meet the GNG.

There is no rule that well-sourced articles must represent a completely separate settlement. As proof, I remind you that we have hundreds, if not thousands, of separate articles on individual streets, neighborhoods, squares, etc.

Additionally, there is also no rule that a GNG-compliant article must always be split off from the larger entity. Editors are permitted to use their judgment in determining the best arrangement for a given place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

A caution to Gavin's comment: We should not be writing guidelines and policies to preemptively address potential abuse if there are other useful applications that would be classified under the same aspects. WP starts with good faith assumptions from all editors, and deals with problems after the matter from specific editors, with only rare cases of the Foundation stepping in to assert certain directions that must be avoided (BLP/NFC). Just because it is possible for a small community to use the "assured" WP entity on it as a commercial venue doesn't mean we should write notability around this to prevent it since I can see that harming legitimate small-community articles too. I still don't agree on the general sentiment that all communities are implicitly notable and that lists of such communities are a better solution, which meets the gazetteer aspect better for WP. But this is because of avoiding indiscriminate information , not because we are trying to protect abuse. --MASEM (t) 15:17, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Useful is not a rationale for inclusion, that is why there is a prohibition on directory type listings, whether they come as lists or articles. Masem might argue that there is another "convention" for dumping non-notable topics into lists, but that approach conflicts head on with WP:NOT.

I can see the arguments from both sides: on the one hand, Misplaced Pages should not be filled with random stuff, but on the other, if you are going to list one town, then you may as well list them all for the sake of completeness. However, there is no policy or guideline that supports the second approach; rather including all town for the sake of completeness or because it is useful is an argument discredited by WP:USEFUL. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 18:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

How, exactly, does a list of towns in the same geopolitical entity as would be found in a gazetteer be considered a violation of NOT? It's not a "directory" of the type defined by NOTDIR, so that's not the case to argue.

Furthermore, you are missing the "useful" point; it is not necessary to describe inclusion via usefulness, but that we don't write policies and guideline to prevent something we don't want (like COI) from happen at the cost of potentially omitting something that would be included in the work. --MASEM (t) 18:14, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:USEFUL is not a rationale for inclusion because for a town's existence being verifiable by being in a gazette of towns is not evidence of notablity. Look at it another way, if a gazette lists all towns for the sake of completeness, it does so because it has inclusion criteria are not a demanding as those of Misplaced Pages. Simply reproducing that list in Misplaced Pages does not get around this problem: what is non-notable in one publication does not suddenly become notable by reproducing it in Misplaced Pages. That is why WP:NOTDIR prohibits the reproduction or compilation of barebone lists. The only way around this is to find some evidence of notability for the list itself in order to demonstrate that it is an encyclopedic topic per se.

To give an example: List of towns in the Faroe Islands. Its a barebone list, that provides not a shred of context to the reader; in fact, it provides less context for the reader than a map or a travel guide or a government website. What is missing is evidence of notability: commentary and analysis that would explain why this list is in any way useful. That is why we should not have articles and lists that are devoid of notability, because they provide less information about their subject matter than a gazette or travel guide or even a map. Creating article and lists that contain less context that the primary source makes no sense. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:04, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

That list certainly seems like an optimal example of how to arrange non-notable topics into a list that is part of a larger topic, barring a better lead, and fits into an encyclopedic purpose. The list, part of the content for Faroe Islands, a notable topic, need not have its own notability, and is a proper spinout from the much larger article. The definition is well and truly bounded, and it meets WP:V, NOR, and NPOV policies. So why is this a bad way of grouping non-notable or barely notable settlments into a list article ? --MASEM (t) 19:10, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

For the reason I have already set out: a barebone list provides even less context than the primary source. For instance, a map provides useful context to the reader in terms of location; not only does it contain a list of towns (in the index), but it also plots them on a map and shows their relative position to each other. A barebone list is greatly inferior to a map, even a hand drawn one. There is no point in regurgitating lists from the primary source, when the primary source provides more context to the reader. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 01:58, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Nope, not a valid reason since we need to employ summary style to articles due to size. And there is nothing against any policy about a barebones list that meets V, NOR, and NPOV. A map is good to include but can only capture one additional data point per settlement. A list is completely acceptable to include the type of details that would be part of a gazetteer. --MASEM (t) 03:26, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

It is a valid reason, whereas WP:SUMMARY is not a valid rationale for inclusion of barebone lists. You are also forgetting WP:UNDUE: if a list is not notable, then there is no point in filling Misplaced Pages with piles of listcruft that is not notable until it exceeds the coverage of notable topics. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:53, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

SUMMARY doesn't prevent these, but in fact would allow for them. A list of settlements within the coverage of a larger geopolitical region certainly sounds like something one would include and would be far from UNDUE.

If we had no SIZE limit on articles, a list of non-notable settlements would universally be included in the geopolitical region that they fall into. The application of SIZE and SUMMARY does not at all change how WP:N, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and all other applicable policies and guidelines see that information, so there is absolutely nothing wrong with such lists, except your insistence of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. There is a reason why both WP:V and WP:N are based on the topic meriting inclusion, and not the article. --MASEM (t) 20:00, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

SUMMARY does prevent these, in the section WP:AVOIDSPLIT. A list that provides no evidence of notability, and therefore no context to the reader is just not encyclopaedic. Since the invention of the map, things have moved on from barebone lists of towns. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 03:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

"A list that provides no evidence of notability"

...In other words, a list with a non-notable overarching topic? I don't believe that's what's being discussed here. (Though it is what's being discussed here.) The overarching topic for a list of minor settlements in {region} is the region. --erachima talk 05:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Nor does SUMMARY prevent these despite how you may read it, as this is exactly the type of case that SUMMARY needs to be able to handle due to SIZE. --MASEM (t) 09:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:SUMMARY is not a basis for article inclusion, or is it a rationale for the inclusion of lists. Remember earlier in the discussion about the role about WP:UNDUE? In terms of notability, the overarching topic for a list of minor settlements in {region} is not the region because notability is not inherited. A long list of towns should never be included within an article, because that would be an example of giving undue weight to the list over the coverage of the region itself, as a region is more than just a set of towns. For example, it would be stupid to list all the towns in China in the article China. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:55, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

(<--)Of course SUMMARY isn't an inclusion metric, but it is a means of how to distribution the content of a single large article among one or more sub articles to meet SIZE requirements. Nothing, in terms of what content is included for an already-notable topic, changes because of using SUMMARY to split off information.

A list of settlements in a given region is not a new topic, but instead content related to the topic about that region. And no, I would never suggest a list of all settlements in China not because that's necessarily UNDUE but instead because that'll be impossible to navigate. Instead, I'd expect there to be a list of provinces within China, and within each province a list of prefectures, and within the prefectures, a list of settlements, as one example. --MASEM (t) 14:59, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Navigation is another spurious argument put forward for the inclusion of lists, more or less the same as WP:ITSUSEFUL.

A list of settlements is a discrete topic, with an entirely different scope, definition, and sources from an article about a region. Lists are separate, discrete topics, and like every topic, its inclusion in Misplaced Pages as a standalone (list) article is bound by Misplaced Pages's content policies and guidelines, including notability.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:56, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

No it is not, since in a paper, limitless article that list would be part of the larger region topic. You completely fail to recognize that an article is not equivalent to a topic, a necessary requirement for an electronic encyclopedia that has a WP:SIZE limitation. --MASEM (t) 04:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Wrong again, Masem. WP:SIZE is not a valid rationale for inclusion either. In any case, you are ignoring the fact that by using size as a basis for inclusion of lists, you would be giving undue weight to barebone list data that is not encyclopaedic over significant coverage of the topic that is. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:01, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect Gavin, your citation of WP:UNDUE in this context betrays a fundamental ignorance of one of our single most important policies, without a working knowledge of which no editor should even entertain the thought of entering wide-scale policy debates, and worse still suggests that you have never actually read the page you just linked.
I assume you have actually read the page in question, and that your above comment is some sort of horrible miscommunication, and strongly suggest you redact and modify the post appropriately. --erachima talk 07:28, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

In what sense does giving undue weight to list that are not notable make any sense? Since you claim to have more insight than me on this issue, please explain yourself.

I can understand where Masem is coming from: he is essentially arguing that Misplaced Pages should include lists of settlements for the sake of completeness, which in fairness to him has a lot of merit. The argument runs along these lines: if there is insufficient coverage to write an article, then a settlement should at least get a mention in a list, otherwise Misplaced Pages's coverage will be incomplete.

But this argument has one fatal flaw: what happens if this leads to undue weight being given to lists of settlements that are not notable, or lists of settlements that not even verfiable? The answer is that lists are not exempt from Misplaced Pages's content policies, even if they are rarely mentioned in them. Some editors would like to think they are exempt or that WP:UNDUE does not apply, but that is not the case; lists need to be both verifiable and notable to provide a rationale for inclusion. In short, the reader has to be able to see the wider picture (context), not just the detail (which can be summarised), in order to understand what a geographic topic is about. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Gavin, you have just proposed the line of logic that lists of settlements containing bare-bones info violate the Misplaced Pages:Neutral Point of View policy. This is not an issue of levels of insight or experience, this is an issue of you fundamentally not comprehending the subject of the policy page you are citing. You are claiming that "Editors must write articles from a neutral point of view, representing all significant views fairly, proportionately, and without bias." implies "Editors must not write lists of minor human settlements."
The problem with your argument is quite simple: the line of thought is a non sequitur. --erachima talk 08:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

In fairness, a better summary of Misplaced Pages guidance on this issue runs along the lines of "there is no rationale for the inclusion of lists, unless they are notable". There is no policy or guideline that supports the view that undue weight can be given to content without notability. The key to WP:UNDUE, as you correctly show, is "proportionately". You still have not answered my question about why it would be appropriate to give disproportionate weight to list topics that are not notable over and above those topics that are? I think you may be stuck in the same old arguments that were employed to justify trivia sections, namely that WP:UNDUE did not apply to them either. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:11, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Wrong. No policy or guidelines says anything of that source about these types of lists. You are presuming UNDUE because you don't like it. We are a gazetteer to some extend, a list of settlements can never be UNDUE in that respect. --MASEM (t) 09:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The answer to your question, Gavin, is Mu. --erachima talk 09:32, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

You still have not answered my question: why should undue weight be given to content that is not notable? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I've answered you twice, Gavin. Have you stopped beating your wife yet? --erachima talk 09:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Your response so far is that the question is a non sequitur or Mu is avoiding the question, not answering it. Let me answer it for you. Misplaced Pages is an encylopedia of topics that are notable. If Misplaced Pages were to allow undue weight to topics (including lists) that are not notable, then we are giving undue weight to content which is not encyclopedic. You might not like this argument, but you have to concede it does have some merit nethertheless. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:23, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

There is zero merit to that argument because it completely misrepresents WP. You are putting way too much in the concept of notability - the only thing that does is determine when we make a new article for a specific topic. Anything else is beyond notability's concept and up to consensus to include in some manner or not within the work. --MASEM (t) 15:04, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, Gavin, that is a wholly meritless argument predicated on fundamental misunderstandings of both principles that you believe support it. Notability, a guideline which is an exposition of WP:NOT#IINFO, is the principle that we as a community reserve the right to decide an article is not valid for inclusion. Undue weight, an integral portion of Neutral Point of View, is the principle that minority views cannot be allowed to drown out mainstream views in articles even if no individual part of the content describing the minority view is unacceptable per policy. The first of these two principles lends no merit to your claims because the dispute over what it means is the subject we are currently discussing, making it a recursive argument. The second of these two principles lends no merit to your claims because you are using the phrase "undue weight" to refer to something completely unrelated to the policy of that name. And Gavin, when asked an incorrect question, the correct answer is to not validate the question by treating it as if it were legitimate. As I have stated before, and several other editors have also informed you in the course of this debate, you have a very warped perspective of Misplaced Pages's rules and principles. We appreciate your attempts to contribute, but your views are not credible, you are simply adding noise to the channel, and deserve no more air time here. Good day. --erachima talk 15:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

In answer to erachima, your ad hominem attacks are entirely unnecessary given that we simply discussing the abstract interpretations of this guideline. I sincerely hope we never falling out with over a really contentious religious or political topic, for I tremble to think what insults you might wish to employ in such circumstances.

In fairness to me, I am not expressing "warped perspective" at all; rather I am simply summarising ideas written by other editors who seem to have entirely reasonable views on these issues. I am simply recalling what has been written elsewhere, e.g. Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources and undue weight says:

"Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements."

I think there is merit to these arguments, and I would urge you to reconsider your views by questioning their origin and to try to see things from the perspective of other editors, even if you do believe their viewpoints "deserve no more air time here". --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:33, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Gavin, that {{essay}} does not argue for a balanced/neutral encyclopedia overall, which is what you are apparently attempting to promote. That is, you seem to claim here that it is possible for a group of internally balanced articles/lists/other pages in the mainspace to collectively constitute non-neutral/undue weight on a subject (if the pages are about topics that you deem to be unimportant). Neutrality is determined by looking at each page in isolation.

It seems that you are trying to apply WP:UNDUE to situations like Esmeralda County, Nevada (population about 700) and its tiny, unincorporated communities and ghost towns (e.g., Goldfield, Dyer, Lida, Gold Point, Silver Peak, and a couple of others), and then declare that having ten pages on this county is "undue weight" on this county. The community consensus does not support such an application of WP:NPOV: each of the pages about these communities and former communities must individually comply with our due weight requirements, without considering either the contents or the existence of any of the other pages.

I admit that on occasion I'd like to say "There are thousands of pages about pop culture, so let's delete most of it, in favor of 'due weight' for contemporary music, television shows, and young adult fiction across the entire encyclopedia," but the fact is that the community does not apply that policy in that fashion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Appearance in a list or as a stand-alone article.

A distinction needs to made if a Nanoville should appear in a list in the article of its geographical or political parent, and whether Nanoville should have its own stand-alone page. Its appearance in a list is a content question, i.e. for WP:NOT, and not for discussion in this guideline, WP:N. I did not participate in Misplaced Pages:Notability (populated places) (failed) 2, but I see it is flawed by not distinguishing between statistical (or gazetteer) content (i.e. geographic parent, location, population, elevation) and descriptive (or encyclopedic) content. What makes Vibrandsøy a good stand-alone article is its good descriptive content coming from WP:RS. (1) Stand-alone articles for places that contain only the statistical (or gazetteer) content should be merged into the article of its geographic parent. (2) A WP:SNG to fully describe the difference between statistical and non-statistical content as criteria for the inclusion of a populated place as a stand-alone article may be a useful thing to create. patsw (talk) 20:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I would caution using Vibrandsøy as an example as, as I am reading it, not a politically-defined "settlement" but instead an island that falls under a larger "settlement"; it just so happens they know that exactly 1 person lives on the island as part of that settlement. --MASEM (t) 20:37, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the approach suggested by Patsw; barebone directory entries should be merged with articles that provide context (evidence of notability) to the reader, not just random stuff from which context has to be infered. Context is the name of the game when it comes to encyclopedic content. Gazetting, statistical tables and lists of other non-notable stuff may be useful to those who compile them, but not to Misplaced Pages, unless of course there is evidence that the list is notable. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 02:05, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Is it not the case that multiple bots have been approved that mine geographic or census data and automatically generate stand-alone Misplaced Pages articles from only one official source with the minimal gazetteer content (i.e. geographic parent, location, population, and elevation)? patsw (talk) 14:28, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I think bots are a law unto themselves. Their operators do this sort of crappy stuff, regardless of notability. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:53, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Please assume good faith - all the bots were approved for their functionality, though certainly now we can question if we really should have had them run. --MASEM (t) 20:04, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Mine is a fair comment, I am afraid to say. I have seen bots create hundreds of stubs based on tertiary sources about topics that are not notable. There is no effective governance over the use of bots in Misplaced Pages, and no accountability for their owners. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 03:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, you are completely wrong. Do you not understand WP:BAG and how admins can enforce the problem with runaway and unregistered bots? Also regardless if they are proper, callning articles "crappy" is already bad faith. --MASEM (t) 09:22, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I have seen how WP:BAG operates, and it is clear that if hundreds if not thousands of articles have been created about topics that don't have any notability, then there is no effective oversight in effect. If these stubs have no potential to develop, provide no context to the reader, and fail WP:NOT, then it is quite fair to call them "crappy". --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:28, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Again, completely wrong and completely mistreating good faith and consensus. BAG, just like notability , operates on consensus - we must assume that BAG support included the acknowledgment that these would be presumed notable at the time they were approved; stubs nevertheless, but notable. I agree today, they probably wouldn't necessarily have passed, but that does not invalid anything they had done in the past. Calling anything "crappy" (and by, what part of NOT do stubs on settlements fail? what context do they fail to give the reader?) is a bias against these and likely means you probably need to avoid these articles. Remember, you're free to start Gavin-pedia where you can enforce notability to perfection and block such articles, but as long as you want to participate in WP, you need to assume good faith and work with the general consensus and not continually fight against it to get what you want out of it. This entire discussion is demonstration of that. --MASEM (t) 14:50, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I have started a new discussion in the policy article: Misplaced Pages talk:What Misplaced Pages is not#How is Misplaced Pages a gazetteer? How is Misplaced Pages not a gazetteer? because I saw WP:NOT as seriously lacking in this area. patsw (talk) 15:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

If the bots have a green light to do it...

I was asking the question just to find out -- and it turned out to be a simple thing to click Special:Random a few times to reach a bot-created page with only the name, geographic parent, and location. (Nowy Kaleń, created by User:Kotbot, in turn, created by User:Kotniski). Since the bot was approved after some trial page creations, and I assume this was not the first bot of this class, it seems moot on the part of editors of this guideline to retrospectively create a guideline requiring content beyond (a) name, (b) geographic parent, (c) location. It would require a deleter bot to apply the guideline to these still-active bots. Oh! what a disruption!

I have to conclude that if there is a reliable, and verifiable source providing name, geographic parent, and location of a place (building, populated settlement, named geographic feature, etc.), and an editor cares to create an place name stand-alone article for it, no argument can be sustained for its deletion with the approved bots creating such articles -- unless you want to discriminate against humans and hold them to a higher standard than bots. patsw (talk) 00:23, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't question the bots has approval. I just question that the aspect that consensus can change over time since those bots ran. Since they, we've undergone the Pokemon test so arguably there is a worthwhile exploration of consensus - ignoring what is already on pages - to see if there's a better way to do it. --MASEM (t) 02:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Many of the US settlement articles were bot created based on census data. Typical examples are Rossville, Tennessee and Mountainburg, Arkansas. While they are not the most inspiring of articles, they are not useless either. For someone interested in US geography and demographics, they are actually quite informative. Sjakkalle (Check!) 05:57, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Well the argument that the data is useful is not really a need to keep a separate article on each settlement. A list of settlements within a geopolitical region that includes the core data that can be gotten from these sources (lat/long, population as of YYYY census, area) and links or the required references to these sources not only provides the same basic information as the individual articles themselves but trips fewer problems with notability; note that we still can link to cities and towns that are truly notable from such lists. Again, like the Pokemon Test, it may be that reduction to lists is a better form for Misplaced Pages (and which moves it closer to gazette). -MASEM (t) 12:26, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

At some point, the amount of information becomes too cumbersome for list form. The two articles I cited above contain little else than census data and location, but there are in fact about 30 numerical parameters which went into each of those articles; putting that into a list would make for a very _w__i__d__e_ table! Also, very many of these bot-created articles have since been expanded with content on history, geography, and economical issues. I think stub articles like Mountainburg, Arkansas are far more inviting to potential editors than, say, Dalen, Telemark. In the former you can just add to the article which has all the structure in place. Easy! In the latter you will need to plan, structure, and write the article almost from the bottom up. Difficult! (Just in case anyone doubts the notability of Dalen in Telemark, I will mention that it is a fairly important tourist destination due to it being at the end of the Telemark Canal. Also, it is an important energy producer as one of the largest hydroelectric power plants in Norway is also located in that settlement. Some day I might expand the article. Maybe. :-)) Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:16, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

First, not all the data would go into that chart; first we'd want the lists to be consistent for all areas of the world, and what's available for US census data far exceeds what is likely available for, say, settlements in Africa. We can include the appropriate links and references to the offsite data to put the specific numbers close to the reader as it pertains to what type of data is available. Second, recreation of these articles is trivial if that had to be done - you just ask the bots to recreate the article on X from its data sources. And even if we did go through with condensing things to list, these articles would all become redirects, not deleted, the old data retained in the edit history. As to a tourist destination, that makes the destination notable, but not the location that it is at , necessary. If the only thing a town is known for is a tourist spot, which is highly notable, the town doesn't become notable because of that. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, notable enough for entry in a paper encyclopedia... Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't see an evidence of notability for the town of Dalen, even though its windmill is. Notability to come, perhaps...--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 03:44, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Gavin, I know that you are sometimes unable to see cases of encyclopedic notability even when the evidence is staring you in the face, and when that evidence includes a general purpose paper encyclopedia covering that topic. This is not the first time you have turned a blind eye to that; I still remember that you wanted to delete Ellen Hambro, the most prominent and important environmental civil servant in Norway. I find it very peculiar that you "don't see an evidence of notability"; when an encyclopedia covers that topic. What type of evidence could you possibly demand? Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

If you check the very first line of WP:Five pillars you will find the statement "Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia. It incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers." Typically a lower bound of notability is required for gazateer type articles. You can argue against that on general notability grounds but the five pillars are pretty much at the top level at saying what Misplaced Pages is all about. Dmcq (talk) 09:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

In answer to Sjakkalle, this accusation is a below the belt and not relevant to this discussion. In answer to Dmcq, I think you will find that Misplaced Pages incorporates notable elements of specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. The reason is that, at best, a tertiary source may provide evidence of notability only if it contains commentary, criticism or analysis of its subject matter (i.e. significant coverage). For example, almanacs might contain useful information about high or low tides in a particular port, but if this information is not notable, then Misplaced Pages won't contain this data, even if it is useful. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:42, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you will find that the principles in the five pillars trumps a guideline any day of the week when it comes to any consensus decision. If you want to have gazetter information held to the same level of strong notability as most other things in Misplaced Pages you really need to go and alter the five pillars. I'll be interested to see how you get on. Dmcq (talk) 13:56, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know who from this discussion is aware of this or not, but there are tons of articles on WP about villages, towns, and small cities that consist of nothing more than an infobox containing the rudimentary information (such as population, postal code, and the larger jurisdictions they are contained within), a navbox listing all the other towns contained within the same jurisdiction, a single sentence defining what they are, and a stub template. If you click the random article tab many times, it'll probably not take long before you find one or two of these. Some examples are: , , and . I am not saying they should be deleted or otherwise not included. But given that they have not been like this and not expanded in so long or likely will be, does anyone think it would be better just to include all of them that share a jurisdiction in a chart-style list? Sebwite (talk) 13:50, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I have started a new discussion in the policy article: Misplaced Pages talk:What Misplaced Pages is not#How is Misplaced Pages a gazetteer? How is Misplaced Pages not a gazetteer? because I saw WP:NOT as seriously lacking in this area. patsw (talk) 15:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that there is an unspoken additional criteria that the current versions of the other criteria are based on, and that is that a human invests some time and effort to create the article. Creation of an article by a robot violates that. North8000 (talk) 17:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

We approved bots to do this in the first place. --erachima talk 19:01, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Language as Criteria for Notability

I already posted at Wikiproject video games the video game infobox template talk but will ask again here: I have noticed an editor removing non-English countries (particularly South Korea) from the release date and ratings sections of many video game articles because they are "non-notable on English wiki". This strikes me as extremely inappropriate but I don't know for sure. Thoughts? Some guy (talk) 10:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm the editor removing countries (though all non-English speaking countries, not just South Korea) from videogame infoboxes - and am doing so per the guidelines here, for videogame ratings: "The game's censorship rating most widely accepted in the game's country of origin (and any English-language censorship ratings)." and for videogame release dates "Use the first public non-festival release in the game's country of origin, as well as any English-language release dates available". Thanks! Fin©™ 10:40, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

This seems appropriate to me per WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE - the primarily ratings and what not that are noteworthy in both the infobox and the article are those of the games country of origin and major English language releases. Including the ratings and dates of every country it was ever released in gets into the indiscriminate detail (and often unverifiable by Wiki standards). The same is true of films, television, novels, anime/manga, comics, etc though all of the latter also dealt with the issue by simply not having such content, due to also wanting to avoid systematic bias and the consensus that the ratings are too arbitrary to be of any encyclopedic value. As Falcon9x5 also notes, his edits are per the infoboxes as well. It isn't an issue of "notability" in terms of article notability, rather note-worthiness and overall relevance. -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 13:16, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

This entire guideline is concerned with whether or not a topic should have a stand-alone Misplaced Pages article. Discussion of the inclusion or exclusion of content like this dispute belongs

• best here Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Video games
• or maybe here Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)
• or maybe here Misplaced Pages:Village pump (miscellaneous) patsw (talk) 13:42, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I should start saying "not-noteworthy". My bad! Thanks! Fin©™ 15:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Non-English releases can be important N-wise, actually, in the case of works that are released in several languages that aren't English. It's just that they aren't significant enough to justify the infobox clutter if the series has had a truly international release. --erachima talk 18:26, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Funny, not including a country because it doesn't speak English sounds a lot like systematic bias. Whatever, I see the logic behind the policy and it's not worth fighting over. Some guy (talk) 08:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Carroty

Ihave a problem in determining notability. This page Michael G. Foster has been AFD’d Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Michael G. Foster. The more I have dug the more confused things have become. It seems that he may (or may not) have won particular tornaments based upon who wrote the artciel in Black belt magazine. Ther seems to be a lot fo contradiction in sources. As such I am not sure if this person fails notability.Slatersteven (talk) 13:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

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