Misplaced Pages

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WP:BIO redirects here. You may have been looking for Misplaced Pages:Autobiography, Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Biography, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Biology or Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (biographies).

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages notability guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

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This guideline is not Misplaced Pages policy; however, these criteria are considered a fair test of whether a historical or living person merits an article at Misplaced Pages. This guideline also pertains to small groups of closely related people such as families, entertainment groups, co-authors, and co-inventors. It does not cover groups of unrelated people which are covered by the Misplaced Pages:Notability (organizations and companies) guideline.

In general, the text of an article should include enough information to explain why the person is notable. Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be verifiable using reliable sources, and, if the subject is living, we must follow the policy at our policy for biographies of living people.

Criteria for notability of people

A person is generally notable if they meet any of the following standards. Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included; conversely, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included.

• The person has been the subject of published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject.
  • If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may need to be cited to establish notability.
  • Trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability.
  • Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content.
• The person has been the subject of a credible independent biography.
• The person has received significant recognized awards or honors.
• The person has demonstrable wide name recognition
• The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field.
• Commercial endorsements of demonstrably notable products

• Politicians:
  • Politicians who have held international, national or statewide/provincewide office, and members and former members of a national, state or provincial legislatures.
  • Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage.
  • Just being an elected local official does not guarantee notability.

• Athletes:
  • Competitors who have played in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in a non-league sport such as swimming or tennis
  • Competitors who have played or competed at the highest level in amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them).

• Entertainers: actors, comedians, opinion makers, models, and television personalities:
  • With significant roles in notable films, television, stage performances, and other productions.
  • Has a large fan base or a significant "cult" following.
  • Has made unique, prolific or innovative contributions to a field of entertainment.
  • See WP:MUSIC for guidelines on musicians, composers, groups, etc.
  • See WP:PORNBIO for guidelines on erotic entertainers

• Creative professionals: scientists, academics, economists, professors, authors, editors, journalists, filmmakers, photographers, artists, architects, engineers, and other creative professionals.
  • The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by their peers or successors.
  • The person is known for originating a significant new concept, theory or technique.
  • The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, which has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.
  • The person's work either (a) has become a significant monument, (b) has been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (c) has won significant critical attention, or (d) is represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries, museums or internationally significant libraries.
  • See Misplaced Pages:Notability (academics) for guidelines on academics

Articles not satisfying this guideline

If an article does not assert or demonstrate notability, try to improve it by one of the following methods:

• Improve it yourself
• Ask the article's creator for advice. The template {{nn-warn}} is one way to do this.
• Put the {{notability}} or {{bio-notability}} tag on the article to notify other editors.
• If the article is about a specialized field, use the {{expert-subject}} tag with a specific WikiProject to attract editors knowledgeable about that field, who may have access to WP:RS not available online.
• Merge it into a broader article providing context

If the article can not be improved or is clearly not an appropriate subject for Misplaced Pages choose one of the following methods:

• If the article does not assert or demonstrate notability, use the {{db-bio}} tag to request speedy deletion.
• Use the {{prod}} tag, for articles which do not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, but are uncontroversial deletion candidates. This allows the article to be deleted after five days if nobody objects.
• For cases where you are unsure about deletion or believe others might object, nominate the article for the WP:AFD process, where the merits will be debated and deliberated for 5 days.

Articles on Wikipedians

Some Wikipedians have articles on them, as seen on Wikipedians with articles. Their status as Wikipedians in and of itself has neither a positive or negative effect on their notability, regardless of whether they were Wikipedians before or after their articles were created (note: WP:COI still has bearing on their editing their own articles). If a Wikipedian meets other normal standards for inclusion, such as WP:BIO above, WP:ATT, WP:RS, and WP:V, their status as former, current, or future Wikipedians (editors, administrators, etc.) shall have no bearing on the inclusion nor the deletion of the article in and of itself; all articles, even these to avoid internal Misplaced Pages conflict of interests, will be judged solely by the applicable policies of notability and inclusion. Being a User on any Wikimedia Foundation project gives no special benefit or bearing to the ultimate fate of the article; articles about Users are to be handled the same as articles on non-Users.

Lists of people

Several articles contain lists of people - for instance, an article on a college usually includes a list of alumni. Such lists are never intended to contain everyone (e.g. not all people who ever graduated from the school). Instead, the list should be limited to notable people: those that already have a Misplaced Pages article or could plausibly have one, per this guideline. Editors who would like to add themselves to such categories are advised to use categories of editors for this purpose, e.g. Category:Wikipedians by alma mater.

Notes

• What constitutes a "published work" is deliberately broad.
• Autobiography and self-promotion are not the routes to having an encyclopaedia article. The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself have actually considered the subject notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it.
• Non-triviality is a measure of the depth of content of a published work, and how far removed that content is from a simple directory entry or a mention in passing that does not discuss the subject in detail. A 200-page independent biography of a person that covers that person's life in detail is non-trivial, whereas a birth certificate or a 1-line listing on an election ballot form is not. The existence of a memorial (e.g., a named chair at a university) is not a substitute for depth of content in published work.
• Generally, person who is "part of the enduring historical record" will have been written about, in depth, independently in multiple history books on that field, by historians. A politician who has received "significant press coverage" has been written about, in depth, independently in multiple news feature articles, by journalists. An actor who has been featured in magazines has been written about, in depth, independently in multiple magazine feature articles, by magazine article writers. An actor or TV personality who has "an independent biography" has been written about, in depth, in a book, by an independent biographer.
• This is a secondary criterion. People who satisfy this criterion will almost always satisfy the primary criterion. Biographers and historians will usually have already written about the past and present holders of major political offices. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of major political offices, incorporating all of the present and past holders of that office, will be complete regardless.
• Sources that are pure derivatives of an original source can be used as references, but do not contribute toward establishing the notability of a subject. "Intellectual independence" requires not only that the content of sources be non-identical, but also that the entirety of content in a published work not be derived from (or based in) another work (partial derivations are acceptable). For example, a speech by a politician about a particular person contributes toward establishing the notability of that person, but multiple reproductions of the transcript of that speech by different news outlets do not. A biography written about a person contributes toward establishing his or her notability, but a summary of that biography lacking an original intellectual contribution does not.

• Misplaced Pages notability guidelines
• WikiProject Biography