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Revision as of 00:51, 6 November 2006 by Centrx (talk | contribs) (Move Rationale points to first paragraph)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) | This page documents an English Misplaced Pages ]. 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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| Notability |
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| General notability guideline |
| Subject-specific guidelines |
| See also |
Topics in most areas must meet a minimum threshold of notability, importance, or significance in order for an article on that topic to remain on Misplaced Pages. This is a necessary result of Misplaced Pages being a neutral, verifiable encyclopedia:
- In order to have a verifiable article, a topic must be notable enough that it will be described by multiple independent reliable sources.
- In order to have a neutral article with minimal errors, a topic must be notable enough that there will be non-partisan editors interested in editing it.
- Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia. As such, Misplaced Pages is not an indiscriminate directory of businesses, websites, persons, etc.
The guidelines in the table on the right have been created, or are under discussion, to set out more precisely what these thresholds should be in certain areas. They generally assert that a minimum standard for any given topic is that it has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works, where the source is independent of the topic itself.
Notability as a reason for merging
Articles on subjects with borderline notability that still meet Misplaced Pages's other content policies may be merged into list articles, or into an article on a related subject (e.g. articles about not-well-known relatives of a famous person tend to be merged into the article on the person itself).
Notability as a reason for deletion
Articles on non-notable subjects can be nominated for Proposed Deletion and Articles for Deletion, where the article's merits are discussed, as can be seen through precedents. An article on the topic of a person, group of people, band, company, club or website that does not even assert the notability of that topic can be deleted without argument.
Note that the use of notability in the deletion process is one of the more contentious issues on Misplaced Pages.
See also
There are (and have been) several proposals to alter the status quo, or essays discussing various points of view on the issue such as:
- User:Uncle G/On notability An essay on the necessity of considering notability to determine inclusion or exclusion of articles.
- Misplaced Pages:Notability/Arguments A list of arguments for both application and non-application of notability.
- Misplaced Pages:Non-notability, a rejected proposal reflecting the viewpoints of those who believe that only content policies should be used in regard to whether "non-notable" subjects should be included in Misplaced Pages.