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Concerns about NBAND #5

I would like to open a discussion with the hope of eliminating ambiguity that is vulnerable to subjective interpretation. I am opening the discussion here rather than WP MUSIC so the discussion wouldn't be entirely controlled by that Wikiproject.

The current phrasing in WP:NBAND#5: Has released two or more albums on a major record label or on one of the more important indie labels (i.e., an independent label with a history of more than a few years, and with a roster of performers, many of whom are independently notable is problematic because of some of Wikipedia community's tendency to circular reference to NBAND#5 about record labels when the label's notability with respect to WP:NCORP is questioned. Essentially, this allows a band that has been with any independent label that has been in business for "more than a few years" to automatically become notable, because "important" is extremely subjective. Graywalls (talk) 11:10, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

This entire criterion strikes me as fundamentally subjective; what constitutes a „major“ record label, and what does it mean for an indie label to be „important“? All of this should be based on descriptions of the labels in reliable sources, but instead, it‘s very subjective and unclear to editors not intimately familiar with the context of this industry.

There‘s also a certain circularity to the argument; bands can be notable if they have released under an important indie label, and indie labels can be important if they have a „roster of performers“. All of this should go back to reliable independent sources, but at least the way it is written here, it doesn‘t. Actualcpscm (talk) 11:33, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

You say, I am opening the discussion here rather than WP MUSIC so the discussion wouldn't be entirely controlled by that Wikiproject, but surely their input would be useful, right? Wouldn't it be prudent (and respectful) to at least notify the Wikiproject of this discussion? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 02:25, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Remember, per N, a corporation (including a record label) is notable if it passes the GNG or NCORP. Jclemens (talk) 03:14, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I did notify what I felt was relevant here. I just notified Wikiproject Music discussion as well, just now. Graywalls (talk) 03:25, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

@Jclemens that's generally a yes regarding SNGs, except NCORP. Other SNGs allow things that might not pass GNG an alternate way to pass. The higher standard of NCORP would be entirely useless if the standard GNG was all that was needed to be met. Since NCORP is referenced within GNG, I believe the expectation that companies need to satisfy NCORP is a reasonable interpretation Graywalls (talk) 03:33, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The relevant part of N says It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right and, of course, NCORP is in the box on the right. If you want CORP to be a super-SNG that excludes the GNG, N needs to be modified to allow that. N is the only thing that makes any SNG anything more than an essay. Jclemens (talk) 03:48, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

That's wrong. We had a huge RFC on this, and developed the relevant section WP:SNG. SNGs can supercede the GNG, but this pretty much only in the case of NCORP (due to the AUD and COI issues) and NPROF (due to existing before WP:N in general). Masem (t) 04:12, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

That's my understanding as well, but WP:N really should be re-worded directing companies/organizations to NCORP. Essentially, the NCORGraywalls (talk) 04:14, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Masem, while I'm not unsympathetic to what you think the community has decided, that's not what N says, even in the SNG section: SNGs can also provide examples of sources and types of coverage considered significant for the purposes of determining notability, such as the treatment of book reviews for our literature guidelines and the strict significant coverage requirements spelled out in the SNG for organizations and companies. Some SNGs have specialized functions: for example, the SNG for academics and professors and the SNG for geographic features operate according to principles that differ from the GNG. Nothing in there about superseding, just operating differently. The fix you believe has consensus--and again, not disputing that RFCs may have been held on this--is not reflected in the wording of N. CORP can be as strict as it wants, but an article is still notable via either GNG or SNG as paths to notability for any sort of topic. Jclemens (talk) 06:52, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, but here's the rub with NBAND (which I firmly believe is a hot mess): who established those criteria in the first place, and what evidence has ever been presented verifying that those criteria really do reflect genuine notability? Ravenswing 07:29, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

If a corporation has in-depth sources but not sources that pass the strict requirements of NCORP, I don't think it will or should be considered notable. This is true even if those sources (without the requirements of NCORP) might otherwise be considered enough for GNG. In that sense, NCORP strengthens and thereby supersedes GNG.

Wikipedia:Notability (music) is unfortunately much more vague than some other notability guidelines about its relation to GNG: does it create a presumption of notability that can only be confirmed via GNG (as most SNGs do), is it based on GNG but with stricter sourcing requirements (as NCORP is), or does it stand separately from GNG (as PROF does)? I would guess that it should be a presumption of notability but maybe this needs to be clarified. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:44, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

As I've explained several times now, and as literally stated in the text you quote, NCORP describes what coverage counts toward GNG. An org can't meet GNG without meeting NCORP, because the interpretation of what sources can contribute to notability is directly dictated by NCORP. JoelleJay (talk) 03:12, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I will make here my usual point that there are other SNGs that also "supersede" GNG, especially NNUMBER (which is extremely restrictive) and NFILM (also restrictive, especially for films that have not entered production). Both of these clearly supersede GNG in their respective domains. Newimpartial (talk) 14:52, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I should add or clarify that we are not talking about complete overriding of the GNG

- specifically the goal of showing significant coverage from independent and secondary sources - but do add limits on that, such as the selection of sources for NCORP or the point in time that a standalone makes sense like NFILM. Masem (t) 15:33, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not unsympathetic to your (collective) perspective, but that's not what N says. Jclemens (talk) 23:45, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

In the relevant section WP:SNG it absolutely does. Maybe the one line in the lede needs to reflect this but there was a massively long discussion and RFC on the relationships which the wording of WP:SNG reflects. Masem (t) 00:05, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I mean, maybe I'm blind, but I looked through SNG and I simply do not see what you believe to be there. Enlighten me as to where it says an SNG can trump the GNG? Jclemens (talk) 03:15, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@Masem, the SNG section doesn't even conflict with the "GnG oR sNg" text because the section explicitly states that certain SNGs dictate what can be used for GNG. Unlike most other SNGs, NCORP doesn't provide any criteria that "presume" GNG or that offer alternatives to notability; the criteria all simply explain what sources contribute to GNG for corporations. JoelleJay (talk) 03:17, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

That's an interesting interpretation, but entirely unsupported by the text. The GNG is a separate section, and the relevant bits in the SNG section logically only apply to the SNGs themselves. This is the first time someone's adequately explained where they think the SNG section affects the GNG. That's lexically and logically incorrect, of course, but I can at least understand where the people who've participated in an extensive RfC might have been under the misapprehension that this section said that. Thanks! Jclemens (talk) 04:12, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

SNGs can also provide examples of sources and types of coverage considered significant for the purposes of determining notability, such as the treatment of book reviews for our literature guidelines and the strict significant coverage requirements spelled out in the SNG for organizations and companies. Are you arguing that the statements "examples of sources and types of coverage considered significant for the purposes of determining notability" and "strict significant coverage requirements" refer to a different meaning of "significant coverage" than that used in the WP:significant coverage section above? And that the "requirements" are not in fact required to "determine notability"? JoelleJay (talk) 07:25, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Of course those words apply to SNGs. They do not apply to the GNG. This is clear from the positioning in the text: if the quoted sections were to apply to the GNG, they would have to be mentioned in the GNG or overall notability section... or even clearly mention that they apply to ALL notability not just SNG notability... Hence my "lexically and logically" comment. Again, I appreciate that you finally clued me into your argument, but the reason I didn't even understand it initially is that it is neither obvious nor correct. Again, this is a fixable problem, but until it's fixed--and I would advocate that if that is indeed the will of the community the wording should be fixed--the words don't mean what you think they were supposed to have meant. Jclemens (talk) 08:11, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

This is not like language slipped in by a random user that we're trying to resolve - this was a massive consensus-based RFC only a few years old that decided that that was how to present the connection between the GNG and the SNG.

The way you are presenting your argument is in the realm of BURO - "Oh , it should be said with the GNG, not later!". If consensus understood what the addition meant and its implications, that's how we'll treat it. Masem (t) 12:23, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Masem, we've interacted for well over a decade here, and I trust you understand that I point out the error in the best interests of the encyclopedia. It doesn't say what you say consensus determined. That's a problem. I used to write policy for a fortune 50 company, and while Wikipedia doesn't need that level of rigor, we owe it to ourselves to make the policies clear. Again, it took several back-and-forths, months after I first raised the issue, for anyone to explain to me why they thought policy was clear on this. For those who watched the relevant RfC unfold, I suspect you suffer from over-familiarity with the topic: you see it, because you lived it being hashed out. I don't recall participating in the RfC in question, am relatively certain I did not, and I couldn't find what you thought was clear even when I was looking for it. Again, I'm not challenging the consensus, just noting that policy as written now doesn't clearly implement it and should be clarified so that there is no question about what it means. Jclemens (talk) 18:21, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Sure, it could be clearer, but I also did not (IIRC) participate in that RfC and the relationship between GNG and SNGs and N is quite apparent. The first paragraph in WP:SNG covers those SNGs which presume in-depth, independent, reliable sourcing (e.g. GNG) through meeting their criteria. The first part of the second paragraph covers SNGs that dictate what contributes to notability by describing the principles of GNG in the context of certain subjects. The second part of the paragraph discusses the SNGs that bypass GNG altogether. And I have mentioned this to you specifically multiple times. JoelleJay (talk) 19:10, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

As a matter of common sense, SNG's, like WP:NCORP, WP:NSPORTS, and WP:NGEO, that provide tighter restrictions than GNG must overrule GNG. The relationship between SNG's and GNG should be better defined, but the lack of definition doesn't permit overruling the consensuses that established those more restrictive rules. BilledMammal (talk) 22:55, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

You mean re-defined, because SNG or GNG has been the way it's been for well over a decade. In fact, an AfD vote that says "Delete, fails NCORP even if GNG is met" is a non-policy-based discussion in that it doesn't mesh with how N defines them as parallel. Jclemens (talk) 23:45, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The issue with that is that you are arguing that the SNG with, probably, the most community support, has no weight. I'd also agree with JoelleJay that there isn't really a conflict here; GNG provides a base level requirement, and then some SNG's add an asterisk to that saying that certain sources aren't sufficient to contribute to it. Similarly, WP:NRVE provides a base level requirement, and then other PAG's (eg, WP:SPORTSCRIT #5 and WP:MASSCREATE) add an asterisk to that. BilledMammal (talk) 05:31, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I've argued nothing of the sort. Any SNG is one path to notabilty; the GNG is another. Are you a programmer? Let's use programming terminology: the requirements (NCORP and other exclusive SNGs are the only path for a corporation to be notable) are not coded properly (as articulated in N) to produce the expected result. That's either not a problem (feature), if you are OK with GNG always being an alternative to any SNG, or a problem (bug) if you want SNGs to be exclusive. Jclemens (talk) 05:57, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I've argued nothing of the sort. But you have; you have argued that In fact, an AfD vote that says "Delete, fails NCORP even if GNG is met" is a non-policy-based discussion in that it doesn't mesh with how N defines them as parallel. Given that almost all of NCORP is concerned with establishing standards stricter than base-level GNG (These criteria, generally, follow the general notability guideline with a stronger emphasis on quality of the sources to prevent gaming of the rules by marketing and public relations professionals., emphasis mine) you are arguing that it has no weight.

I don't see any problem here because none of these are alternatives to GNG or NRVE; they merely clarify how those principles apply in specific circumstances. In other words, "fails NCORP" means "fails GNG". BilledMammal (talk) 06:33, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

This is getting into WP:IDHT territory, I'm afraid. N says SNG or GNG. Do you understand what a logical "or" means? NCORP has plenty of weight as an SNG. It has zero impact on the GNG, which remains unchanged by anything in any SNG. Jclemens (talk) 08:11, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what I'm saying; I'm saying that some SNG's, like NCORP, impact what sources count towards GNG, meaning the "or" doesn't come into play here. This is supported by WP:N, which says SNGs can also provide examples of sources and types of coverage considered significant for the purposes of determining notability; there is no reason to believe that this statement, which speaks to notability generally, only applies to SNG's.

This is getting into WP:IDHT territory Given that your position has been routinely rejected by the community, as evidenced by the enforcement of WP:NCORP, I don't think that's an appropriate claim for you to throw around. Regardless, I think it's clear that we're not going to agree so I am going to back away from this discussion now. BilledMammal (talk) 09:20, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree with Jclemens here, but it seems to me that this discussion has been made more confusing than it needs to be because BilledMammal and JoelleJay are using "GNG" seemingly to mean "significant coverage in reliable sources", while Jclemens and others are using "GNG" to mean "the specific test for significant coverage that is set out at WP:GNG". It seems clear to me that certain SNGs, like NCORP and NNUMBER (and for that matter also WP:NBASIC, though that is more subtle) set out tests of "significant coverage in reliable sources" that are intentionally more restrictive than the test set out in WP:GNG. Within these areas, we are supposed to use the test in the SNG and not the vanilla GNG, as NNUMBER at least sets out quite clearly. This "stricter test" scenario is different from "bypassing" SNGs like NPROF and "predictive" SNGs like NSPORT. It seems to me that editors could have a better time discussing what they want from WP:N if they would recognize the complexity of what currently exists, and reiterating a blurring of the distinction between GNG as principle (significant RS coverage) and GNG as a specific test of significant RS coverage - well, it would at least make it easier to discuss what North8000 calls the "ecosystem". Newimpartial (talk) 11:57, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The easy way to remember this is that the WP:N guideline is what covers that we want to see "significant coverage in reliable sources", whereas the GNG -- and many SNGs to a degree -- is a specific test of WP:N. What is happening is that the "significant coverage" is being mislabeled as the GNG. Masem (t) 12:25, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

This is helpful, Newimpartial. Within these areas, we are supposed to use the test in the SNG and not the vanilla GNG, as NNUMBER at least sets out quite clearly. Um, where, for any topic, does it outright say that the SNG should be used instead of the GNG? If that's what we want, we should say that. Right now, the lead of N makes it very clear that GNG or SNG (as listed on the N page) are alternative paths to notability. My argument, again, is that if we want to make the hierarchy of notability you quoted normative, it needs to be both explicit and in the basic N formulation, not oblique and in a sub-paragraph. Jclemens (talk) 18:31, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

To answer your question about where any SNG says that it must he used in place of GNG, NNUMBER for one (sic.) seems quite clear:

text from NNUMBER

These guidelines on the notability of numbers address notability of individual numbers, kinds of numbers and lists of numbers. In the case of mathematical classifications of numbers, the relevant criteria are whether professional mathematicians study the classification and whether amateur mathematicians are interested by it. Therefore, the first question to ask is: Have professional mathematicians published papers on this topic, or chapters in a book? This is the question that will apply, only slightly reworded, to each of the kinds of articles about numbers we will consider.

This text doesn't allow for alternate paths to notability for sets of numbers outside of the criteria given.

Likewise, WP:ORGCRIT says,

text from ORGCRIT
These criteria, generally, follow the general notability guideline with a stronger emphasis on quality of the sources to prevent gaming of the rules by marketing and public relations professionals. The guideline, among other things, is meant to address some of the common issues with abusing Wikipedia for advertising and promotion.

The differences between NORG and the GNG that ORGCRIT acknowledges would not make sense in relation to their avowed goals - "to prevent gaming of the rules" - if they could simply be bypassed by an appeal to GNG.

As far as the first section of WP:N is concerned, the way I have parsed the element numbered 1 in the guideline that for a number of years amounts to, "the topic meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right, or both, depending on the subject area to which the topic belongs". I am fully aware that the italicized text is not in the guideline, but more anything else WP:N says or could say, it reflects the way the SNGs and GNG interact in practice (namely, "it depends on the topic area").

digression on NOT

I would also point out another deficiency in that passage, in numbered point 2: it seems from this text at the top of WP:N that NOT is a separate criterion untouched by notability guidelines, but in reality a number of the SNGs essentially "codify" NOT (WP:NFILM comes prominently to mind here) or even, like NAUTHOR and GEOLAND, codify some of the "opposite of NOT" (which wikipedians so often seem shy to talk about, for reasons I can't quite grasp): namely, encyclopaedic considerations that weigh in favor of the creation and retention of certain sorts of articles.

Newimpartial (talk) 18:53, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Sigh. Thanks for doing that--I really do appreciate it. However none of the SNGs you quote ever says "This SNG applies, and only this SNG applies, to this sort of article. A GNG pass is not enough." or anything close to that. Even if they did, of course, an SNG is hierarchically inferior to N, so SNGs only get to make special rules for the entire encyclopedia, if N says they can which it does not. I don't mind being in WP:1AM territory here, but the more folks here try and convince me that N currently says that SNGs are the ONLY way to notability for certain topics, the more I wonder if this is some sort of elaborate prank. Surely I cannot be the only one who sees the deficiencies in the logical structure of N that prevent the consensus interpretation argument from being derived from the plain language of the guideline as written? And yet... here we are. I've pretty much said everything I can say to encourage a dialogue towards cleaning up the written policy to match the stated consensus... Y'all can work with that, or not. Jclemens (talk) 02:09, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Jclemens: I sympathize with your frustration at the suboptimal writing of the first section of WP:N, and share your desire to encourage a dialogue towards cleaning up the written policy to match the stated consensus. However, your elaborate prank reading of the situation seems to overweight a doggedly literal reading of that section while underweighting certain key facts that really ought to be part of your mental frame when deciding on the actuation.

extended content

1. In spite of your claim that SNGs are hierarchically inferior to the GNG or WP:N, I don't don't see any reason to see things that way, especially in terms of WP:CONLEVEL. After all, many SNGs have been around for longer than key elements of WP:N, such as GNG, and while some of them acknowledge the GNG (or NBASIC for biographies) as an alternate path to Notability, others like the two I mentioned are clearly written as the only path to presumptive notability within their scope. The fact that they are written this way, and have the same CONLEVEL as the WP:N opening section, really ought to influence how any editor understands the relationships between GNG and SNG. 2. I don't see any reason why the first section of WP:N should be read as "taking precedence" over the SNG section, either - if anything, the SNG section should have precedence, as representing a more recent consensus. The SNG section specifies a number of NOT considerations and sourcing requirements that make clear - at least to my reading - that there is no "end run to GNG" available to topics covered, for example, by NORG or to which BLP1E considerations apply.

So, look: I would be happy for us to rewrite the first section of WP:N to acknowlege more precisely how GNG, SNGs and NOT are actually related. But the infelicity of the existing langauge doesn't in any way change the way things work in practice, which is that orgs that "pass" GNG but "fail" NORG are typically not kept at AfD (and, I would argue, this is clearly the "right" result when taking into account all relevant consensus determination on enwiki over the last 5 or 10 years). Newimpartial (talk) 16:05, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

NBASIC is clearly less restrictive as it permits piecemeal SIGCOV. But we've been over this many times. JoelleJay (talk) 19:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

But JoelleJay, GNG also permits essentially the same thing using different language.

texts and exegisis

From GNG: There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected. If there are any meaningful differences between "the number of sources required depends on the quality and depth of coverage in each source" and "If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability", then the latter seems clearly more strict than the former. NBASIC demands a bright-line minimum of two, distinct, independent sources while SIGCOV is much woolier - but quite evidently more permissive, when the subsection titled "Sources" read together with that titled "Independent of the subject", in the GNG, by any plausible reading

While SIGCOV in particular is difficult for some editors to parse, it has always seemed evident to me that the requirement for "multiple independent sources" in NBASIC is restrictive in comparison to the GNG. Newimpartial (talk) 16:12, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. There is no interpretation of this sentence that permits SIGCOV in RS that are not independent of the subject. If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability is pretty universally interpreted as meaning a non-SIGCOV (but still non-trivial) IRS source can be combined with another non-SIGCOV (but still non-trivial) IRS source. This is a departure from widely accepted reading of GNG as requiring each GNG-contributing source be SIGCOV in IRS. I know you disagree with that because "a single source can't be "sources", therefore no single source is required to meet each of the other bullet points in GNG either" (or something), but it's been the overwhelming consensus at AfD for many years. JoelleJay (talk) 00:37, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you are talking here about non-independent sources in this context, since no-one else is discussing them.

discussion of SIGCOV vs. SIRS

The text of the "sources" subsection of GNG reads: There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected. This seeems clear and is consistent with the whole of the GNG, that the the requirements for significant coverage is applied at the level of the sourcing of the topic as a whole, q.v. the opening line A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, This is a different logoc from WP:NORG, where WP:SIRS establishes a depth requirement (well above the exclusion of trivial mentions at GNG) at the level of each individual source, for the topics the guideline covers. I'm sure some editors have sloppily treated SIRS and SIGCOV as synonymous at AfD, and I have seen you argue previously that SIRS and SIGCOV are equivalent. However, I don't see any basis in GNG for this view, and I haven't seen other editors supporting your interpretation of SIGCOV as equal to SIRS in policy discussions, either.

The fact remains that, per the "sources" section, that GNG is different from NBASIC in being less restrictive - SIGCOV can be met by a single, independent RS while NBASIC cannot, for example. It seems pretty clear to me that NBASIC is stricter than GNG, and that if you want for GNG to function ike SIRS, it would require a community processes (and the eddorts I've seen in that direction have never met with much support...). Newimpartial (talk) 16:20, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Again, we've been over this many times, including in discussions where your piecemeal position was unanimously opposed. What you're nitpicking from GNG is also found in the language at ORGCRIT:

presumed notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.

GNG:

received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

The only difference between NORG and GNG that is stated in ORGCRIT is stronger emphasis on quality of the sources. Moreover,

multiple sources are generally expected is universally understood as "multiple with very rare IAR exceptions".

NBASIC departs from the expectations of GNG both in text and in practice by permitting non-significant sources to count toward notability. This is why it is employed as a clutch so routinely at AfDs when no one can find true SIGCOV of a person. JoelleJay (talk) 20:32, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you are pointing to a passage where GNG and NORG run parallel while ignoring the subsequent passage that makes them different. There is no equivalent in GNG to Wp:SIRS, which states (in part),

Individual sources must be evaluated separately and independently of each other and meet the four criteria below to determine if a source qualifies towards establishing notability...An individual source must meet all of these criteria to be counted towards establishing notability; each source needs to be significant, independent, reliable, and secondary. In addition, there must also be multiple such sources to establish notability.

These statements are true of SIRS but are not true of GNG, and are only partially true of NBASIC. This is why NORG is stricter than NBASIC, which is stricter than GNG. It is simply incorrect to state that The only difference between NORG and GNG that is stated in ORGCRIT is stronger emphasis on quality of the sources - unless you are for some reason trying to exclude SIRS from being part of NORG, but I think I have been quite explicit in maintaining that SIRS is part of WP:NORG, just as it is presented on the relevant guideline page. Newimpartial (talk) 21:02, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Your belief (which I've only seen expressed by one other regular user) that a source can count towards GNG (which is distinct from notability) when it isn't secondary, independent, or SIGCOV as long as there are other sources that each meet at least one of those criteria has been repeatedly rebuffed elsewhere, including by the literal wording of GNG where SIGCOV must be contained in independent RS (that "should be" secondary). We also had 4+ highly experienced editors at the AfC discussion addressing exactly this question who stated the standard interpretation of GNG was that each source must be SIGCOV, independent, reliable, and secondary, with minor topic-dependent leeway for how much text counts as "significant" and the use of more "holistic" impressions of encyclopedic merit for PAGEDECIDE rather than GNG purposes. This is further concordant with the overwhelming interpretation of GNG at AfD (which you don't seem to have much experience in?); in particular, the looser standards of NBASIC are frequently used at athlete AfDs as a crutch in the absence of GNG sources (which I'm sure Ravenswing and Reywas92 in this thread can attest to). JoelleJay (talk) 23:47, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

I feel as though I have entered a bizarro world in this discussion. Why would you hold that NBASIC allows more flexibility than GNG in the assessment of sources? NBASIC has a bright-line of two independent sources, GNG does not, and the depth of coverage that must be contained in the independent, reliable sources that are used to establish significance is no looser than GNG - or at least, you have not shown any evidence that it is.

Also, it is not my current view (and also not an assumption of my comments here) that a source can count towards GNG (which is distinct from notability) when it isn't secondary, independent, or SIGCOV as long as there are other sources that each meet at least one of those criteria. Only the significance requirement is fungible in this way, in the sense that one mention in great depth can compensate for all other independent RS mentions being brief (though non-trivial), and likewise a large number of mid-complexity sources can compensate for the lack of two deep ones. But this isn't really quite the right way to think of this; GNG SIGCOV has always been something arrived at by summing the independent, reliable sourcing for something and seeing whether that total is significant, and not by assessing whether the two "deepest" independent RS are each deep enough. I understand that the latter is often done at AfD, and that many SNGs work that way, but the GNG is actually rather clear on the point - but enwiki is quite given to urban legends of this kind, especially when they align with the prior convictions of many editors.

As far as the AfC discussion you have linked is concerned, I do not see 4+ highly experienced editors agreeing with your interpretation, and I see at least one very experienced editor saying that AfC is not the right place for that discussion, so I'm not sure what that link is intended to demonstrate to is here - which actually is the correct venue for such exegesis. If you are trying to discredit me by citing views I once held but no longer do - well I'm not sure how that is a productive use of anyone's time. Newimpartial (talk) 02:12, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Comment - I would be inclined to read NMUSIC in parallel to WP:AUTHOR - just as the author of any two notable (i.e., independently-reviewed) books is presumed Notable, a band that has released two notable (i.e., major label or notable indie) albums is presumed Notable. As other editors have pointed out, NMUSIC is rather more vague than NAUTHOR and NBOOK about all of this - I have my suspicions about the reasons for this, but unless someone wants to ask me so doubt my various speculations on that are very important. The point of NMUSIC in this context ought to be that we can identify notable albums, and bands that have released at least two notable albums are presumed Notable. (The one additional comment I will make about the NMUSIC text is that, while I understand the "major label" and "notable indie" concepts historically, I think the reference in NBAND5. is unfortunate and a simpler reference to "notable albums" would work better.)

The other point I would make is about encyclopaedicity - I think it should be clear to any editor able to step back from their personal preferences that, in the domain of recorded music, readers of an online encyclopedia benefit the most from fully navigable (and categorizable) sets of articles for all notable bands, for all notable individual musicians who have at any time been members of those bands (and even marginally notable individuals who have been members of multiple notable bands, especially for navigation and categorization), and for all notable albums that those bands have released (on which the individual performing musicians are often also visible). Readers of an online encyclopaedia do not benefit by efforts of editors to restrict articles only to especially "significant" bands, especially "significant" performers, or especially "significant" albums, above a typically modest threshold of Notability. Newimpartial (talk) 14:49, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Missing the point there: you're making a completely subjective value judgment just like most other people seem to be. What does "notable" mean to you? And no, not by falling back on a set of very flawed criteria. What defines a "notable" band, as opposed to a "significant" one, beyond semantics? Why should two "notable" works be the minimum requirement, as opposed to four, or six, or one? Ravenswing 11:24, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

To answer your question, what I mean by Notability here is "meeting Wikipedia standards of notability", which aside from special considerations in a particular domain amounts to, "having a credible claim to significance and discussed in independent, reliable sources". I think for recordings we would be much better off simply treating them like books and films - they are notable if people independently recognize them e.g., if people write criticism about them. And bands should follow the principle embedded in NCREATIVE (and the explicit restriction to clarify that NOTINHERITED is not an issue here) - bands that have released multiple notable albums are themselves Notable. Our readers benefit when this is done, and there isn't any completely subjective value judgment - if critics that are independent of the subject have reviewed multiple albums, then the band should be deemed to meet Notability criteria. A "notable" band is a procedural question of what the sources say, while "significance", as you imply, would involve subjective judgement and is unhelpful in this domain IMO. (The "credible claim to significance" is, of course, a term of art from WP:PROD that I would like to see more widely used - examples of a "credible claim to significsnce" ought to include "has released multiple notable albums" just as "having published two books that have received RS reviews" already counts as a credible claim to significance, in terms of enwicki P&Gs.) Newimpartial (talk) 12:10, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I've not used PROD much so I could be wrong, but I've never heard of CCS used in that context (I guess it could be used as a reason to deprive but so could anything). The way it is used for A7, etc, is explicitly distinguished from notability. Alpha3031 (t • c) 00:20, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I checked at the history of music notability page. The gist of the wording hasn't changed since 2005 or so. Another thing I remember being used by a keep advocate somewhere was the album's gold status. This means sell 2,000 copies in Slovakia and the passes Wiki notability. List_of_music_recording_certifications 2,000 is all it takes in Slovakia for gold. Graywalls (talk) 03:10, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

And in 2005, we were mostly spitballing. What determined SNGs back then were a handful of editors (or one eloquent one) tossing up criteria that seemed to them good, and declaring them the notability standard. I suspect the sound of crickets in response to my ongoing question as to what evidence anyone has produced linking these criteria to meeting the GNG translates to "Not a shred, and we know it." Ravenswing 11:21, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@Ravenswing, if you want another perfect example of this just look at the essay WP:NJOURNALS... JoelleJay (talk) 19:16, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Is that essay widely vetted on? Graywalls (talk) 23:15, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

@Graywalls I don't know what you're asking. JoelleJay (talk) 02:27, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Anyone can write essay, but some essays are more vetted, such as those that are linked from guideline and policy pages. I was asking if the NJOURNALS is considered as adjacent to policy or just something written by some editor that's not widely adopted. Graywalls (talk) 02:13, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

@Chubbles:, you've cited the #5 several times in AfD related to recording label businesses. Previous discussions supporting acceptance of such is appreciated. Graywalls (talk) 03:45, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not interested in discussing policy at this venue; I volunteer here to write about music. If and when the music-focused editors revisit this topic, I may contribute. Chubbles (talk) 05:14, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

@Chubbles You don't have to take the time to discuss. All I am requesting is you provide links to RFCs or discussions that lead up to strong appearance of consensus starting to build up showing NMUSIC #5 is even remotely relevant to record label notability. Graywalls (talk) 00:32, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Refocus the discussion re NBAND

Folks, I think we have wandered off topic… the question is: 1) do we need to amend NBAND #5 to eliminate the circular reasoning of “Band is notable due to label / Label is notable due to band”? 2) If so, how? Blueboar (talk) 12:56, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes. By making it so labels do not make a band notable. The difference here is notable bands are the main way a label becomes notable. The label is not the main way a band becomes notable -- there is a vast music publishing structure which writes articles about bands and albums, but rarely labels. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:52, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not inclined to say anything about the Notability of labels, but as far as NBAND #5 is concerned, I believe - as I stated above - that it would work better if it referred simply to notable albums, with that notability defined in the usual way as based on independent RS reviews, etc. This would run parallel to WP:NAUTHOR and WP:NBOOK, which I take to be the relevant comparison. Newimpartial (talk) 14:59, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Prominent labels used to be be a strong indicator regarding a band but they no longer are. North8000 (talk) 15:09, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Refocussing the discussion seems appropriate here. Personally, I would argue that we do need to rewrite this, because circular notability criteria like this contribute to a mechanism of bands/labels granting each other notability, which I think conflicts with the focus on independence that notability criteria are generally expected to have. Actualcpscm (talk) 15:16, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Whatever the rewording is, I am opposed to causing leniency to be opened up that allows record labels to be declared notable without having to meet NCORP. Many record label articles are made up of a large roster as the main content and when I look at the linked articles, many are clearly non-notable. So, "notable" means any bands that have a blue link?? Graywalls (talk) 23:32, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Definitely would not weigh notability of bands by their labels. Labels have little input into the creative process used to make songs, so they are less likely to be the subject of discussion compared to bands. A label with lots of GNG-notable bands but otherwise clearly GNG notable would still be reasonable to have an article for purposes of organization. --Masem (t) 00:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Bands are notable because they have received significant coverage in secondary sources. Not because they do what bands do. #5 should be eliminated altogether, as should most of the rest of the criteria besides #1. Or they should at least have to meet more than one of the criteria. Reywas92^Talk 01:43, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Eliminating labels altogether would be a fine step. That's always been a violation of NOTINHERITED; just remove #5 altogether. I also concur with Graywalls that the minimum level a label should meet is NCORP. Heck, the surest way to cure NBAND would be to strike ALL NOTINHERITED elements. An album/song is notable (or not) in its own right, and not dependent on its performers. A musician is notable (or not) in their own right, and not dependent on any associated group, album or song. A band is notable (or not) in its own right, and not dependent on the notability of its component performers. Ravenswing 04:57, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

For the record, I agree with the point here about labels and about non-inheritability from a band to its songs, but I disagee with the other direction. The language in NOTINHERIT itself that says that works make their creator notable (books making their author notable, etc.) should continue to apply to albums and bands. It is readers of an online encyclopaedia who benefit from being able to navigate from bands to component musicians to bands (and to albums), as musicians reconfigure themselves into different bands. The purpose of any encyclopaedia is to serve the needs of its readers, so let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Newimpartial (talk) 09:45, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

It is readers of an online encyclopedia who benefit from being able to navigate between notable articles which contain significant content. Too many of these coatrack band articles come down to "The band members were X, Y, Z and Notable Guy, and they came out with a single album that didn't chart, and broke up four months later, the end." Too many of these coatrack musician articles come down to "Soandso was a bass guitarist for Notable Band, CV included, and played in Notable Band for two years before dropping out to become a pig farmer, yadda yadda yadda, the end." This tells us nothing that can't be handled in the main article in a paragraph ... or in altogether too many cases, in a couple of sentences.

With that, allow me to correct you. The language in NOTINHERITED doesn't say that works make their creators notable. It states that there are four SNGs (involving books, artists, music and films) that proffer exceptions to the rule. These exceptions are lingering bad decisions made in the early years of Wikipedia, and they should no more be graven in stone than other contemporary rules in which their abuses became too much for the editing base to tolerate ... unless you're arguing for the reinstatement of WP:PORNBIO, or that WP:NSPORTS should again read that anyone who's ever played as much as five minutes of the top level of any sport in any country should be automatically notable thereby? Ravenswing 12:20, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Not disagreeing on the main point, but I would think that if, for example, we have a band that is not GNG-notable but has dozens of GNG-notable songs and albums (a condition I think near impossible to happen given how music coverage works), it would be reasonable for purposes of navigation to have a page about the band that includes their notable works. When that threshold (the number of required songs/albums) is passed, I don't know, but it definitely would likely need to be in double digits figures. Similarly for a label, having a dozen+ notable bands would be reason to have a page about the label for navigation purposes. Note this is far larger than what NBAND#5 sets. Masem (t) 13:41, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree that such a scenario is nearly impossible, if one were to qualify that at all. But here's the rub: is it really in the encyclopedia's interest to have hundreds or even thousands of articles on fringe bands/musicians just because one such might -- and we are talking about a hypothetical here -- conceivably fall through the cracks? I don't believe so. Ravenswing 15:42, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Remember that, should a highly implausible situation occur, the community can always decide to simply WP:Ignore all rules. Thus a specific article can be kept even if it does not pass GNG or its relevant SNG. Nothing requires us to delete an article we think is beneficial. Guidelines should not need to account for every plausible rare exception. Blueboar (talk) 17:38, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Exactly this. Guidelines should be written for the majority of cases, not some hypothetical oddball edge case, as that is exactly what IAR is for. The example I give for that with some frequency is that we have exactly zero independent sources for the article on humans, as each and every one of those sources was written by a human, but no one would say with a straight face that we should delete that article. That's the odd edge case where applying the rules as written would result in an absurd outcome, so we just ignore them in that instance. But that doesn't mean we should scrap the GNG, it just means, as the very top of every guideline page says, that there is an occasional need to make an exception to them. But guidelines should be applicable to the 99.9% of cases, not the 0.1%. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:33, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

How often does IAR successfully get accepted anyhow? Graywalls (talk) 06:59, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

At AfD, basically whenever there are enough editors to form a local ILIKEIT consensus in defiance of PAGs. See all the AfDs ending in keep due entirely to the topic meeting the fake guideline NJOURNALS... JoelleJay (talk) 16:47, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

As I have stated in other contexts (e.g., here), I partially disagree with what Ravenswing says about what benefits the readers of an online encyclopaedia. My sense is that the current mood on-wiki, a sort of "hoist the depth requirements" stance that sees stubs and near-stubs as abhorrent, runs counter to the affordances of an online encyclopaedia and the expectations readers of such an encyclopedia typically have. Some editors seem to hold the view that it is always, or typically, better for readers to glom information into longer articles on an ad hoc basis without a consistent pattern - for example, to treat a musician's participation in two bands in those two band articles without the musician themself having even a basic article. As a preference this strikes me as un-encyclopaedic, as it tends to render the category system, the list system, the hyperlink system (for mentions in other articles) and the mouse-over text and google preview functions, well, dysfunctional.

extended commentary

I have the impression that some editors have in the back of their mind a conception of Wikipedia as a great body of text, in which article titles and articles themselves are essentially navigational aids within that (fundamental) corpus. And I suppose I have one of the most contrary views to that - I see wikipedia as an assemblage of nodes, of which conventional articles are one kind of node and list articles, stub articles, disambiguation pages, redirects and categories are, in their different ways, other kinds of nodes. Yes, these nodes contain text of varying kinds including hypertext, but it is the way the nodes themselves are organized that has the greatest impact, as I see it, to the health of an online encyclopedia. It is to feed this "node" system that article types like (sourced) geo-stubs, species stubs, and author and band near-stubs seem to me like a clear gain to readers, and their absence a clear loss. And taken as a whole, each of these article types is not a "nearly impossible phenomenon" that could be handled by IAR - and not a "mistake" arising from early wikipedians' recreational drug use - but an actual value that has been recognized in guidelines like GEOLAND, NAUTHOR and, yes, NMUSIC and whose erosion has a direct, negative impact on the usefulness and therefore the relevance of Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia by humans, for humans. If we wanted a corpus of summary text that would reflect proportionately the sum of human knowledge as recorded in writing, we now have algorithms that can (or soon will be able to) do that much better than Wikipedia ever could. The specific value of Wikipedia is found in human judgement, and organizing knowlege (as in the "nodes" I have just described) is one of the areas where human judgment is still essentially irreplacable.

Also, I don't really appreciate the straw goat-style slippery slope argunentation about NOTINHERITED. First of all, we should all remember - as NOTINHERITED itself reminds us - that NOTINHERITED is not a rule, nor does it even have the status of policy or guideline. Rather, it is one section of an essay and, represents, if anything, more of a post hoc rationalization than a principle IMO. Second, I for one don't actually object to "non-inheritability" as a general principle, but that essay section would align better with the Notability guidelines and effective article selection if the key takeaway were more clearly "Notability is not necessarily inherited" or "assiciation with a notable topic doesn't guarantee Notability", though the latter is perhaps more clearly a truism than editors who flog NOTINHERITED at AfD would be comfortable with. But finally, in any event, it seems to me that the "exceptions" recorded in NCREATIVE, NBOOK, NFILM and NMUSIC aren't really comparable to PORNBIO, because they actually address principles of "what makes a good encyclopaedia" that are more important for readers than the alternative criterion, preferred by some editors, of applying a uniform sourcing standard to all topics when determining Notability. I believe I have written quite enough, above, about why I believe this to be the case, but it seems highly relevant to the question of whether not to replicate the structure of NAUTHOR within NBAND, which I would find advisable. Newimpartial (talk) 20:27, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I apologize this is not going to be the post I had hoped to provide. I've been not very active here lately because of RL issues. Most good, some bad, one very bad, but with much improved outlook. I'm mostly going to be offline for the next few weeks to take care of the last issue. But I aplogize if I don't address several things I intended to directly, as I have very limited time even today.

The TLDR is that I don't think that NCORP is the best default notability guideline for record labels. I've explained my position at numerous record label AfDs. I beg that you read what I wrote at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afternoon Records (3rd nomination), [[1]], Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Machine Group. These are not IAR arguments, but based upon WP:V, WP:WHYN and WP:PRESERVE.

Regarding NMUSIC#5, I think it is important that notability guidelines are not just for deletion discussions, but are a guide to content creators looking to see if a topic is worth writing. The criteria is an indication of notability, not proof of notability. It doesn't work in every situation. The role of record labels has changed significantly since 1889 (year of first commercially released recordings). The guideline does not work well for the 78rpm era, when "albums" were usually classical releases starting in the 1920s. Album sets of 78rpm popular music didn't really begin in significant numbers until the 1940s. I think the guideline is a good indicator of notability during the 1950s through the 1980s, when operating a label with notable artists was a much more difficult endeavor. It's a decent guideline for the pre-ditital era, where so many sources that would cover the topic are not available online. Since the digital era, the role and activities of record labels have changed significantly. You don't have to release a physical product anymore. The barriers are significantly reduced. I'm probably just old and biased.

I think it is very important to pay attention to what Blueboar said about circular reasoning. Walled gardens do not indicate notability. The guideline should at least add something like "and said bands are entirely notable outside of association with said record label." (I'm sure the group could come up with a vast improvement.)

Other previous discussions which may be useful are at [2], [3], [4], and [5]. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 02:36, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

"Stand-alone list" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Stand-alone list has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 September 14 § Stand-alone list until a consensus is reached. Fram (talk) 15:48, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

WP:N and WP:IINFO

Hi, WT:N watchers! I'd be glad of your input here. In an AfD, I have just said: A topic gets more notable when a selective source has noted it. When an indiscriminate source has noted it, that source doesn't count towards WP:N. User:BeanieFan11 doubts me on that point, so let's check. Am I right?—S Marshall T/C 23:40, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

• Yes. Indiscriminate coverage might be useful for writing an article, but it doesn't tell us anything about whether the topic is encyclopedic. BilledMammal (talk) 23:41, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
• More context here: Olympedia has listings on every Olympian of all-time. A mid-to-small portion of those have decent-sized biographies attached, including this one. Should that source be disqualified from counting as SIGCOV for being "indiscriminate" (something that I don't see applying at all)? BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:44, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  See WP:RSPBTVA for a similar example. BilledMammal (talk) 23:49, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  I have no idea what "Behindthevoiceactors.com" is - but looking at the first citation to it using a wikipedia search (on Shaquille O'Neal) - it doesn't seem to be that in-depth, where as in some cases (like this one) Olympedia is. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:53, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  I have no idea what "Behindthevoiceactors.com" is Olympedia if Olympedia was interested in voice actors rather than Olympians. BilledMammal (talk) 23:55, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  If it's not an open wiki, it doesn't really matter. Either what it has is SIGCOV for the particular topic in question, or it's not... right? Jclemens (talk) 00:45, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think that at a Wiki-philosophical level, a comprehensive database can't ever be SIGCOV. We prefer academic or news media articles as evidence of notability, because if a topic has been the focus of a study or news media article, then a professional has selected that topic as an important or interesting one. Appearing in a comprehensive database is like appearing in the telephone directory. I mean, personally, I've written a book. It has an ISBN and a publisher, and it appears in comprehensive databases of books -- but that doesn't mean my book gets its own Wikipedia article. It would need reviews etc. before it becomes notable, right? And even more so for Olympians, who are so often living people so we need to be extra-careful about sourcing.—S Marshall T/C 10:00, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  IMO there are at least two different questions blended together there:

  • Does being an indiscriminate/comprehensive database categorically rule it out as counting towards wp:notability? For example, if even it has substantial coverage in a prominent such db? IMHO no.
  • Is being an indiscriminate/comprehensive database a minus when considering it's contribution towards establishing wp:notability? IMHO yes

  North8000 (talk) 12:42, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  How many comprehensive databases have an editorial process that establishes that database as a reliable source? That's what I think is important. ~TPW 15:48, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

  Many database websites are reliable for the info they contain, that doesn't mean they provide SIGCOV or are secondary and independent. JoelleJay (talk) 21:32, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

• I think that S Marshall's point has some validity....there are many wp:notability areas where the nature of the source figures into the equation, including how meaningful it was that the source chose the article subject, and the source being indiscriminate takes that away. But I don't think that the point is strong enough to exclude the source from the notability equation based solely on that point. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:00, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
• I like to think of it in the context of significant sources and supplementary sources. Short bios on databases or general passing mentions are nice supplementary sources to help fill out an article, but typically don't constitute sigcov on their own. Curbon7 (talk) 02:11, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
• While the general question is important looking further into this specific case it isn't relevant here; Olympedia is owned by the International Olympic Committee, and thus isn't independent and can't contribute to notability. BilledMammal (talk) 02:12, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Though, this says that it is "not an official IOC product" and is "a product solely of the OlyMADMen" (a group of Olympic historians including Bill Mallon). Wondering if that's sufficient to count as independent. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:11, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
    • Well, Olympedia is certainly independent of Gyula Iványi, so I'm sure it could contribute to his notability if it wasn't indiscriminate.—S Marshall T/C 15:34, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

      It isn't independent. It's the Olympic Games and writers retained by them documenting everyone who's competed in the Olympic Games. Largoplazo (talk) 16:20, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

      I agree with Largoplazo; an organization writing about people affiliated with their organization because they are affiliated with their organization isn't providing independent coverage. Another example of this is the NFL writing about NFL players; we've agreed that such coverage is usually reliable, but not independent. BilledMammal (talk) 22:19, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

      That reasoning can be taken to too much of an extreme: newspapers of [country X] writing about [person from country X who did something in country Y] because they are from [country X] would certainly count as independent, despite both belonging to a common organization (the country in which they are citizens or incorporated). The same might be said to be true for very large but subnational organizations that have independent media within them; a story in one of the US Army publications, about a member of the US Army, might reasonably be interpreted as being independent enough, as might an in-depth profile of an alum in a university alumni magazine. That said, I agree that a project of the Olympic Committee documenting all Olympians does not count as independent. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:35, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

      Subnational examples like most of the US Army publications and definitely university alumni magazines have long been considered non-independent in this context (for identical reasons to why we consider an employer to be a non-independent source on an employee even if there is no possible way the employee could influence the employer's statements). If substantial profiles by orgs a subject belongs to are deemed independent then please go ahead and undelete the thousands of articles on internet-era fourth-tier footballers and cricketers I've seen deleted at AfD due to only being covered by such hype sources. JoelleJay (talk) 00:39, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

      You left out the part about the "common organization" writing about all of its members because they're members. That was the point re Olympedia. The national equivalent is the phone book. At least in a small country. (Thinking of Steve Martin's character in The Jerk finding his name in the phone book and exulting, "I'm somebody now!") Largoplazo (talk) 01:42, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

      @S Marshall: re: Gyula Iványi and others (I appreciate this is a month ago...) - the extent of the prose content is what I would look at. Certainly nowhere near evert athlete has any significant prose, certainly not any that covers their wider life. If it does then that prose is coming from sources - they're not making it up! Those sources exist - the researchers who wrote the Olympia article found them (in the case of Gyula Iványi, there absolutely must be sources that deal with the Italian bit, the Great Silver Cup, his work life etc...). The question is, how in depth is the coverage in the Olympedia article and what does that tell us about the sources that have been used.

      In the case of Douglas Godfree (Olympedia article) I was able to find the original sources - almost certainly the same ones that were used by the Olympedia author(s). It's absolutely clearcut that if the Olympedia article goes in to some depth about the person's life that those sources will be there. The question we need to ask is, at what point do we make that decision. Godfree's Olympedia article is 252 words long; I think only 24 of those deal with his Olympic career. Gyula Iványi's Olympedia article is 87 words; 13 deal with he Olympics. In the case of Godfree I really don't think there's a doubt that the Olympedia article has enough in it to be a reasonable source - in looking at a few hundred Olymedia articles, not many have that many words in or deal with the subject in such a broad fashion; the way that Godfree is dealt with within the database is unusually detailed; maybe only 10% of entries have this level of detail? I don't know, but it's not many.

      At this point the indiscriminate nature of things doesn't fly for me. Gyula Iványi is more difficult because we're looking at someone where most of the sources won't be written in English. There's some detail, but I'm not sure I'd be happy to flat out say that there's enough there by itself to suggest that there's easily going to be enough to be able to write an article - of course, in this case the article written by Szabo Gabor clearly adds enough anyway, but if we just had Olympedia I'd be circumspect. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, but I'd probably want a bit more myself. In the case of, say, Adolf Schmal, Jr, which is much more basic prose, there's - in my view - clearly not enough detail. Here we're becoming more indiscriminate, and once you get to Albert Johnstone or Aleksandr Akhyun we're clearly at the indiscriminate database only level.

      If there's enough detail then the sources are there. Should we have to find them - as I did with Godfree - or can we accept that time limitations mean that we should just go with Olymedia? And at what level do we make that call? Blue Square Thing (talk) 18:28, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

      Olympedia is a tertiary source, just like Wikipedia. If there are reliable sources cites in an Olympedia article, I'd use those instead. ~TPW 15:57, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

    That article says Bill Mallon worked for the IOC and has apparently served as the "unofficial historian for the USOC since 2010". His group also worked directly for the Olympics from 2018 on. Plus some of the older entries at olympics.com link to "our description [...] at olympedia.org". That makes them even more non-independent than I realized. JoelleJay (talk) 01:30, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Isn't this already covered by the first footnote? databases, [...] may not actually support notability when examined. If a sports database provides WP:SIGCOV (i.e. a few hundred words), then it should be fine. Otherwise, doesn't count towards notability. Using "indiscriminateness" as a factor seems redundant (and fuzzier). DFlhb (talk) 12:55, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  The first footnote doesn't say the database needs to provide a few hundred words before it's SIGCOV. Sadly, it's much vaguer than that.—S Marshall T/C 13:29, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  That's fair to say. Frankly I don't know what that footnote was intended to mean; that's the only way I can make sense of it. DFlhb (talk) 14:24, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  That's very old wording. "Directories and databases" was inserted on 3 Nov 2007 in this edit by User:UnitedStatesian, and it doesn't seem to have changed much since.—S Marshall T/C 15:46, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

• This is one that has to be decided on a case by case basis. Some of the articles seem to provide SIGCOV, but others definitely do not. The site combines database with more in-depth coverage. Blueboar (talk) 15:41, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
• This is my understanding of it as well. WP:NOTDATABASE and WP:INDISCRIMINATE go hand in hand. I have often been tempted to change the section to "not a database" for clarity (but the current title isn't broken). Shooterwalker (talk) 02:13, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Drat, I'm not really seeing a consensus here.—S Marshall T/C 08:16, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @S Marshall: IMO your point is good in the sense that it should weigh heavily in wp:notability discussions. And it touches on an often unacknowledged point in how the fuzzy wp:notability ecosystem operates. But you have proposed it as a categorical rule /exclusion which sort of conflicts with how the system operates. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:36, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

• Mostly, yeah. It's significant when a publisher treads outside of their normal wheelhouse to touch something adjacent, because it affects their normal subjects and readers ought to be informed on it. Writing about everything in a group, even if one is well researched and strongly reliable, still means that the subject is not special/worthy of particular interest. Applying this to the (now-withdrawn) AfD, Olympedia has the bar set at being an Olympian, not necessarily being worthy of interest, which N intends to gauge. SWinxy (talk) 15:02, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
• I think North8000 says it best - we have a fuzzy ecosystem, that works pretty well. There will always be edge cases that are difficult to adjudicate, but in general, categorical exclusions and inclusions may work better or worse in certain topic areas. One problematic aspect about Olympedia is that the editors/authors did not provide the sources they used to develop those articles. --Enos733 (talk) 16:01, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
• What about the World Athletics / IAAF website? I've created some pages that mostly use such websites and results as sources. Are these athletes notable? —Lights and freedom (talk ~ contribs) 19:21, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  I took a look at 4 or 5 of them. For those I would say these two things:

  • The sources in the articles did not establish wp:notability
  • If you searched and those are the best sources that you can find with respect to meeting GNG source criteria, then no

  Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:49, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  @North8000: Then you can nominate them for deletion. I created them going by criteria at WP:Notability (sports) due to their participation in world championship events, but the standards may have changed. I haven't been following any edits to that notability guideline, so I don't remember what it said when I made these articles. —Lights and freedom (talk ~ contribs) 21:55, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  That's not what I do unless forced into it by NPP responsibility. Here I was only trying to answer your question. You should also note the exact wording in my two items. Neither said "confirmed not notable". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:21, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  NSPORT has always required subjects meet GNG. Did you check that they did before making the articles? JoelleJay (talk) 23:04, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  Governing sporting orgs like IAAF are not independent. JoelleJay (talk) 23:05, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

• Without offering a view on the initial question, I have read a lot of commentary above that (as often happens in on-wiki discissions) construes WP:INDEPENDENT as establishing requirements that it actually does not. The defining element of independence in P&G text is the absence of a vested interest, defined as follows: Interest in a topic becomes vested when the source (the author, the publisher, etc.) develops any financial or legal relationship to the topic. An interest in this sense may be either positive or negative. A fan group source may be unreliable or unsuitable for use as a reference, for various reasons, but not because the authors or publishers have a POV (positive or negative) concerning the topic. When it comes to long-deceased athletes, for example, it seems EXTRAORDINARY to me that anyone would consider any 21st-century source to be non-independent, that is, to have a vested legal or financial interest in their biographies.
• If editors want INDEPENDENT to mean what they seem to think it means, that would require changes (and probably affirmative consensus) over at the explanatory essay. Newimpartial (talk) 20:19, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  GNG helpfully defines "independent" for us as "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it. For example, advertising, press releases, autobiographies, and the subject's website are not considered independent.

  Per this definition, Olympedia is not independent. BilledMammal (talk) 19:09, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  According to this maximalist interpretation of "someone affiliated with it", where Olympedia is somehow counted as non-independent because it is produced by people interested in the Olympics (but not by the IOC), only the sources that are completely disconnected from a subject would be allowed to be considered independent of it. Major national newspapers could not be used for news about events in their country, because they are in the same country. Research journals dedicated to scientific fields could not be used for articles in those fields, because they are affiliated with the same field. This is, to put it bluntly, nuts. The only reason for taking this point of view is to warp our notability standards beyond recognition in order to delete everything. It has no legitimate basis in quality control of our content. The real problem with all of these Olympic competitor databases has nothing to do with their independence nor their reliability: it is that they provide too little depth of coverage of most Olympians. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:30, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  Olympedia is owned by the IOC. BilledMammal (talk) 20:11, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  If we are talking about a long dead athlete, it is independent of the subject. The subject is the person not the IOC. --Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:46, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  The subject is an Olympian and they are being covered solely because they are an Olympian, by an entity owned by the IOC. That’s why it’s not independent, just as IBM writing about its early executives wouldn’t be an independent source. BilledMammal (talk) 20:56, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  The idea that an entity owned by the IOC therefore has a potential for personal, financial, or political gain in the biographies of long-dead athletes does not appear to be supported by enwiki P&G text - or at least not by WP:INDEPENDENT, which has been the principle invoked in this discussion. Newimpartial (talk) 23:46, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

  Seems rather obvious to me that the IOC would want to make sure all Olympians, living or dead, would want to be well documented, and thus cannot be considered independent. It would be different if an entity with maybe a connection to one sport (say, the NFL) did the same thing but for any professional athlete regardless of sport, in which case the gain that entity would having in promoting their own players is significantly weakened.

  An equivalent scenario would be a university keeping short bios on all its Ph.D. alumni, past and present. Masem (t) 00:07, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  Seems rather obvious to me that the IOC would want to make sure all Olympians, living or dead, would want to be well documented, and thus cannot be considered independent. Particularly since the prominence of the Olympics compared to other sporting events comes from its history; promoting that history is essential to maintaining the prominence of the games. BilledMammal (talk) 00:41, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  The history point doesn't make a lot of sense from where I'm sat. See also FA Cup, The Ashes, Six Nations, World Series, Stanley Cup, the Brier, Grand Final, Grey Cup etc... Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  I don't understand the point you are trying to make; can you clarify?

  What I am saying is that to maintain and enhance the Olympic brand the IOC has an interest in promoting the history of the games, a history which extends to the competitors. BilledMammal (talk) 07:40, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  Lots of organisations and events have long histories. It's not unique to the Olympics.

  I think you're conflating owned by with have a practical influence on. I don't think I've seen anything on Olympedia that could be considered to be a puff piece; the writing seems factual and impartial to me. On the other hand, there is a set of lists that deal with doping irregularities, for example. Further to that, it seems to cover controversial stuff impartially as far as I can tell - Ernest Lee Jahncke (Wikipedia article) for example. That's about as factual as you could get there isn't it? Toni Merkens seems to be covered factually as well, as is Michael Phelps. In neither case is their either outrage or bluster. The entries on Helene Mayer (covered despite never competing I note), Gretel Bergmann, Elfriede Kaun and Dora Ratjen seem to written from an NPOV and in an academic style. They're almost exemplary in terms of the sort of coverage we should be looking for. All could have been written to express a POV. Tommie Smith and John Carlos are written about in the same, NPOV style, as are Boris Onishchenko, Władysław Kozakiewicz and Marion Jones. Honestly, find me the puffery; this stuff is well written and neutral; we should be embracing it, not rejecting it. Blue Square Thing (talk) 10:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  Lots of organisations and events have long histories. It's not unique to the Olympics. I still don't understand the point you are making? If the The Football Association publishes works about the history of the FA Cup then those works also lack independence - and the same is true with all of the other events you mentioned.

  we should be embracing it, not rejecting it - No one is saying we shouldn't use it, just that it isn't independent and thus doesn't count towards notability. BilledMammal (talk) 10:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  The Olympedia article for Douglas Godfree is clearly based on sources that I was able to find the originals of. If there's prose, it's because sources exist to provide it. If there's enough prose, I think we can suggest very strongly that NEXIST comes into play Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:43, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  And we need to identify those sources to ensure they comply with our policies - that they are reliable, secondary, independent, and contain significant coverage of the subject. Further, failing to identify them can result in NPOV issues, as due to its lack of independence Olympedia provides a focus on an individuals sporting achievements that can be undue. BilledMammal (talk) 23:00, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  The point isn't (only) that Olympedia is "influenced by" its competitors and therefore might provide unduly positive profiles on them (but of course that is true as well, because the infamy of an Olympian does reflect on and affect the status of the Olympics itself). It's (also) that the existence and amount of attention given to the subject by the Olympics is not a faithful representation of the subject's real-world renown--both because the Olympics is dedicated to hyping every Olympian, and because it is tied to its own self-promotion. An alumni magazine will spotlight an alumnus in great detail not because the subject is independently a noteworthy topic, but because the magazine has a direct interest in covering the achievements of alumni. JoelleJay (talk) 17:32, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  I provided 11 examples of athletes where there is clearly objective coverage of potentially controversial careers. Could you show me some where you think that Olympedia is in any way skewed to be overly positive or excluded key negatives? Any at all? I'm yet to find a profile that isn't simply factual in the way it presents information about an athlete. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:43, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  See my second point. JoelleJay (talk) 23:34, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  WP:INDEPENDENT is an essay. For the purposes of notability, the meaning of independence is the one defined at WP:GNG. BilledMammal (talk) 00:37, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  My understanding is that WP:INDEPENDENT is intensed to offer a definition of what counts as a strong connection to a subject, defining that as a financual or legal relationship. While many explanatory essays on WP are controversial in the clarifications they offer, I am not aware of any such controversy about INDEPENDENT. Newimpartial (talk) 09:03, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  My reading of GNG suggests that it is very clear on what constitutes independence and we don't need an essay that has not been thoroughly vetted by the community to clarify it. If you want to use a different definition of independent then I suggest you get a consensus to modify GNG. BilledMammal (talk) 10:25, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  If you believe that affiliated with ... the article's subject has a very clear meaning that invalidates the source in question from being considered independent of long-dead athletes, I suggest that you obtain consensus for your reading of GNG in an appropriate forum. That isn't the way I read the paragraph in question, nor am I seeing consensus for your reading in the discussion here. Newimpartial (talk) 16:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

  Olympedia has a financial and legal relationship with the Olympics. JoelleJay (talk) 17:34, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  But I don't think anyone has proposed that Olympedia is an independent source about the Olympics. The question under discussion in this subthread is whether it is an independent source for biographical information about people who are long-dead. And I for one don't see any financial or legal relationship between Olympedia and such topics. Newimpartial (talk) 16:30, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

  I've only popped in here sporadically, so, is that really what this subthread is about? If so, it seems like it should be suspended, because that means it's become a discussion of WP:V, whereas this page is for discussing WP:N. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Largoplazo (talk • contribs) 16:45, 29 June 2023 (UTC) 16:45, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

  The Olympics has a financial and legal relationship with Olympians, and is financially interested in promoting coverage of itself and particularly its own history. JoelleJay (talk) 22:40, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

  The idea that the Olympics has a financial and legal relationship with long-dead athletes reads to me like an EXTRAORDINARY claim. And this discussion is not about the Olympics having an interest in its own history but rather in the biographies of deceased people. If it were found that Olympedia published puffery or bias in their biographies, then I could see that their RS status could be questioned, but I haven't seen that alleged.

  At the moment, the argument I have heard would imply that any of a national granting agency provided financial support for a biographical project (such as the Dictionary of Canadian Biography), that the resulting biographical entries were not independent because they covered (long deceased) citizens or residents of the nation in question. This doesn't seem to be a criterion that we have used to evaluate independence of sources on WP. Newimpartial (talk) 17:57, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  Significant coverage of an organization's history written by the organization itself is merely an indication that the organization finds that information noteworthy, not that people independent of it do. A neutral and comprehensive biography of someone by their child does not contribute to notability even if it has no written puffery or bias. The choice of the subject itself is where the bias exists; it does not represent the real-world degree of interest in the subject. Providing a source of funding is very different from overseeing a project. JoelleJay (talk) 18:26, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think you could make a very plausible argument that "the Olympics" (which is a rather nebulous concept) oversees Olympedia in a notably stronger sense than Heritage Canada and its predecessors have "overseen" (through the outcomes specified in various funding arrangements) the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. And there is no more bias in writing about Olympians than there is in writing about Canadians, or women for that matter, in terms of bias in the choice of subject.

  There are biographical projects specific to various groups, and their avowed objectives of publishing biographies, but only of lives having certain characteristics of interest, doesn't make them non-independent in any way relevant to enwiki P&Gs.

  Biographies of deceased athletes are not coverage of an organization's history any more than biographies of deceased Canadians are "coverage of an organization's history" or biographies of deceased women are "coverage of an organization's history". They are all just biographies, good or bad. I don't know how many Olympics participants you have known, but the one's I've known have simply been on their own life trajectories which intersected at one or two points with an Olympic Games. Writing about their life as a whole isn't COI, and this should be clear to everyone in the case of those who are long dead. Newimpartial (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  An organization writing about its own members, past or present, is distinct from a government funding an org that writes biographies of the country's citizens. Most organization websites contain a detailed history of themselves that may go into much greater detail on the founders etc. than just their time at the company. That obviously doesn't make such profiles independent coverage. JoelleJay (talk) 20:00, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  To add: when the choice of which profiles to write is directly and inextricably tied to coverage of the org itself, the coverage is not independent. JoelleJay (talk) 20:04, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  You are writing about "the Olympics" as though it were a membership organization. To the best of my knowledge, there is no reason to interpret the situation in this way. Treating long-dead athletes who competed in the Olympics more than a century ago as though they were akin to the founders of Ford Motor Company or the NAACP seems to be based on a misreading of how the modern Olympics were actually founded and how they are actually run. I would most certainly oppose treating "Olympics"-supported publications as independent sources for members of the International Olympic Committee, but that is the farthest thing from what we are actually discussing here.

  Also, when you state that the choice of which profiles to write is directly and inextricably tied to coverage of the org itself, you seem to be assuming the thing to be proved. As I have said, I don't see any difference between Olympedia and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, in this respect, and we currently mandate official national biographies as presumptive of notability, rather than treating them as suspect or COI because each one has a mandate to promote a nation's own citizens and residents. Newimpartial (talk) 19:02, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  "Membership" does not have to mean "due-paying member".

  It's coverage of the participants of an event, by the event organizers. That has long been considered non-independent. And "the country of Canada" is not an organization, nor is a national biography entry on a person who is Canadian directly and inextricably tied to coverage of Canada or the Canadian government or whoever commissioned the piece. A profile of an Olympian from Olympedia will always, inevitably contain direct coverage of the Olympics. JoelleJay (talk) 02:14, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, such a biographical entry will contain mention of the Olympics, but that isn't the use of the source under discussion here (it is not independent for discusion of the Olympics, but any source is reliable or not only in the context of specific statements). Such a source is independent for the parts of the biogrpahy that aren't about the Olympics - most of the biography, and the use under discussion here. "The Olympics" has no legal or pecuniary interest in the rest of these people's lives, or the rest of their biographies. You can claim that "the Olympics" claims long-dead athletes as "members" and is not independent of their lives aa a whole, but I haven't seen any evidence for that EXTRAORDINARY interpretation. These are not "founders", and I have seen no evidence of bias in the biographies - only bare assertions of the thing to be demonstrated. Newimpartial (talk) 03:48, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  Such a source is independent for the parts of the biogrpahy that aren't about the Olympics - most of the biography, and the use under discussion here. That's like saying that IBM, when writing about its early executives solely because they are its early executives are independent for the parts of the biography that aren't about IBM - it's nonsense.

  The IOC isn't writing about Olympians for altruistic reasons; they're writing about them to promote and maintain the Olympic brand. Arguably, they're less independent than IBM in my example because IBM's early executives don't contribute to the current IBM brand; the early Olympians do contribute to the current Olympian brand.

  This is a long-settled question and I don't know why we are re-discussing it; for example, Manchester United writing about early Manchester United players has never been considered an independent source, and the IOC is no different. BilledMammal (talk) 04:07, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  The Olympics aren't "promoting the brand" of the Olympics by publishing the biographies of long-dead athletes any more than the Canadian government is "promoting the brand" of Canada by publishing the biographies of long-dead Canadians. The proposal you are trying to enshrine in policy, BilledMammal - that the former aren't independent but the latter are - has no evidentiary or policy basis that I can see. You can repeat that long-dead athletes are like long-dead corporate founders, but I can't see anything in that comparison except for your bald assertion.

extended content

I hope the relationship between the IOC and long-dead athletes is not a "long-settled question", because the settlement you are proposing seems contrary to policy. Now you are making the comparison with Manchester United, which is a team and the (presumably former) employer of the players you are talking about. This is as though biographies were being produced by a national Olympic team. Olympedia is more comparable to, say, the English FA publishing biographies of long-dead players, and I can see why that could be independent in a sense that a team publishing biographies of team members would not be. You seem determined to compare apples to cucumbers, for some reason.

• Taken to its logical conclusion, the principle BilledMammal is advocating here would justify an argument that discussion of Physicists in Physics journals is not independent - and therefore not RS - because Physics journals exist to promote Physics and are therefore COI for physicists. This seems to me like a fairly absurd extension of a principle that should be limited to cases where an actual legal or financial relationship exists. Newimpartial (talk) 19:08, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

  Of course the Olympics covering itself is promotion of the Olympic brand. Unlike the Canadian government or "physicists", the IOC/Olympic Movement is an organization that relies on revenue generated through selling a product, and promotion of that product through institutional advertising and engagement is a crucial part of its business model. Biographies of Canadians funded by the Canadian government are not coverage of the Canadian government or of "products" it sells, nor are they promotion of its "brand". Biographies of physicists in a physics journal are not coverage of the journal's editorial board or of the journal itself, nor are they promotion of content the journal funded. Biographies of Olympians commissioned by the Olympics are coverage of the Olympics and function as brand storytelling and promote engagement with its products. Why would the Olympics purchase Olympedia otherwise? Corporate history is always an integral part of institutional advertising. And unlike the concept of "secondariness", "independence" isn't discretized to apply to some information and not other information from the same author within the same source.

  Olympedia is more comparable to, say, the English FA publishing biographies of long-dead players, and I can see why that could be independent in a sense that a team publishing biographies of team members would not be. Sports organizations are not independent of the individuals under their purview. Several hundred AfDs reflect the consensus that the FA is not an independent source on its footballers or their opponents. JoelleJay (talk) 00:09, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  This reading of the political economy of "the Olympics" and of its related knowlege production, while interesting from a Foucauldian perspective, appears to be original research. I don't see much prudence (and certainly no consensus) to interptet enwiki P&Gs on the basis of this interesting reading. And I still don't see how any effort by "the Olympics" to promote awareness of and engagement with long-dead athletes is any different from the efforts of nation-states to primote awareness of and engagement with their long-dead citizens - and the latter are not only not seen as potentially reliable, they are also enshrined in WP:ANYBIO for presumptive notability. Newimpartial (talk) 01:56, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  If the Canadian government were to produce a work that presented a biography of every Canadian, as Olympedia lists every Olympic athlete, then it would likewise be false that the subjects are independent of the publisher and inclusion in that work is a sign of notability. Is there such a work? Largoplazo (talk) 22:43, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

  In what bizarre dictionary do you find that comprehensiveness is the same as independence? Why should the comprehensiveness of a list of Canadians, or a list of Olympians, have any bearing on whether it is considered an independent source? Your comment makes no sense to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:00, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

  In practical terms it's independent; certainly the authors seem to be. There are times when you have to be pragmatic about this sort of thing. Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:56, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

• On the original question: @S Marshall, I don't think you're correct. I think it's more of a Bathtub curve: both completely indiscriminate and extremely selective sources are less than ideal. Indiscriminate sources don't give you the sense that the subject was deliberately covered by the source, but extremely selective sources are not evidence of "attention by the world at large". The best sources are the ones in the middle: inclusive enough that they cover many things, but exclusive enough that they don't cover everything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:56, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  I absolutely agree, and after this discussion I now feel that I gave insufficient thought to defining my terms. I meant to say that coverage in a source that covers only selected Olympians should counts more than coverage in a source that covers all of them; but, for example, a source that covers only Olympians who participated in the 1936 Olympics----while admittedly "selective"----isn't as helpful towards notability as a source that covers only Olympic gold medallists and record breakers.—S Marshall T/C 21:05, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  There is absolutely no justification in GNG for treating sources differently depending on how thoroughly they cover other related topics. A series of biographical books on US presidents does not become less independent or less deep in its coverage merely because it includes all the US presidents, and not merely a selected subset of them. For the same reason, a source that covers all Olympic athletes does not become less independent or less deep merely because it covers all Olympic athletes rather than only some of them. What needs to be evaluated is the depth of coverage of the source, the reliability of the source, and the extent to which the source is connected to the individual subject. That is all.

  To put it another way: using the selectivity of a source to evaluate the significance of a subject is the sort of thing you would do under a significance-based notability criterion, one that evaluates subjects based on what they have done rather than on their depth of coverage. We have some criteria like that: WP:NPOL is an example, where national parliaments are judged as significant enough but city councils are generally not, for instance. But that is not how GNG works. If you want to evaluate athletes by their significance, you need to go back to the old evaluation criteria that said that certain kinds of athletes are notable (people who have walked onto the field in a top-level professional game or played in the Olympics) while others are not. We used to do it that way, but it was rejected by a broad consensus. Now we evaluate athletes by publicity, like most other biographies. An athlete is notable when their team's publicist has convinced enough magazines and newspapers to write in-depth profiles of them, producing sources that count as in-depth, reliable, and independent; otherwise they are not. If the IOC has succeeded in convincing enough people to provide in-depth reliable independent coverage of all Olympic athletes, then by that definition they are all notable. Don't twist GNG to be something it is not. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  As I showed above, the Olympedia article for Douglas Godfree s clearly based on sources that I was able to find the originals of. If there's prose written it's because there are sources to back up that prose - the authors of the Olympedia article found them and used them. Do we really have to find them again to justify an article? Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:43, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  Where the Olympian is a living person, yes you definitely do: policy lets us insist. The rule is Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—must be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion. We know that every article started by Lugnuts is contentious, and unless RSN decides otherwise, Olympedia isn't a RS. Where the Olympian is deceased, as far as I can tell from policy the articles ought to be better sourced but (a) AfD isn't for cleanup and (b) there's no other venue with a deadline, so in practice you're allowed to defer any request for better sources indefinitely, and that seems to mean, forever.—S Marshall T/C 22:35, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  The sources that back up that prose could just as readily be from non-independent sources, so yes, we absolutely do need to find the originals. JoelleJay (talk) 23:38, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  @David Eppstein, about there being no justification in GNG for treating sources differently depending on how thoroughly they cover other related topics: Some small-town newspapers review every single restaurant in town, just because they're there, and they can. I have twice lived in towns small enough that the weekly newspaper could review every single restaurant twice a year, with extra weeks leftover to cover the concession stands for each sport. Big city newspapers can't do this because of the number of restaurants in the city substantially exceeds the number of publication days. We're kind of stuck with either saying small-town restaurants are more notable than big city ones – because they get reviewed twice a year by their indiscriminate but independent newspaper – or that we should treat sources differently depending on how they choose to cover some subject areas. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

  @WhatamIdoing: you write like you really want to be using a significance-based notability standard instead of the publicity-based standard that we have in GNG, but can't quite bring yourself to say so explicitly. If you really had faith in GNG's promise that we can have an article whenever we have adequate sources for an article, you would not see a problem in having articles about all small-town restaurants with enough local newspapers to provide two independent sources, while not being able to cover big-city restaurants or one-newspaper-town restaurants. Those are the ones we have adequate sourcing for, and we can only follow what the sourcing gives us, not try to make our own separate standards. If, on the other hand, you want a restaurant to be somehow important or significant, beyond merely being multiply-reviewed, in order to justify having a Wikipedia article on it, then what you want is not GNG, which is not based on importance, but some other standard.

  Don't try to make GNG what it is not. Trying to do so only ends up warping GNG out of recognition, confusing editors who think it should mean what it says, failing to adequately provide the significance-based test that you want, and instead pushing the encyclopedia even farther in the direction of being based on publicity rather than significance. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:16, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  I believe there is widespread support for something that leans towards a significance-based standard, rather than a purely we-can-source-it standard. This support appears in the form of complaints that "WhatamIdoing's Gas Station" is a violation of WP:IINFO, or in the form of proposals to merge (e.g.,) small-town businesses into the article about the town (per "Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article" at the top of WP:N). WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:43, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

• This is sprawling, but to the original point: I don't think you're wrong, but what defines a selective/indiscriminate source? There's an example above of an Olympics Encyclopedia. It is arguably selective in that it doesn't include any non-Olympians and arguably indiscriminate because it includes all Olympians. Is a source which includes every US President or every species of bird indiscriminate, or just a specialty source? If an Olympics encyclopedia is considered reliable, that's what matters. Is appearing on the cover of Time magazine better than a profile in a specialty publication? Sure, but at that point we're talking about extra notability. If it's in-depth coverage in a reliable source and independent of the source, it helps towards GNG. Doesn't really matter how selective it is. If its lack of selectivity hurts the extent to which it's reliable, that's fine, but then that's an RS issue rather than a WP:N issue. The only real exception to this that I can think of is like WP:CORPDEPTH, where there's less consideration of industry publications. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:15, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

  Unfortunately, I think the real answer to your question is just a variation on ILIKEIT. If a source reports on 100% of _____, and I think _____ is a worthy subject for an encyclopedia, then it's "not indiscriminate". But if I don't think _____ is a worthy subject for an encyclopedia, then it's "indiscriminate" and any other smear words I can think of.

  If you wanted a "real" answer, then one approach is to consider whether a similar type of publication (e.g., newspaper) in a different circumstance (e.g., a much larger city) would have done the same thing. All local news outlets cover the mayor; not all local news outlets cover the 100% of the restaurants in town. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:47, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  To answer I think that you need to acknowledge the notability ecosystem does some screening beyond just determining if there is enough material in RS's to build an article from. And, where applicable, the fact that a source has decided to cover them in particular in depth, and the prominence of the source enter into that evaluation. And, in that context and the OP question, "indiscriminate" means that no such particular decision has been made (other than meeting the general criteria that applies for the entire list/set) by the source. North8000 (talk) 18:12, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  OK, this is one of these things that really confuses me: the notability ecosystem does some screening beyond just determining if there is enough material in RS's to build an article from. Sure, the creeping tendency towards exclusion and hierarchy is always with us and frequently takes advantage of the surface ambiguity of the term "notability" to sneak some sort of significance criterion into conversations where it should be categorically disallowed. But the unfortunate fact that this happens doesn't make it any less contrary to the purposes of notability in particular and Wikipedia in general -- or any less harmful. The logical jump from "members of the community sometimes make this mistake" to "therefore it is not a mistake" is IMO a very hazardous one. -- Visviva (talk) 15:10, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  Is significance really a problem?

  Because of the way the economics of news worked, many people, and nearly all businesses, living in a small town in the American West around 1900 were probably mentioned in the local newspaper multiple times: Miss Helen Smith married Mr Robert Brown, with the usual seven paragraphs on the wedding: the basic information on the ceremony, her dress, her family, his family, the bridal party, the food, and the gifts displayed, in that order. In due course, they had two children, and each time mother and baby were both doing well and looking forward to visitors on an upcoming Tuesday afternoon. Her great-aunt came to visit from the East Coast, visiting Smallville for the first time in thirty years and stayed with the Browns for three weeks (the newspaper tactfully doesn't mention why Great-Aunt Sarah left in the first place). Mrs Brown was inducted as a member of the Ladies' Auxiliary, and elected vice chair two years later, and she therefore hosted the Ladies' Auxiliary committee meeting in her home every eight weeks until she managed to get off the committee. Her family won the float contest for the Independence Day parade. She sewed the costumes for the children's play. She was elected chair of the Garden Club and promised to raise money to plant trees in the city park. She was in a car wreck on Main Street, but fortunately nobody was hurt. She won the blue ribbon at the county fair for pickles. Her daughter got married, with the regulation seven paragraphs about her wedding in the newspaper. The arrival of each of her grandchildren was briefly reported, both when they arrived on earth in the first place and also when the out-of-town grandchildren came to visit her, usually twice a year. The Browns held an open house to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Her funeral got the usual four paragraphs: the date of her death (cause was considered tacky unless the death was itself a news event, like a car wreck), the funeral service, the survivors, and the burial service.

  Would you write an article about Helen Smith, or the dozen other ladies, and probably fifty men, in her small town who ended up in the paper for similar reasons? We'd have enough material to write something, but I'm not sure that what we would end up with would be an encyclopedia article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:06, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  That is addressed with NOTNEWS, as such material is clearly routine. What we should do is emphasize somewhere that this sort of coverage is not contributory to notability, to prevent editors from using it at AfDs. Or even better, ban all coverage local (and of clearly local interest) to the subject from counting toward notability... JoelleJay (talk) 16:26, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• Late coming in here, but I'm just going to lay down a marker that I do think the proposition advanced is wrong, on at least two levels. First, it is no coincidence that IINFO is not a source evaluation guideline. Trying to retcon some sort of consistency between two unrelated rules can be fun as an intellectual exercise, but has no place in a serious debate with serious consequences like AFD. Second, this proposition relies on improperly equating notability and significance. To the extent a notability inquiry is valid, it basically follows three steps: (1) is there a decent amount of solid material for an article here; (2) if not, is there some agreed criterion by which we should either assume that sources are very likely to exist, or recognize that the reader will be well-served by an article on the subject regardless; (3) if not, is there a decent merge target for any encyclopedic content. Bringing the "indiscriminacy" of a source into the step 1 inquiry conflates steps 1 and 2; but if we have adequate material for a solid article we have no reason to consider step 2 at all. -- Visviva (talk) 15:10, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  You are forgetting the very big requirement at N that the topic does not violate NOT, as well as the potential arguments for NOPAGE. JoelleJay (talk) 16:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  There's also a requirement that editors use their best judgement about separate pages. It is not enough to be able to write an encyclopedia article; it must also be about a subject that isn't banned by WP:NOT and that editors agree to have. Perhaps Mrs Brown (née Mary Smith) should be merged to the town she lived in or to an article about the Townville Garden Club. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:57, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  Of course, but that's not what we're discussing here as I understand it. WP:NOT isn't part of WP:N or vice versa; they represent separate questions. The question wasn't whether IINFO and N are both principles that we follow in the organization of content, it was whether IINFO can be incorporated into N to make it more exclusionary. But making Wikipedia any more exclusionary than necessary diminishes our comprehensiveness and is contrary to our purpose for existing. -- Visviva (talk) 03:58, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  All of WP:NOT is already incorporated into WP:N, and has been for years and years now. It's right there at the top:

  A topic is presumed to merit an article if:

  1. It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right; and
  2. It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy.

  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:30, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  Right. And as that passage makes clear, they are two separate inquiries. I guess we could have an interesting theoretical over whether every mention of one PAG in another PAG constitutes an incorporation by reference, but I'm a bit lost as to what that has to do with the question on the floor. -- Visviva (talk) 04:50, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

NOT is also incorporated into consideration of what constitutes SIGCOV, e.g., NOTNEWS employs the term "routine" to describe coverage (of any subject, not just of events) that is non-encyclopedic and therefore does not contribute to notability. JoelleJay (talk) 16:49, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Looking at NOTNEWS, I notice that it specifically says that routine coverage is "sometimes useful" but not "by itself" a justification for creating an article. That suggests that routine coverage contributes to notability but cannot "by itself" be considered fully sufficient.

(Also, SIGCOV isn't really related. The amount of information in the source ("SIGCOV") has nothing to do with whether the information is WP:ROUTINE.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:08, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Jit Bose

Experienced Hotelier and Hospitality Leader With a distinguished career spanning over three decades in the dynamic world of hospitality, He is a dedicated hotelier who firmly believes that success is built upon the foundation of fostering robust teams and employing a strategic mindset. Ansel Agash (talk) 06:22, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, @Ansel Agash. If you can provide a list of independent, published, reliable sources that talk about this person in significant detail, then it might be possible to write an article about him. The sources do not need to be in English; I found these two Hindi-language sources about a cricket player a while ago, and those are good sources. Newspapers are good; social media and anything that the subject paid to have written is useless. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Also note that, if you establish notability for this hotelier, the title would need disambiguation: we already have another article on a different Jit Bose. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:01, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Should relevant notability guidelines be edited to clarify that notability can be used as a criterion for inclusion in embedded lists?

Should relevant notability guidelines be edited to clarify that notability can be used as a criterion for inclusion in embedded lists? ElKevbo (talk) 01:18, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Survey re clarify that notability can be used as a criterion for inclusion in embedded lists

• Yes notability can be used as a criterion for any type of embedded trivia list to ward against spamming. I'd go farther and say this should be the general criterion and should only be occasionally varied from if appropriate to an article. Any kind of "trivia" list should almost always be limited to things with their own articles unless there is some other reason a list is a more fundamental part of an article and local consensus agrees, and guidelines should be modified accordingly. I would not apply this to stand alone lists of course as there are many lists that might not include notable items, and certainly there are lists that might be in an article which need not be limited to notable subjects (if the list is more intrinsic to the topic rather than tangential/trivia - the lists of individual parts using a GPU microarchitecture come to mind). Take for example Melusine#References in the arts and popular culture - I think this should be "Notable references" and only include works of art and cultural pieces which have their own articles, and not even necessarily cases where an artist has an article but the relevant work doesn't (but not as a strict guideline, just as a starting/general principle). —DIYeditor (talk) 03:34, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
• No While yes, notability can be used for inclusion criteria on embedded lists, the changes lists below are far too extensive, and knowing the hassle that some editors have with the language, this is too much of a change where the concept that embedded lists can use notability for inclusion criteria is very much implied by the existing language. --Masem (t) 03:32, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

  It would be helpful if you could explicitly quote the parts of the guideline that allow notability to be used for inclusion criteria on embedded lists. As currently written, the guideline explicitly and unambiguously says that "The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article" and has an entire section labeled "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists." ElKevbo (talk) 03:52, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

  As I said, its i.plied, but if a change is necessary the only place I think needed would be "It also does not apply to the contents of stand alone or embedded lists and tables, unless editors agree to use notability as part of their selection criteria. Masem (t) 19:26, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

• Kinda, but not in this wording. I think this is mis-framed. The devil is in the details, and WP:Writing policy is hard. One problem here is that "used as a criterion for inclusion in embedded lists" strongly implies "forced inclusion" if something is notable, when a list might in fact have a very narrow purpose that a particular potential entry doesn't suit for some reason[s] other than its notability level. It would be better (for more than one reason) to invert this: A lack of notability should be permissible as a criterion for exclusion from an embedded list, as with a stand-alone list, if the list's scope is limited, by consensus at the article talk page, to only notable entries. There are many embedded lists that include non-notable entries on purpose, and this has always been the case. It may well even be most of them, and a good argument can be made that an embedded list of only notable entries that are blue links to extant articles is redundant, except when it is providing a WP:SUMMARY or related navigational purpose. Our ability to listify things (e.g. at List of experimental cat breeds as just one of probably thousands of examples) that are arguably encyclopedically relevant but not quite notable (and which would be subject to repeated bad-article creation if they did not redirect to list entries) is a routine part of WP:AFD. Entire classes of list articles, like Category:Wikipedia glossaries (along with shorter embedded glossaries in other articles) could not exist at all if we confined stand-alone or embedded lists to only notable entries, in a blanket manner.
  In short, there is a dual danger here of imprecise wording, that has not been fully "gamed out" in our minds to every possible WP:Wikilawyering interpretation, and recrafted to close such loopholes: Either A) wording that encourages the mass deletion of list entries on a notability basis even in absence of any clear consensus that a particular list should be limited to notable entries; or B) wording that encourages inclusion of entries on the bare fact of their notability in lists where the entries are not actually appropriate by reason of other criteria (either explicit or more often implicit in the nature of the list and its specific embedding context). As a simple example of the latter, at User:SMcCandlish/sandbox 22, where I'm working on splitting out all the tartan design and manufacture info into a side article because the main tartan article has gotten too long, I include a list [presently formatted as a prose paragraph, but that could change at any time] of major extant manufacturers of traditional tartan cloth, meaning of the usually-Scottish sort (wool, in 2/2 twill weave), from mills that specialize at least in part in this sort of cloth. But "notability can be used as a criterion for inclusion in embedded lists" could easily result in someone (including someone with a spammy CoI) forcing inclusion of a woollen mill, or even a non-woollen cloth factory, on the bare basis that the company is notable and has ever, at all, even once, produced cloth in a tartan/plaid pattern. At very least someone could argue and argue until everyone was sick to death of it, to include their pet entry. If you use my wording in the tq template above, that kind of wikilawyer game-playing is twarted, and so is doing awful things like reducing, e.g., Glossary of cue sports terms to zero entries aside from the notable ones that already have their own articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:30, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

  No, the only thing this would change is that it would make it clear that editors are free to establish a consensus that notability is a criterion (perhaps the only criterion) for inclusion in an embedded list. It's a very common practice now but it's not allowed by this guideline. If some alternative wording or change to this guideline - and any others that also need to be updated - accomplish the same thing then that's totally fine with me and I support it. ElKevbo (talk) 23:51, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

  I know that's what you intend, but it is not what the wording you proposed would result in.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:46, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Lists are used in many different ways. Nothing in the current guidance requires, not prohibits lists from containing only subjects that are notable. That said, there are lists that provide a complete set of all who meet a particular criteria (such as a list of mayors from a particular town) and there are lists that are more illustrative (such as a list of alumni). Since writing policy is hard, any change must begin with the recognition that each list has a distinct purpose. --Enos733 (talk) 15:57, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
• No Whether items in a list can or should be restricted to notable items is not a matter for WP:NOTABILITY but, if anything, for WP:DUE. Thincat (talk) 16:01, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

  FWIW, DUE is a part if NPOV and only deals wit viewpoints, not factual matter. This more likely is an aspect of NOT#IINFO. Masem (t) 19:01, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, that's right. Thincat (talk) 19:43, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

• The unwritten "shall we prohibit" proposal is a bad idea To start with the structural problem, on it's face the proposal is proposing something that it already the case. WP:notability can be used. Perhaps the drafter intends that failure to reaffirm this can be taken as a decision to prohibit it? Assuming that "shall we forbid?" is being discussed (even if not proposed) the answer is clearly no. There are a million allowable criteria for a Wikipedia lists and yet we would specifically forbid wp:notability as being one of the possibilities? Makes no sense at all. North8000 (talk) 18:44, 24 August 2023 (UTC))

  My only intention is to fix the blatant contradiction between (a) this guideline's unambiguous statements that notability doesn't determine the contents of articles and (b) the very common practice of applying this guideline to determine the contents of articles, specifically embedded lists of "Notable _." ElKevbo (talk) 23:42, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: An analysis of the operative logic reveals that there is no conflict:

1. It (somewhat) defines wp:notability, and
2. Says that wp:notability is a requirement for existence as a separate article.

The statement you refer to merely emphasizes that #2, the requirement established in this guideline establishes the requirement only for the existence of articles. It does not forbid the wp:notability attribute from being used for other purposes.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:02, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

• Comment From reading over the comments above, it seems everyone agrees that notability can be used as a selection criterion in both embedded lists and stand-alone lists, but it's not clear that editing the notability guidelines page is the way to clarify this. Possibly the issue would be better addressed by adding something at MOS:EMBED to make it explicit that the guidelines for selection criteria given at WP:LISTCRIT (in the stand-alone list guidelines) also apply to embedded lists. Robminchin (talk) 20:42, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

  It would be nice if all of the people who "agree that notability can be used as a selection criterion in both embedded lists and stand-alone lists" would also agree to fix this guideline so it doesn't blatantly prohibit that practice. "The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article" is not ambiguous or confusing - it's very clear, plain spoken, and contradicts the common practice. ElKevbo (talk) 23:48, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

  If there was an emphasis here that lists should only be of subjects that are notable under our guidelines, I fear there would be more discussion to remove non-notable entires WP:Wikilawyering than what currently exists. - Enos733 (talk) 16:35, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

• Sure, I can see why we might want to specify that notability is acceptable as an exclusion criterion in lists that serve as examples of a larger set. It's also a decent enough proxy for balance and NOT. JoelleJay (talk) 00:12, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
• Mu The situation is far too complex for such a blunt tool. WP:CSC is already in our guidance, and has served us well for decades. It literally says both that "Every entry meets the notability criteria" and "Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria" are valid selection criteria for a list. The former is used for unmanageably large lists, like "List of people from foo" type lists, where limiting them to WP:N-type notable people keeps the list reasonably small, and the latter works for situations where the individual items could not each support a stand-alone article, but where they make sense to be categorized together. We need flexibility to create properly useful lists, whether as a stand-alone article or as an embedded, and that requires use to use whatever criteria makes sense in context of the particular list. There's no need to demand that all lists have identical criteria. So yes, I am okay with saying that one is allowed to use WP:N-type notability as a criterion in some cases, so long as we don't say that it is mandatory to do so. --Jayron32 18:12, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

  I am okay with saying that one is allowed to use WP:N-type notability as a criterion in some cases, so long as we don't say that it is mandatory to do so. That is precisely what this proposal is attempting to do. ElKevbo (talk) 21:51, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

  Then it is better to remain silent than say anything. Once you put it in writing, you create the impression of policy (even if it isn't the intent). "That which is not forbidden is mandatory" and all that. --Jayron32 01:49, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

  I don't see how it would be detrimental for us to change the guideline from saying "notability does not apply to content in articles" to stating the practical consensus that "notability can be used to determine the content of embedded lists if there is consensus"? JoelleJay (talk) 17:49, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

• No. First, as others have noted, there is not actually a contradiction here. Nothing in WP:N prohibits list editors from adopting notability as a list inclusion criterion. And in the absence of a problem to be solved, the best way to minimize WP:CREEP is to maintain policy stasis. Second, because the proposed additions would add nothing to the textual meaning of the guideline, by the maxim of quantity these additions would inevitably be read as implicitly endorsing such criteria. But we should not encourage notability as an inclusion criterion for lists because: (a) the notability guidelines are a complex and highly subjective mess, poorly suited even for their primary purpose, (b) using this guideline outside of that primary purpose by applying article-worthiness as a test for things that are not articles is guaranteed to result in malformed outcomes that disserve our encyclopedic mission, and (c) because "is this notable" is a much messier criterion than "does this have an article", disputes will be difficult to resolve efficiently even when everyone is participating in good faith, and our principal existing process for adjudicating notability is unavailable for resolving disputes over list inclusion. Third, most of the de facto inclusion criteria that we're discussing here are not, in practice, "things that are notable" but (as IMO correctly summarized above) "things that [already] have their own articles". (Hence WP:WTAF and the vast body of practical experience it represents. Hence also the fact that 2/3 of the examples cited in the discussion section involve removing list items because they do not have articles, rather than on notability grounds.) "Things that have their own articles" is far more straightforward to understand and implement -- even if it is still encyclopedically suboptimal, being pretty much the "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" of list inclusion criteria -- and if we must encourage something like this we should be encouraging "blue links only" over "notable topics only". But in any event, opining on list inclusion criteria is and should remain out of scope for this page, which has plenty on its plate already. -- Visviva (talk) 23:33, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
• Yes if we're talking about lists like "List of alumni" in an article about a university of "List of people from X" in an article about country X, where the list is open-ended and wouldn't include all alumni or all people from X. In that case, I don't see why we shouldn't explicitly spell out that this is OK given that we spell it out for stand-alone lists at WP:CSC. No for lists that are defined by the entirely of their membership and that are, indeed, not so large that they beg to be spun off to a stand-aline list. For example, in an article on some committee, if a list of members is provided, it should include all the members, rather than just the notable ones. (I'm trying to decide now if I've made a circular argument. Eh.) Largoplazo (talk) 00:32, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion re clarify that notability can be used as a criterion for inclusion in embedded lists

Many editors, including those with significant experience and administrators, limit material in embedded lists of "Notable _" (often lists of people such as "Notable alumni" in articles about schools and "Notable people" in articles about geographic locations or organizations) to entries that meet the notability guideline. Commonly, editors remove entries in those lists that do not have articles, sometimes citing WP:WTAF in their edit summary or discussion. Recent discussion in Wikipedia talk:Notability reinforced that many editors agree that this practice is permissible and often desirable.

Examples of these embedded lists and recent edits that apply the notability guidelines to remove or limit content

These examples have been taken from my watchlist - they were not identified or sampled in systematic way and are purely a convenience sample from the most recent 1,000 edits to articles about U.S. colleges and universities on my watchlist. Coe College‎ diff hist −608‎ Countercheck: deleted two non-notable alumni. The subjects must have a Wikipedia article about themselves. St. Olaf College‎ diff hist −21‎ AlsoWukai: rv non-notable University of Wisconsin–Green Bay‎ diffhist −48 MarconiCheese: Undid revision 1171767554 by UWSHistorian (talk) no article = not notable

However, this very common practice contradicts several of our written guidelines:

1. The "This page in a nutshell" summary at the top of the notability guideline unambiguously says that "The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article."
2. In its lede, the notability guideline says: "[The notability guideline does] not limit the content of an article or list, though notability is commonly used as an inclusion criterion for lists (for example for listing out a school's alumni)."
3. The notability guideline has a section explicitly titled "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists".
   1. That section says: "The criteria applied to the creation or retention of an article are not the same as those applied to the content inside it. The notability guideline does not apply to the contents of articles. It also does not apply to the contents of stand-alone lists, unless editors agree to use notability as part of the list selection criteria. Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight, balance, and other content policies. For additional information about list articles, see Notability of lists and List selection criteria."
4. The notability guideline for people has a section titled "Lists of people" that says: "Inclusion in lists contained within articles should be determined by WP:SOURCELIST, in that the entries must have the same importance to the subject as would be required for the entry to be included in the text of the article according to Wikipedia policies and guidelines (including Wikipedia:Trivia sections)."

To correct this contradiction between practice and policy, this RfC proposes the following edits to the notability guideline:

1. Edit the "This page in a nutshell" summary at the top of the notability guideline to say that "Generally, the notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article."
2. Edit the lede to say: "[The notability guideline typically does] not limit the content of an article or list, though notability is commonly used as an inclusion criterion for both standalone and embedded lists (for example for listing out a school's alumni)."
3. Edit the notability guideline so the section that is currently titled "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists" to "Notability guidelines generally do not apply to content within articles or lists".
   1. Edit that section so it says: "The criteria applied to the creation or retention of an article are not the same as those typically applied to the content inside it. The notability guideline does not generally apply to the contents of articles. It also does not apply to the contents of stand-alone lists, unless editors agree to use notability as part of the list selection criteria. Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight, balance, and other content policies. For embedded lists that explicitly include "notable" in their title (e.g., "Notable alumni", "Notable people"), editors can choose to limit inclusion in those lists to subjects that meet the relevant notability guideline(s) or standard(s). For additional information about stand-alone list articles, see Notability of lists and List selection criteria."

This RfC also proposes the following edits to the notability guideline for people:

1. Edit the text in the section titled "Lists of people" to say: "Inclusion in lists contained within articles should be determined by WP:SOURCELIST, in that the entries must have the same importance to the subject as would be required for the entry to be included in the text of the article according to Wikipedia policies and guidelines (including Wikipedia:Trivia sections). For embedded lists that explicitly include "notable" in their title (e.g., "Notable alumni", "Notable people"), editors can choose to limit inclusion in those lists to subjects that meet the relevant notability guideline(s) or standard(s)."

A few other essays and advice articles (e.g., WP:ALUMNI) that incorporate the current guideline's language about embedded lists may also need to be edited if this RfC passes.

ElKevbo (talk) 01:18, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Summarizing several posts, editors have a choice of millions of different attributes (including wp:notability) that can be used for list criteria. And there is no basis for saying that wp:notability can't be used as a criteria. This guideline (somewhat) defines wp:notability and establishes wp:notability as a requirement for existence as a separate article and clarifies that it is establishing this requirement only for existence of a separate article, not other things. It does not preclude editors using the wp:notability attribute for other purposes. So there is no such conflict in wording. It would be out of place to start specifying in the notability guideline what editors can and can't use as list criteria. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:09, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

What part of "The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article" is ambiguous or unclear? It's a very clear, simple, and incorrect statement that needs to be changed to align with practice. ElKevbo (talk) 21:55, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

It is very clear. But IMO you are misreading it. Reemphasizing something from my previous post. The main points were that the standard does two things:

1. Creates the definition/concept.
2. Establishes the requirement including (limitations on) the requirement's scope of applicability.

IMO you are mistakenly taking the applicability provisions of #2 as being a prohibition against using #1 for other purposes. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:54, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

That is the clear language of the guideline. If that is not how it should be interpreted, it needs to be changed. I am very puzzled and disappointed but this continued insistence that the clear language of the guideline should be interpreted in this bizarre, byzantine way that is contrary to the plainly written statements in the guideline. ElKevbo (talk) 16:42, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

It is a clear statement of #2; the requirement being established. It is not a prohibition of using the attribute for other purposes. It even explicitly reinforces that by explicitly acknowledging that editors may and sometimes do use it as a criteria for individual inclusions in a list. North8000 (talk) 01:40, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Notifications

I have placed neutrally-worded notifications about this RfC on the following Talk pages: Wikipedia talk:Notability (people), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Article advice, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools, Wikipedia talk:College and university article advice, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education. Please let me know if there are places or people who should be explicitly notified. ElKevbo (talk) 01:27, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Does material unambiguously derived from press releases count towards GNG? If multiple news pieces run some subset of that material, is that "multiple sources"? Does that satisfy WP:SUSTAINED?

Consider a situation where a person's involvement in an event triggers their employers to release press announcements about the event that also include some number of background biographical facts, which are then consolidated in an AP newswire.

• Are those facts transformed into secondary independent SIGCOV if they are repeated (without commentary) by news outlets alongside (primary) coverage of the event?
• When subsets of those facts are repeated in different news outlets, does that satisfy the requirement for "multiple" sources?
• Since those facts cover biographical material unrelated to the event, do they constitute WP:SUSTAINED coverage of the person?

JoelleJay (talk) 19:01, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

I think many stories rely primarily on press releases. It is easy for reporters and editors, who are busy and have limited resources, to rely on press releases. And I do agree that lots of background information are sourced back to the individual or the organization (and are rarely fact-checked). So, from the standpoint of our policies and guidelines, lots of material should be questioned about the independence of the sourcing. That all said, this project often relies on newspaper coverage. Most editors are not in a position to judge whether an article is original reporting or is a regurgitated press release with a few changes.

Our system of notability is fuzzy. It is intentionally ambiguous and favors inclusion. I've come to the conclusion that there is great value in not trying to over-specify how notability works. We do appreciate independent reporting that is distinct from the source, but journalists and researchers need access to the source (either for the facts or to just learn what is happening). Organizations need to be seen as trusted sources of information (or reporters will not rely on that information). So, there is a reciprocal relationship.

Now, reporters and editors of this project should be wary of claims made in press releases. But we should trust the information in those releases - whether it is transaction histories, earnings reports, or even basic biographical information. - Enos733 (talk) 20:21, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

WP:N does explicitly say

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.

That would suggest material from the press releases is at the very least not coverage by multiple sources. I would also argue that editors should be able to identify regurgitated press releases when the original press releases are available. JoelleJay (talk) 21:51, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Correct. However, to me, this paragraph only goes to the multiple sources piece of WP:N, not the question about independence of the source, which I think are your original questions. - Enos733 (talk) 03:19, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Well if two sources "restating the same information" disqualifies them from being "multiple" because they are not intellectually independent, then a derivative source simply restating the same info found in a press release can't be considered independent from the press release, either. The question is how to deal with a source that includes three types of content: original, primary reporting on an event; pure quotes of people's reactions to the event; and biographical background info that is strictly a regurgitation of press releases about the event (no analysis of the material and no additional facts not found in the PR). The only content that could contribute to GNG is the background info, but that's also the only part that is 100% regurgitation of the same facts from the same non-independent source.
And all of this is separate from the question of whether the inclusion of these biographical details turns the news pieces into sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time. JoelleJay (talk) 05:22, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Intellectual independence needs to be considered with some significant practical limits. If Paul Politician announced that he would be running for re-election, only those sources that "restate the same information" that was given to them by the campaign should be considered as even minimally reliable. All reliable sources should say "restate the same information" about his plans.

The opportunity for intellectual independence comes in what they choose to say about that "same information": maybe one will make a comment on his chance of winning, and another will decide to describe the event's mood in more detail, and a third will choose to summarize what he's accomplished during his present term in office. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:34, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Before considering intellectual independence in a story that largely repeats prior information (such as that in the press release), consider the amount of creative input added by the new author. If the additional information is negligible, it is not an additional secondary source.

A comment on a chance of winning, alone, is not additional SIGCOV.

A large number of insignificant additions do not substitute for the absence of two GNG sources. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:56, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate your generalization from "press release" to "largely repeats prior information". These days, the source might be something posted online rather than a press release per se, but "the company's public blog" and "the press release they sent only to the journalists" and "the canned answers they gave to whichever journalists asked for a comment" are all interchangeable for our purposes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with this. However, many editors maintain that even if all secondary coverage is obviously derived from PR/newswire, it is still SIGCOV that counts toward GNG. These editors also maintain that a burst of coverage of the subject following an event counts as SUSTAINED because this (derivative) secondary coverage is included. Now that it's closed, I'll mention the discussion that prompted this question is here. Pinging @The Four Deuces too. JoelleJay (talk) 17:39, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I find that most editors have no idea what a secondary source actually is; often, they're saying secondary when they're really looking for editorial independence. Usually, they're not not looking for intellectual independence (the absence of which was the pet peeve of one now-banned editor, and ~all references to this subject seems to trace back to him in one way or another). That is, did the independent source (e.g., newspaper or magazine) voluntarily think this subject was worth the public hearing about it?

On the general theme, which is less related to our underlying goal for notability, when we're talking about basic information about a person or business, I think that it might be useful to consider the material in question from the POV of a fact checker. For example:

• What were Microsoft's reported earnings? Their press release says US$211B, their earnings call says US$211B, their website says US$211B. And no fact checker is going to be able to disprove that, so whether it came straight from the company or from an "independent" source is immaterial.
• Whom did the company hire? The putative employee says they were hired and the corporate website says they were hired. The fact checker's approach would be to call the company's human resources department, so whether it came straight from the involved parties just doesn't matter.

We're not looking for a "prove birtherism wrong" level of independence; we're just looking for some reason to believe that the facts haven't been twisted beyond all recognition.

For the instant example, if no further information is forthcoming, then it may get deleted or merged several years from now. I appreciate your discretion in not posting the link until it had closed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:00, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Verifiability is only one aspect of why we have the requirement for intellectual independence. WP:N also states that it is needed to maintain NPOV, and that non-independent sources in general--regardless of whether they're factual and not PROMO--are not evidence of notability as they are not a measure of the attention a subject has received. JoelleJay (talk) 20:18, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Of course non-independent sources don't demonstrate "attention from the world at large", which is the fundamental goal for proving notability. But a source need not be 100% intellectually independent to contribute importantly to neutrality. An INDY source's decision to repeat X, and its refusal to repeat Y, also help us write neutral articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

This discussion was prompted by a WP:ATHLETE crossover extremely recent sensitive death? Not an appropriate example. The AfD nomination was in poor taste. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:08, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

JoelleJay, this paragraph is primarily about articles taken from the wire services that run in multiple news outlets. It's been amped up by fears of repackaging^{[see note]}, but the problem is fundamentally the same.

We had a problem, back in the day, with people getting one actual article, written by one journalist, that was run in dozens or hundreds of newspapers. It's literally the same article, and it's a fully fledged independent news source, written by a real journalist, but they'd dig out every copy they could find, and say, "See? There must be a hundred news articles about this book! There's 'New Book Stuns' by Jo Journalism at The Abilene Albatross, 'Stunning New Book' by Jo Journalism at Biloxi Begins, 'This New Book Stuns Readers' by Jo Journalism at The Crepe Caller, and over here we even have 'New Book is Stunning' by Jo Journalism at The Dixie Democrat. So many sources!"

This paragraph as well as the line about multiple publications by the same person or organization are considered to be a single source for the purpose of complying with the "multiple" requirement are really about the same outfit producing a single source, even though, at a superficial glance, it all looks like a long list of sources in the ==References== section. But it's not: that long list is all the same thing.

[note: Jytdog was particularly concerned about the problem of apparently different sources that were actually created by the same thing. The case of the wire services article is pretty obvious when you look into it, but there are some news-filler outfits that will write general stories (e.g., October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month) and produce them in multiple formats: a 600-word magazine article, a 300-word newspaper article, a 200-word blog post, a set of 15-, 30-, and 60-second television segments, a set of 30-, 60-, and 90-second radio segments, etc. These are then purchased by media outlets that need something to fill an unwanted spot. It's much harder for editors to discover that this unsigned 300-word print article was written by the same people as that 30-second radio filler.] WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:29, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

• The answer IMO is that "it depends". If newspapers are simply lazily regurgitating the press release, then that would lack independence IMO. On the other hand, if high-end, reliable news organizations known for their independent fact-checking use information from the press release as a starting point and then provide their own reports on the events or persons, the reports would be independent. In between those two ends of the spectrum, there's likely some gray area. Much depends on the reliability of the news organization. Cbl62 (talk) 22:25, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
• I think that part of this question may be based on a narrow conception of what constitutes "a press release". About 20 years ago, I ran across a guide from a journalist about send a press release to a local newspaper. It was aimed at small-scale non-profits (think "local garden club" size). One of the points that stuck with me was that she got a lot of e-mail messages whose subject line was: PRESS RELEASE. This was unhelpful to her, because from the journalists' POV, all unsolicited messages are press releases. On the specific questions:
  1. We shouldn't be considering a line-by-line evaluation of content for whether it's secondary or a regurgitated primary source. If the overall document is a secondary source (and most news isn't), then that's a 'countable' source. In particular, some biographical content simply doesn't bear analysis. If the source is truly analyzing the subject's birthdate, then that's a sign that the source probably isn't reliable.
  2. Yes. The point behind multiple sources isn't to see whether they come up with the same or different numbers for last quarter's earnings as announced during Microsoft's most recent shareholder earnings call. The point behind multiple sources is to see whether more than one author and more than one publisher cares enough about the subject to write about them.
  3. Sustained coverage requires more than one day/week/month's attention. If you have a dozen articles from the same 10-day period, that is not sustained coverage. If you have one article each from a dozen years, that's definitely sustained coverage. The content of the coverage is not relevant to whether the media attention is sustained over time.
     WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

  Statements published by someone's employer/organization on their own platform (and/or disseminated through AP Newswire) are pretty identifiably press releases.
  As for point #2, I would counter that our guidance is explicit that the same basic "story" published by multiple outlets does not count as multiple sources. And it's even more explicit that these works don't have to be identical: simply using the same sources and relaying the same information is sufficient to consider them "one source". JoelleJay (talk) 05:32, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

  If the whole source is definitely and obviously using the same sources (how would you know?) and all of the sources relay (almost) exactly the same information, then I would certainly not consider that to be a good showing for notability purposes.

  But if the argument is "Well, this one about Bill Gates said that Microsoft's earnings were US$211B last year, and this one about anti-monopoly legislation said that Microsoft's earnings were US$211B last year, and this other source, which is about the effect of tech companies on housing prices in the Seattle area also mentions that Microsoft's earnings were US$211B last year, and since they all say that Microsoft's earnings were US$211B last year, that's just one source" – that is not convincing and not what editors should be concerned about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

  Consider a situation where the subject's organization releases statements containing 8 distinct facts about the subject's career which have thus far never been published by anyone besides the organization (think things like "Bill Smith was was the number one salesperson at [company] five years in a row" and "Bill Smith oversaw [company's] committee on sustainability", except not so mundane--the point is that these are details only the organization would be interested in tracking), plus some primary text announcing their involvement in an event.
  Source 1 contains some primary updates on the event, plus 5 of the facts.
  Source 2 " ", plus all 8 facts.
  Source 3 " ", plus 6 facts.
  None of the sources contain any additional facts on the subject's career, nor do they contain discussion of these facts.
  Technically, due to containing original reporting of the primary news, these pieces are not pure derivatives or copies of each other or of the press release. But when considering the content that could possibly count toward notability, the similarity and provenance is clear. JoelleJay (talk) 06:18, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

  It would theoretically be possible for one of those sources to have obtained the information independently (e.g., by interviewing the subject, or a family member if the subject is dead), but I think the simplest explanation is that the journalists used the information offered to them. I feel the same about content that is labeled "according to <First Newspaper>": it's WP:LINKSINACHAIN.

  But in these situations, I think the more important barrier is the goal of sustained coverage. A single press release tends not to get used through multiple news cycles. Whether you count them as "one" or "three", it's still just one flash in the pan. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  Usually when a story appears in multiple sources, it is taken from wire services. IOW, AP write a story, then hundreds of news media run it. Obviously, the degree of significance depends on the subject. Anything Joe Biden says for example will be reported everywhere, but may not be significant to his article.

  I agree with WhatamIdoing that "sustained" coverage is a better measurement than how many news media pick up a story.

  News media rely mostly on biased sources and press releases and do little fact checking. At best, they apply their professional judgement of the credbility of what they are told. They work to a deadline and what they publish is the best information available. It's the first draft of history and actual historians will later go over their stories and we will provide better information.

  Note that news media often qualify their coverage with statements such as "according to an unnamed government official." Articles should always reflect these qualifications. Some editors argue that if the source is the U.S. intelligence, then it can be treated as fact, but I would not do this unless the news source did. TFD (talk) 00:48, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

  Now that JoelleJay has indentified clearly the case prompting this discussion, I want to challenge the premise a bit. I first encountered this news story through coverage on The Guardian, namely on the RS Women's Football Weekly podcast [6]. While there is content from the press release included in the podcast item, also one of the journalists on the pod - independent of the subject - offers her own statement about Cusak's contribution to the club (which is also independent of the Journalist and The Guardian).

  Similarly, The Athletic[7] offered the following statement -- Before joining Sheffield United in 2019, Cusack also played for Birmingham and Aston Villa. Given the nature of the statement and the reputation The Athletic has in this domain, I think it would be nothing less than insulting of the outlet to regard that statement as not being independent of the subject.

  I also think this prompting example, and the AfD nom, are a good example of a topic that passes GNG (remembering that the specific sources to meet GNG don't actually have to be presented in the article at nomination) that some people decide not to recognize. I am not at all convinced that the intention of NOTMEMORIAL and NOTNEWS is to rule RS information about a recently deceased person's career as invalid for an article on their life - not all people with notable careers in their field are covered until after death, in many domains, and this situation really ought to be treated consistently across enwiki. Newimpartial (talk) 23:26, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

  It would be insulting to say that they don't have Editorial independence, but it is not insulting to say that they used the information given to them ("intellectual independence", according to some editors). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:00, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think this just comes down to perceptions of The Athletic as a source. As someone who subscribed to the mag largely for its coverage of women's football (which had been excellent, particularly during the World Cup), I would be pissed off disappointed in the extreme were I led to understand that its journalists depended on one team's press release as a source for a player's prior appearance history with other teams, particularly since other, intellectually independent sources are so readily available. But I don't see why they would do that. Newimpartial (talk) 01:53, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  Of course they do that?? Why wouldn't they use the consolidated info provided by club profiles and transactional announcements? You think news media are independently tracking down for which teams and in what years a player played? The Athletic likely sourced that (utterly trivial) sentence from the PFA's statement; they even explicitly mention that specific press release in the very next sentence after naming her former teams! Before joining Sheffield United in 2019, Cusack also played for Birmingham and Aston Villa.

  Social media had been full of tributes, too, with the Football Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association among those paying their respects. JoelleJay (talk) 04:00, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  I would say "Why wouldn't they?" and also "Why shouldn't they?" One might not wish to rely on a single source for anything (and the present aspiration is for any claim made in "hard news" to either be attributed to the source or to have been verified through at least one additional source), but what's wrong with them using whichever bits of information they've been given and they believe to be credible, relevant to what they're writing, and even fact-checked (e.g., against a sports stats website or a prior news article)? We shouldn't expect them to treat information as if it were ritually unclean. There is no material difference between "They proactively published the information every journalist would be asking them about" and "I asked them all the usual and predictable questions", and once it's been verified against another source, it should no longer be treated as only the employer's viewpoint. There aren't two credible viewpoints about whether Cusack also played for Birmingham and Aston Villa, after all. Trying to claim that one way to get that fact is "intellectually independent" and another is not is silly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:24, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  The problem is with establishing notability based on background info found in news pieces when all of it comes directly from statements made by employers/affiliates in the same context (in this case, the subject's death) as the news pieces. Because that means the salient aspects of a person's career are only being curated by those professionally associated with them rather than being independently selected by someone who has evaluated a much larger set of info. Essentially, these news pieces are reporting what the subject's most recent employers and professional associations consider important, which is not going to yield a balanced treatment of the subject's life (like, going from the club's statement and its repetition in the media, the fact that the subject worked in marketing for her club for two years is infinitely more vital to her biography than the entirety of her career pre-Sheffield, or indeed her performance in any particular tournaments). If the info released to the media really is the extent of the material that journalists can find on her--that is, if there was nothing of note published before September, let alone by independent bodies, that reporters can draw from to write their own summary--then that's even more an indication that the subject has not received sustained coverage and that NPOV is severely compromised. JoelleJay (talk) 05:27, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  "In the same context" is the WP:SUSTAINED problem, not the WP:INDY problem.

  I don't think that only being curated by those professionally associated with them rather than being independently selected by someone who has evaluated a much larger set of info will hold up to scrutiny. You're basically saying that the employers know less about their employee's performance for them than "someone". The employers probably have had the largest set of info, as theirs includes not only all of the public information (including her career pre-Sheffield, which would have been extremely important in their decision to hire her) but also private information (e.g., performance during private practice, how they treat their teammates and vice versa).

  There is a difficulty with assuming that an NPOV article is one that provides a true picture of the subject's life. It doesn't. It's not even meant to. It's supposed to provide a true picture of what reliable sources said – even if all the reliable sources toe the party line/play follow the leader/care enough to print something but not enough to spend thousands of dollars personally collecting information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think items being both derivative in content and published in the same context as the source material does affect independence. Context matters in intellectual property law, why shouldn't it when determining intellectual independence?

  It doesn't matter that employers know more about their employee than other sources; that doesn't change the fact that their POV is non-independent and thus cannot be relied upon as the basis of an article. Repetition of such a source, with zero additional commentary or secondary context, does not count as intellectually independent. If you want to change WP:N to not say 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 then go to VPP. JoelleJay (talk) 18:29, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  Proposals to change this guideline normally happen on this talk page, but I don't actually object to the sentence. It is true, if the articles are substantially similar, though I've also never seen it change the result of an AFD.

  The problem with "in the same context" is the same problem that intellectual property runs into: people can, and do, genuinely create substantially the same things at substantially the same time, without have any idea that each other is working on it. People can be completely independent (e.g., one reporter says she played for Birmingham and Aston Villa because that's what the press release says; another reporter says she played for Birmingham and Aston Villa because he remembers reporting on those games at the time) and still do the same things.

  "In the same context" can result in substantially similar but completely independent responses. Consider: You go to a birthday party. You say "Happy birthday" to the person who is having a birthday. A few minutes later, another guest arrives, and also says "Happy birthday" to the same person. Did the two of you collude on this? Is it evidence that you are affiliated? No, it's just evidence that this is the socially expected thing to do. When an athlete dies, the socially expected thing to do is to name all the teams they played on. The fact that they don't make obvious mistakes is not actually evidence of non-independence, and neither is the fact that they know the normal and expected thing to do in this context. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:31, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  When there isn't a single secondary item in the news pieces that isn't found in the press releases, and the news pieces are literally citing the press releases, I think it's pretty clear where info is coming from. The media attention on this subject certainly is not about her sporting accomplishments, it's about the tragedy of a very young woman athlete dying suddenly and mysteriously. Journalists don't need to provide more than surface-level details on her background because no one is actually interested in that, they're interested in learning what happened to her. JoelleJay (talk) 05:43, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  To answer your question, I expect the professional journalists at The Athletic to direct my subscription fees towards, at a minimum, consulting multiple available sources rather than regurgitating a press release (this is sometimes known as "fact checking"). And it seems to me that the story I linked above - which is primarily a news story about the events commemorating Cusak's death, but which offers background on her life and career - does so by using the Sheffield United and PFA statements as sources, the way pro journalists do.

  It is not as though there weren't other intellectually independent sources available to The Athletic - for example, setting aside The Guardian, there is the story in Birmingham world offering additional career detail from outside the Sheffield United press release and the PFA statment. Also, why we would regard one of the key statements to be made about anyone's career - their previous employment - as utterly trivial, I cannot really understand. That seems to have been just thrown into your previous comment perhaps as an aside. :) Newimpartial (talk) 13:28, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  We've had a couple of editors over the years who think that "consulting multiple available sources" doesn't count as intellectual independence unless that consulting results in a source that contradicts a press release. That is, if the press release exists, or if the information can only be obtained from an affiliated source (e.g., birth dates, earnings, number of employees, what the artist intended), and if you say (any of) the same things, then everything you wrote is automatically "non-independent". It is not a common approach, but you'll see it, particularly in WP:NCORP discussions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  One sentence is utterly trivial. Unless you're one of the small minority who believes "significance" applies to the significance of a statement rather than the degree of coverage?

  Again, there is nothing wrong with news media repeating material in contemporaneous press releases; it just doesn't demonstrate independent consideration of info. JoelleJay (talk) 17:49, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  In fact, I am one of the (as is understand it) large number of editors who does not believe that content can be judged "trivial" based on how many words/sentences/paragraphs are used, but only based on whether it is usable and relevant content for an encyclopaedia article. This isn't based on some ideosyncratic judgement of what is or is not "significant", but simply on whether it is usable and relevant (non-trivial) information - and I base that interpretation on the examples that define trivial and non-trivial coverage in our P&Gs. So in the present instance: for a footballer, the clubs for which one has played are by definition relevant, encyclopaedic content, and so a reliable source that documents these is never utterly trivial. As you and I have discussed endlessly, JoelleJay, what SOGCOV requires is a sufficient amount of reliably sourved content about a subject, and independent sourcing about employers is certainly part of that for most biographies.

  Also, about press release content: perhaps I misunderstand, but what I seem to have detected in this conversation is a sort of "black hole" approach to press releases, in which any statement that has appeared at least once in a non-independent press release is assumed to be ineligible for consideration as contributing to Notability of a topic even when independent RS publish it on the basis of a more complex set of sources, since the chain of references might have originated in a press release. This seems absurd to me. For example, enwiki's article on NeXT contains the following sentence in the second paragraph: In 1993, NeXT withdrew from the hardware industry to concentrate on marketing OPENSTEP for Mach, its own OpenStep implementation, for several other computer vendors. I am no expert in 1993, but I strongly suspect that this statement could be traced to an original announcement in an NeXT press release. According to the standard that some editors seem to apply to sources like The Athletic, it seems that no statment like this one could ever contribute to the notability of any subject, regardless of the quality of the source, unless some kind of intellectual "provenance" could be demonstrated guaranteeing independent sources "all the way down", as it were. Please tell me that I am wrong, because this "black hole" theory of press releases has left me with a good deal of post-Covid vertigo as I have tried to figure it out. I certainly don't think this is the way the independence requirements in SIGCOV or NCORP were intended to be used, when written. Newimpartial (talk) 23:22, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

  Well, it might seem absurd to you, but there are a few editors who hold this position. I've seen editors trying to set extreme standards for independence that would literally require us either to omit basic information (e.g., number of employees) or rely only on sources that obtained the information through burglary or psychic powers. But while they do exist, they tend not to prevail in most disputes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:35, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  Single sentences have not counted as SIGCOV in any of the thousands of biog AfDs I've watched. That a piece of "encyclopedic" information exists in IRS is definitely not sufficient for it to be significant, otherwise literally every mention of someone's alma mater or parents' names would be enough to sustain notability. Publishing a couple items of basic information is not "significant attention" or "in-depth coverage".

  I am not treating info found in press releases as fruit of the poison tree; I am saying such info should not be considered independent when it is republished by news media in the same context and with zero secondary analysis/commentary/transformation, and especially when the info is a strict subset of the info from contemporaneous press releases. JoelleJay (talk) 06:03, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  Well, JoelleJay, since none of the three sources I've pointed to have limited themselves to republishing subsets of the info from press releases, it stands to reason that your arguments about press release content do not apply to these three sources, and therefore that the questions you have raised here do not apply to the precipitating case.

  As far as your first paragraph is concerned, I am unaware of any policy-based argument that a statement one sentence or smaller in length cannot count towards SIGCOV - it is certainly supported neither by the text of that guideline nor by the discussions over the last few years about possibly revising it. But you do raise the interesting possibility that OUTCOMES may have drifted away from P&Gs in this area. Newimpartial (talk) 15:02, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  A) I said especially when the info is a strict subset, I did not say such is absolutely required. This is exactly what WP:N says: 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. B) This entire thread is considering only the secondary content within these sources, and since all of that IS straight from contemporary press releases, the "especially" does apply. C) Editors routinely claim SIGCOV for items that go into epsilon more depth than the examples of "plainly trivial coverage" given at WP:GNG/BASIC; using that logic, one can just as easily assert that the minimum threshold for SIGCOV is actually set at epsilon less coverage than the "book on IBM" example, or at least that, because the "trivial" examples are all one sentence, one sentence is by definition trivial. JoelleJay (talk) 18:34, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  Actually, I'm not sure in what sure you're using secondary here. In terms of sourcing, the content that is also contained in press releases becomes secondary once it has been sifted and compared with other sources as The Athletic has done. (You seems to be interpreting WP:N as saying that when multiple RS publish articles covering the same events with overlapping underlying, the resulting publications may not contribute to Notability at all, but I can't imagine that the passage from WP:N that you've cited can really bear that interptetation.)

  In any case, the additional content in the articles, such as the synthetic evaluations offered by The Guardian's journalist in the podcast I linked above or the additional commentary privided in the Birmingham source, are also "secondary", just as the triangulated content in The Athletic is. Whether any of these reach the level of analysis described in WP:SECONDARY as desirable is a question that you have neither asked nor seen answered in this section, and may represent something currently under discussuon at VPP. Multiple editors there are pointing to differences of opinion about what "secondary coverage" denotes (when it it is not being weaponized, I mean), observing that the situation posses problems to your interptetation of WP:NOR in relation to article notability. And in that case, perhaps this discussion had run its (limited) course? I can't imagine that this is the best place to parse the multiple relevant meanings of "secondary" coverage. Newimpartial (talk) 01:34, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

  The secondary info I am referring to is the material on her background, all of which is directly from the press releases.
  When multiple RS publish articles restating the same info from the same underlying sources, they are counted as one source. When the restated info is simply regurgitated from the same press releases, it is also not independent. Press releases [...] are often used by newspapers with minimal change; such sources are churnalism and should not be treated differently than the underlying press release.
  What additional commentary in the Birmingham piece? Below are the non-news statements from Birmingham World, with content that would not pass our copyvio rules bolded and PR sources in tooltip.

  Maddy played for Birmingham until 2018 and joined Sheffield United in 2019, where she also worked as a marketing executive for the club.

  She passed away on Wednesday, September 20, the South Yorkshire club confirmed this afternoon (September 21). Maddy last season reached the milestone of 100 appearances for Sheffield United Women and was due to start the 2023/24 season as the club’s vice-captain.

  And all of this is completely separate from the fact that none of the coverage is sustained. JoelleJay (talk) 18:47, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

  This completely ignores the requirement for sustained coverage and conflates regurgitation of contemporaneous press releases with actual independent research into someone's career (which is something you would see in independent obituaries of the person--filler PR-sourced background material to break up quotes and primary news is most certainly not an obituary). JoelleJay (talk) 04:11, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Obituaries have their own issues; see my essay on it under WP:OBITUARIES. The big problem is that they're often not intended to be neutral. I feel that they should always at least be considered WP:BIASED sources for that reason, and I'd be particularly skeptical of someone trying to eg. use obituaries to argue for giving more weight to otherwise relatively obscure positive things someone did, since the nature of an obituary is to put more weight on it than it would otherwise merit. --Aquillion (talk) 02:55, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm sure that (at least some) obituaries (at some points in history, in some cultures) aren't intended to be neutral, but I'm not sure why that's relevant. Sources don't have to be neutral. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:01, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

No, but non-neutral sources have to be attributed and their biases have to be factored into the weight that they're given, which is something that people often don't do when they (mistakenly) treat obituaries as top-quality sources. It's not uncommon to see people try to use them for statements of fact in the article voice or as the deciding factor for eg. the weight and focus of the lead section, which I feel is inappropriate because their biases mean that their weight and focus are often going to be slanted. Likewise, if something only appears in obituary, it should be attributed along the lines of "in an obituary in [source]..." rather than stated in the article voice as unambiguous fact, which makes the fact that this statement may be more of an eulogy more clear to reader. --Aquillion (talk) 06:26, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree, but I don't think this is really relevant for whether an article should exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

• This is hard to say in a vacuum because the precise details of that coverage does matter. There are unfortunately some news sources that just republish press releases; but for most of them (the ones that are actually WP:RSes, anyway) they indicate when they're doing so somehow, making it clear that it's not a news story. If it's literally a republished press release in a section devoted to that, then it isn't really secondary coverage and doesn't add much weight at all. If it's a story about the press release, then it's more complicated and we have to consider what the coverage says and how it says it. If it attributes something, then we have to reflect that attribution, for instance. Because press releases are biased sources, things attributed to them also have to have that taken into consideration when discussing weight - IBM saying their latest creation is going to revolutionize the industry, even if quoted in the NYT, is not the same as the NYT saying it and is not as significant. But for stuff like bare facts and details, secondary coverage (actual secondary coverage, not literally republished press releases) can indicate what is at least worth mentioning somewhere. And the way they discuss it also matters - the NYT mentioning in passing that the press release says the machine has a thousand gigaflops doesn't lend that statement as much weight as eg. the NYT devoting multiple paragraphs to the fact that it has a thousand gigaflops and how this will change the industry. WP:EXCEPTIONAL applies as well here, to an extent - if the press release makes plainly-exceptional claims, yet the sources that cover it just mention them in passing and don't handle them the way you'd expect such shocking claims to be handled, that's probably an indication that we should tread carefully. --Aquillion (talk) 02:55, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  For the article that prompted this, the sources give in-text attribution by saying things like “Sheffield United Football Club is devastated to report the sad news of the passing of Maddy Cusack,” the club said and In a statement announcing her death on Thursday, the Blades said they were "devastated", so there's no doubt where this information came from. I'm not sure that it would be fair to describe an article containing information obtained from a non-independent source as "not a news story", however. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Elon Musk shared a video illustrating the problem, regardless of the "mind control" label. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 00:58, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

1999 Aïn Témouchent earthquake should be linked somehow in the NEXIST section

Back in late August 2023, 1999 Aïn Témouchent earthquake was nominated for deletion (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1999 Aïn Témouchent earthquake). It was kept (by several editor unanimous consensus, excluding the AfD nominator) solely based on WP:NEXIST purposes. The article/AfD should be linked in the guidelines as a perfect example of WP:NEXIST reasonings. As of this message as well as during the AfD, the article is 4 sentences long, with the text portion 100% unsourced. It was kept due to academic paper coverage 6 years and 10 years after the earthquake, aka NEXIST. Thoughts on this proposal? I have no proposal for how to add it to the NEXIST section, but it for sure should as the perfect example. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 05:30, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

This might make an interesting example for the newly started Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Request for comment: Unreferenced PROD discussion. It's a proposal to make ~119,000 unsourced articles eligible for deletion via a type of WP:STICKYPROD. If there are sources on the page, but they're not in the form of an Wikipedia:Inline citation at the end of a sentence, is that "unsourced"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

I think you may have missed the prior discussion, as it says "This idea will not apply retroactively". So it is very much not a proposal to make those ~119,000 unsourced articles eligible for deletion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:22, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Except for all the people in that prior discussion who say that it should be applied retroactively, and except for the fact that we said the same thing about BLP PRODs, and then changed our minds later. An editor is allowed to propose that it not apply retroactively, but he can't force us to agree with him. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:44, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

All that maybe so, but you said the proposal was to make ~119,000 articles eligible for deletion. The editor who made the proposal made no such statement (in fact having stated the opposite), and is not responsible for what other editors suggest or for what the community has decided in the past. So your statement mischaracterised their intent. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:12, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Today, the proposer gave an example of a 13-year-old article that he'd like to delete through the process he's proposing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:24, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Eeurgh. There was an article improvement idea on one of the village pages about improving stubs. I had an idea I never got round to suggesting. Editors sign up to get n random RFC from areas they are interested in, maybe a similar thing could be setup for stub/unreferenced articles. Sign-up for 1-4 articles by area per month, de-stub/reference/take to AfD as appropriate. Stars, awards and what not as people seems to like that. But I got distracted and have enough to do to last me a life time. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 00:44, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Especially if you could get people directed towards an unsourced article that aligns with their interest (perhaps taking advantage of Nettrom's SuggestBot code or the ORES subject area concept [though that might be too general]), I bet that this would be both helpful and relatively popular. @Chidgk1 suggests this search string as a way to find (tagged) unsourced articles via the ORES system.

I posted a list of 35 {{unref}} articles at WT:MED about two weeks ago, and we've dealt with about two-thirds of them. There are more to go, but we're in pretty good shape overall (about one out of 250 articles tagged for that group is unsourced, compared to about one in 50 articles overall). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I definitely feel like a natural reading would be that content in general citations and further reading is considered immediately present in the article. I suppose you could argue it's covered under the "or citation" subclause but it definitely feels like a stretch to me. Alpha3031 (t • c) 06:50, 7 October 2023 (UTC)