This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Centrx (talk | contribs) at 17:15, 23 September 2006 ("significant" too is in use, and +"they are similar", not exactly synonymous). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 17:15, 23 September 2006 by Centrx (talk | contribs) ("significant" too is in use, and +"they are similar", not exactly synonymous)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) | This page documents an English Misplaced Pages ]. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
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| Notability |
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| General notability guideline |
| Subject-specific guidelines |
| See also |
- If you are expecting to read the essay on evaluating notability, it has been moved to Misplaced Pages:Notability/Arguments.
Based on several sections in the policy on what Misplaced Pages is not, it is generally agreed that topics in most areas must exceed a certain threshhold of notability in order to have an article in Misplaced Pages. The terms "importance" and "significant" are also in use, and for practical purposes on Misplaced Pages they are similar.
Several guidelines (see table on the right) have been created, or are under discussion, to define more precisely what these thresholds should be. They generally assert that a minimum standard for any given topic is that it has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works, where the source is independent of the topic itself.
Articles on subjects with borderline notability are frequently merged into list articles (e.g. List of esoteric programming languages), or into an article on a related subject (e.g. articles about not-well-known relatives of a famous person tend to be merged into the article on the person itself).
Articles on non-notable subjects are frequently nominated for Proposed Deletion and Articles for Deletion, and the article's merits are discussed, assessed and frequently ultimately deleted via those processes, as can be seen through precedents.
Notability or lack thereof are subjective, but both are valid arguments in discussions such as on WP:AFD, as well as for the creation of subject-specific guidelines.
See also
This page documents the status quo. There are (and have been) several proposals to modify the status quo, such as:
- Misplaced Pages:Notability proposal, a failed proposal.
- Misplaced Pages:Notability/Proposal, another failed proposal.
- Misplaced Pages:Non-notability, an active proposal to use only verifiability in regard to whether "non-notable" subjects should be included in Misplaced Pages.