Misplaced Pages

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The following is a proposed Misplaced Pages policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption.

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This essay is a proposition for being a guideline. It attempts to demonstrate both the proposed guideline, and justify the need for such guidelines.

Many wikipedians have debated the issue of notability, or more precicely where to draw the line between what articles to keep and which to throw out. This policy discusses the meaning of notability in the context of Misplaced Pages, assesses the need for debating notability and advises caution in using notability as a criterion in and of itself.

Introduction

Non-notability is a shorthand used by some editors to describe articles whose subject has not achieved sufficient attention to enable editors to verify that it is covered neutrally. Above all, Misplaced Pages is an encyclopaedia, a collection of that which is already known and can be documented from reliable secondary sources.

Arguments in favor of notability

Many arguments are advanced as to why notability is important. All of those at Misplaced Pages:Notability#Arguments for deleting non-notable articles follow, with modifications and additions:

Non-notable topics do not belong

Since Misplaced Pages is not a primary or secondary source — much less a vehicle for publication of direct observation — non-notable subjects do not belong in it. Misplaced Pages is not a venue for unencyclopedic information. Some have said, "Why not write an article on your next-door neighbor's dog, as long as it's verifiable and NPOV?"

Indeed, why not? In practice, it would be very difficult to make the article verifiable. But if someone manages it, there's nothing wrong with letting it sit unviewed. Saying that something "does not belong" is not a reasoned argument; what are the costs and benefits?

Non-notable topics do not attract editors

Not enough Misplaced Pages users will take enough interest in your next-door neighbour's dog to ensure that the article is accurate, even if the information is theoretically verifiable.

Perhaps. But remember that verification is not the criterion for inclusion in Misplaced Pages, verifiability is. Will someone verify it eventually? Perhaps, perhaps not. But consider:

1. Such an article will be tagged appropriately, so that readers are aware that the info hasn't been double-checked. Therefore, no one is going to be misled: they will know the info is dubious, will treat it appropriately, and will only benefit. Information that may or may not remain uncertified is surely a better advancement of our goal of "providing free knowledge to every person in the world" than no information at all.
2. The number of people who view the verifiable information is inversely proportional to the probability that it will be verified. In theory, sure, we'll have more unverified articles sitting on our servers. But does it really make a difference if nobody actually views them? They're just bits sitting on a computer then; certainly they don't harm anyone. If, by any chance, someone does view the article, they'll be able to correct it.
3. This point suggests that the question is not "notability", but "how many of our readers will look at the article". They're quite different concepts: notability is both too broad and too narrow to cover the latter. An article on Political factions in colonial Uganda would certainly be viewed by very few editors, and even fewer would have any hope of being able to verify the information in it, but it would nevertheless be notable by most people's standards; on the other hand, an article on a small webcomic or on Misplaced Pages Review would be viewed and verified by many people, but such articles are routinely rejected as non-notable. Instituting notability guidelines isn't a good, or even reasonable, solution to this problem.

Non-notable topics clutter categories

Not at all: this is what we have subcategories for. If someone wanted to search for notable American writers, they could go to Category:Notable American writers and the categories thereof, which would be roughly parallel to our current Category:American writers (assuming the situation got sufficiently out of hand that that would be required). With the implementation of Mediazilla:5244, this would become even easier, the equivalent of flipping a switch while searching (ideally even on by default, depending on precise implementation). Specific categories may have more precise notability subcategories if logical, such as Category:Webcomics with PageRank 6 or higher.

This is against current guidelines

Of course it is—it's a proposal to repeal certain guidelines that have gained currency.

Non-notable articles waste system resources

The financial burden of storage space should not be considered when writing. Storage cost is approximately two million words per penny! Chief Technical Officer Brion Vibber (who "maintain overall responsibility for all technical functions of the Foundation, including both hardware and software") has said: "'Policy' shouldn't really concern itself with server load except in the most extreme of cases; keeping things tuned to provide what the user base needs is our job." In the event that Misplaced Pages cannot support certain categories of content, a decision will be made by server technicians, not editors.

Minor issues are not encyclopedic

Not at all. They aren't fit for a paper encyclopedia, perhaps, but Misplaced Pages is not paper. Some definitions of encyclopedia:

AHD

A comprehensive reference work containing articles on a wide range of subjects or on numerous aspects of a particular field, usually arranged alphabetically.

Merriam-Webster

a work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or treats comprehensively a particular branch of knowledge usually in articles arranged alphabetically often by subject

As you can see, nothing about notability. That Encyclopaedia Britannica doesn't have room for things about webcomics is a failing of their medium, not anything we're bound to replicate.

Arguments against notability

Some reasons why non-notable subjects may not be a problem:

1. They may simply not violate any policies or guidelines.
2. Lack of apparent notability might indicate systemic bias
3. They may be interesting to more people than you think.
4. They may be reoccuring pages that, once deleted, reappear because editors repeatedly think an article should be written about the certain subject.
5. Lack of easy verifiability might be down to FUTON bias.
6. They may be stubs about significant subjects which can grow and improve over time.
7. Deleting non-notable articles may be a controversial and time-consuming procedure.
8. Deleting articles based on non-notability alone may cause some users to be frustrated with wikipedia.

Some of these might be valid reasosns for keeping an article, others might not. For example, we sometimes deliberately keep and expand articles on subjects from lesser-known parts of the world in order to counter our systemic bias. However many times an article on a crank theory is created, it will always remain a crank theory. While it is not our job to predict the future, it is our job to remove biased information that cannot be covered neutrally from reliable secondary sources.

Deleting "non-notable" information may also be seen as frustrating and punishing to (usually new) users for editing - don't bite the newbies!.

Ways of fixing non-notable articles

An article on a non-notable subject can go one of a number of ways:

1. No solution can be had for articles on non-veriable subjects, or topics that directly violate official policy.
2. Articles that lack quality can be tagged as such - or readers can simply judge for themselves that a page is simply not written with the same standards as other articles - a suggested fix is to specially mark articles of quality, and also articles without quality.
3. Categories can be reorganized or further split off to form smaller more specific categories in which to place topics of any amount of fame.
4. System resources should almost never be considered when contemplating keeping information vs not keeping information.

These solutions are proposed to fix any potential problems associated with having articles of varying quality and size on wikipedia - as is the case notwithstanding non-notable articles. Articles are in some cases said to not be able to be written in a NPOV fashion; this can be fixed. Articles on things which "will be significanct one day" may fall foul of wikipedia is not a crystal ball - judge the subject, as it is known now outside Misplaced Pages, not the current or potential content.

One exception is living people - these articles require careful handling, and articles which are uncomplimentary and hard to verify should be fixed or deleted as soon as possible.

See {{sofixit}}

Be bold! Edit the article so that it establishes the importance of the subject. Let's say you come across this stub:

Eric Moussambani is a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea.

Verifiable, factual, neutral, but fails to make any claim of notability. But we know there is more to it than that! How about expanding it to read:

Eric "The Eel" Moussambani is a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who achieved worldwide fame after finishing in the slowest time ever recorded in the Men's 100m Freestyle finals at the 2000 Summer Olympics. Moussambani had never seen a 50m pool before the competition.

The subject is notable! The problem is gone.

Merging

One is encouraged to merge that information which is verifiable, and verifiably significant, onto a main article - so as to make the information easier to find and easier to manage. Once a main article gets too large, its component peices can be split off to form their own articles (forking), although there are some restrictions on this. Leave a redirect behind, with the page history, to comply with GFDL.

However, if there is a significant amount of information that would put undue weight on the main article, it might be better too keep the information on separate pages (although note that sometimes the existence of a separate article in and of itself constitutes undue weight, for example in the case of a minor theory with few adherents).

Userfying

Articles about garage bands whose lead singer matches the name of the user who created the article are a common occurrence on Misplaced Pages - possibly the most common source of non-notable content. These can be moved to the user's space by any editor and the remaining redirect tagged for speedy deletion as a cross-namespace redirect. You can leave a polite notice such as {{nn-userfy}} to explain what you did, and why (and don't forget to {{welcome}} them!).

Transwiki

Some things which have no place in an encyclopaedia can find a happy home in a sister project such as wikibooks.

Tagging for cleanup

The {{importance}} template is one of many standard templates which can be applied to an article which does not establish its importance. See the cleanup resources page for more details of these.

Deleting

By consensus, if an article fails to assert the importance of its subject then it can be deleted, speedily or via proposed deletion or articles for deletion. This is a last resort and should only be used if the subject of the article is the problem, rather than the article's content. Always try to fix content before deleting a subject.

Non-notability is not

Because they often overlap, and because it is sometimes carelessly used, non-notability is often assumed to be equivalent to one or more of the following defenciencies which are not allowed on Misplaced Pages for their own, individual reasons. When deciding an article's worthiness for Misplaced Pages, be sure the article is judged against these specific problems.

Non-verifiable

All information on Misplaced Pages must be written from an accessible and reliable source. While non-verfiable information is often not notable either (such as what I have in my pocket), in many casess non-notable information is verifiable. For example, Qubit Field Theory is a little known quantum theory but is certainly verifiable. Something is verifiable only if it can be substantiated from reliable sources. If the only source about something is its promoter and their press releases, it is not verifiable. Look for mutiple non-trivial mentions in independent academic or mainstream publications: it must be verifiable from reliable secondary sources.

Neutral

Neutrality is non-negotiable. By extension we must not give undue prominence to minor points of view. We must therefore be able to verify that a subect is covered neutrally.

An article may not include information that arbitrarily favors one side or another. However, point of view in non-notable articles (like in notable articles) is most often written by an editor who has knowledge or interest in the subject, and may contain intended or unintended bias. This is a fixable problem, and biased non-notable articles can just as easily be corrected as notable biased articles - provided that the subject has been covered widely enough that there is informed discussion available for reference.

Non-encyclopedic

In a paper encyclopedia, non-notable topics were not included for practical purposes. Misplaced Pages, however, is a very different model not confined by this limitation. Therefore, what is non-encyclopedic in Encyclopædia Britannica is not neccessarily non-encyclopedic here. As defined by a dictionary, an encyclopedia is marked by covering the span of human knowledge. An encyclopedic article on Misplaced Pages is one that is both verfiable and NPOV, but is not original research. Therefore, a non-notable article is not neccessarily a non-encyclopedic article on wikipedia, provided it can be independently verified.

See also

• Misplaced Pages:Notability/Proposal - A rejected proposal to not include non-notable articles
• Misplaced Pages:Notability - An essay on notability
• Category:Misplaced Pages notability criteria

• Misplaced Pages proposals