User talk:ElKevbo/Notability in embedded lists RfC draft
Should relevant notability guidelines be edited to clarify that notability can be used as a criterion for inclusion in embedded lists? ElKevbo (talk) 01:47, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
Discussion edit
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
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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.
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However, this very common practice contradicts several of our written guidelines:
- 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."
- 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)."
- The notability guideline has a section explicitly titled "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists".
- 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."
- 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:
- 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."
- 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)."
- 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".
- 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:
- 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)."