Wikipedia talk:Notability (history)

Arguments for the proposed criteria for people:

• demographic reasons (increase of population decreases the relative importance of individuals)
• a relative paucity of information about the less recent past (making the relatively little information that is known relatively more important)
• an increase in the volume of contemporary publishing (making it unrealistic to expect historical topics to receive the same level of coverage as modern topics of equal importance)
• BLPs can be problematic due to issues that are not relevant to biographies of those who died long ago
• POLITICIAN doesn't take into account the tendency towards increasing centralisation, such as merging sub-national courts into national courts with no (practical or significant) increase in the actual powers of the judges (eg merging the old palatine courts of chancery into the high court, because they had more or less the same jurisdiction as the chancery division of the high court)
• Criteria 3 of AUTHOR doesn't take into account the fact that book reviews did not exist before the 1660s: [1]. Nor does it allow for the overall number of published book reviews being lower at any point in the past than it is today.
• generally, contemporary standards of notability cannot be projected back into the distant past

The proposed criteria of "common sense" already exists in one SNG, and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't apply to the others. James500 (talk) 21:21, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

This proposal will be brought to RfC as soon as possible. It may take a certain amount of time to write up a supporting statement (which I am preparing now and want to get right on the first attempt) due to the number of reasons why it is essential that this be adopted. The main criteria (common sense) is certain to be adopted as it is already a guideline. James500 (talk) 19:05, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Should this become a guideline?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The proposal was unanimously rejected, and withdrawn by the proposer. Just archiving this thread. Kraxler (talk) 22:13, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

---

The community is asked to promote this proposal to a guideline, or, if they do not support its present form, state what changes they would like to see. James500 (talk) 19:15, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Request withdrawn. This proposal may need considerable expansion and clarification to achieve consensus. The work required may take longer than the maximum duration of this RfC. Though support has been expressed for the improvement of this proposal, no substantive improvements have been suggested for some time. Overall, I think there is too much opposition, and enough support, to continue this process at this time. James500 (talk) 02:05, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Support

• Support as proposer. The core criteria proposed is that historical topics are notable if common sense suggests that they are. This criteria is taken without modification from the existing guideline on non-contemporary books (OBK). It also already appears in the guideline for textbooks (TBK). Since it is already a guideline for historical books, it manifestly reflects existing consensus for all historical topics. There is no good reason why other topics should be treated more in a restrictive fashion. Despite the fact that this criteria is absolutely certain to be accepted, it seems reasonable to offer a few arguments for it. Notability guidelines were primarily created to exclude topics that were felt to be unworthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. As the study of history is of immense importance, and historical topics are inherently immensely important, there is no reason whatsoever to impose restrictive guidelines on such topics, as they generally will be worthy of inclusion. Indeed, as the sum total of human knowledge, Wikipedia should certainly contain all history, the only issue being how to organise the material. A secondary function of the notability requirement is to discourage self-promotion, something the dead do not engage in, further reducing any need for restrictions. The three SNG mentioned in the proposal, because they were written with contemporary topics in mind, are full of many anachronisms, and it is not desirable that these should apply to historical topics to which they are not relevant. I shall not try to enumerate all of these errors, since they should be fairly obvious. Any exclusionary criteria in ORG and EVENT certainly have no relevance at all to a period in time when advertising and newspapers respectively did not exist. The problems caused by GNG's subjectivity are so well known that I shan't repeat them. Traditional academic subjects like history are too important to be left to the mercy of something that potentially allows people to say "no matter how much coverage there is, I won't accept its significant; I want millions and millions of pages of coverage". More importantly because GNG is entirely dependent on the level of coverage, it is, as a proxy for real notability, vulnerable to systematic bias in the sources available. We can expect it to consistently underestimate the notability of topics about history, and especially the distant past, because most writing materials are biodegradable, because of the absence of printing and other technology at the time, because fewer sources were published at the time than today because people were poorer and could not afford books and there were higher rates of illiteracy, and because modern sources are less inclined to write about history (or any other academic subject), most of their content being clearly aimed at the lowest common denominator (and we cannot take that seriously as proof of what is really notable). The secondary criteria proposed is that a person who died, or organisation that existed, before the year 1450 is notable if the name of that person or organisation is known to us. The criteria is based on an argument advanced by User:Ihcoyc in an AfD and quoted with approval in the essay User:Bearian/Standards#Notability of persons in premodern times. This has been modified to expressly include both individuals and organisations, which appears to be its logical conclusion. 1450 is the accepted date of the introduction of printing in Europe (referred to as the "Gutenberg Era" in the essay and the quote it cites). This is the obvious date. Handwritten records are significantly less likely to survive because they are harder to reproduce without printing. The things rot away faster than they can be copied by hand. "Ancient literature ... faced a severe struggle for survival" (Finley, The World of Odysseus, Penguin, 1972, p 23). As far as I'm aware, this date predates extant mundane sources such as registers of births, marriages and deaths, census records and the like. In other words, if someone from this period is not notable, we will not know their name, and the number of people from this period whose names we know is extremely small by our standards (we already have in excess of one million biographies, the overwhelming majority of which come, for no good reason, from a tiny fraction of the period during which humans have existed). I'm sure you are also all thinking that if users such as Bearian and Ihcoyc think that the people they referred to are notable, it is inconceivable that those editors could be mistaken. And you are, of course, entirely right to think that. A number of arguments for the proposed criteria for people are described at the top of this talk page. I will not repeat those that are not relevant to the other criteria, so please read them carefully. There are probably many other arguments that could be advanced in favour of this proposal. James500 (talk) 18:53, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose, speedy reject as failed- manifestly inadequate, much like its sister "proposal" WP:NPUBLISHING. This is less than 300 words, far smaller than real SNG, and has had no input or comments from anyone except its author. It's not mature as a proposal and is both vague and erroneous from beginning to end. The content provides no useful guidance, and seems intended to indiscriminately bestow notability on everything within its area of applicability. Suggest userfying or deletion at MfD. Reyk _YO! 14:20, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose, concur speedy - This says nothing other than giving an excuse to ignore existing, well estabilised, notability guidelines just because something is arbitrarily old. There is no expansion on existing guidelines for notability. 'Common sense' is not valid as primary guidance and is already considered as part of the editorial discretion we all exercise as Wikipedia editors.

  There is no basis for "A person who died before the year 1450 is notable if their name is known to us. or "In general, the longer a person has been dead, the more likely they are to be notable". The idea of allowing articles on the tens of thousands of people "whose names are know to us" and "died before 1450" is ill advised. This proposal, in conjunction with similiar ultra-inclusionist proposals like Wikipedia:Notability (publishing) and this version of Wikipedia:Notability (bilateral relations), is simply an attempt by a single editor to gut Wikipedia's notability standards. None follow or express current consensus on their topics nor has there been any community input or discussion. Jbh^Talk 15:11, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

• In response to the absolute nonsense written above: (1) NPUBLISHING has nothing to do with this proposal except that I wrote it. There is no similarity whatsoever between this proposal and the other proposal (which was a restatement of GNG!) and the draft proposal mentioned above. (2) There has been community input and discussion from editors other than myself. The "1450" criteria was more or less copied from things said by Bearian and Ihcoyc. The proposal has been advertised and discussed on the talk page of WP:BIO. The proposal has also had your input and comment on this talk page. (3) Since probably all of our existing policies and guidelines are vague this one would be no exception. That said, the "1450" criteria is not vague in any way at all, and I don't see "common sense" as particularly vague either. We all know what common sense is, and it has been accepted as a criteria elsewhere. (4) Comments like "manifestly inadequate" and "erroneous" are not really substantive criticisms. They border on being non arguments. See WP:IDONTLIKEIT. (5) You demanded that I bring this proposal to RfC immediately, ready or not. It is far too late now to complain that the proposal is not mature and needs more work. (6) Userfication is not an option because it would require my consent, and deletion at MfD would be an abuse of process. (7) Whilst there is a process called "speedy keep" there is no such thing as "speedy rejection" of a proposal. (8) The "1450" criteria, and the other criteria for people, are well explained above on this page. Those explanations are not answered simply by calling them ill advised. Nor is the date 1450 an arbitrary one. (9) The proposal is not intended to, or capable of, indiscriminately bestowing notability on anything. The "common sense" criteria cannot do that, because that is not common sense. The "1450" criteria does the exact opposite. Common sense is not ultra-inclusionist either. Even if the proposal was too broad in its present form, which I don't think it is, it could be modified. (10) The length of this proposal is irrelevant. SNG do not have to be massively long and full to bursting with every deletionist restriction can be dreamt up. Short and simple is always better, and, by way of comparison, the existing guideline OBK is very brief. There is no reason why the proposal should be significantly longer, unless we want to add additional inclusion criteria, which you would presumably oppose per se. (12) Neither I, nor the many editors who wrote the guideline and essay on which the two criteria of this proposal are taken, have any desire to "gut Wikipedia's notability standards". Since the common sense criteria is taken from an existing guideline, OBK, it cannot be said not to follow or express current consensus. (13) Although "common sense" is already referred to on the templates of the relevant notability guidelines, and allowed by the policy IAR, there is probably a difference between common sense allowed as an exception and common sense required as a general rule. In the case of historical topics we know that the guidelines largely do not reflect common sense, and it would be very difficult to write one that did (we would probably need many different guidelines for different periods). We also have the problem that editors don't read those templates. So a very prominent reminder would be helpful. (14) Something that is well established can also be a very bad thing. Our existing guidelines have only existed for a few years, with the active support of relatively small numbers of editors, in the face of continuous vehement opposition. They are not set in stone. Though I don't think anything in this proposal contradicts the spirit of them anyway. James500 (talk) 18:56, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• TL;DR Jbh^Talk 19:00, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• I think that's quite a rude and unhelpful thing to write. You're not obliged to reply to anything, but complaining that someone's comment is too long is ridiculous. More words is good. It shows an attempt to justify the proposal. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 20:30, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• @Bilorv: struck. Of course I would never want to be rude to anyone who refers to my comments as "...the absolute nonsense written above." Jbh^Talk 21:34, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Having multiple overlapping notability requirements causes a great deal of unnecessary strife. This particular standard seems to do without the core benefit of the WP:GNG - the fact that it requires independent sources that are sufficient to support a decent article. Instead, this guideline seeks to grant automatic notability to broad classes of topics; previous moves to grant automatic notability to broad classes of topics are directly responsible for the rote creation of the vast majority of wikipedia's shittiest articles. The idea that existence alone (before 1450) would make a subject "notable" is ridiculous, and it goes without saying that somebody would set about creating thousands of unmaintainable one-sentence sub-stubs from whatever listing they could find. bobrayner (talk) 19:49, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• The criteria is not existence. The criteria is that their name is verifiable. In the overwhelming majority of cases it is not. In practice it is very unlikely that there will be mere listings of significant numbers of such people, without further comment. James500 (talk) 20:14, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• If such listings exist, please name them. Because I am not aware of any. James500 (talk) 20:21, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. This looks like a solution in search of a problem; I think we have enough policies that cover this already — most importantly, WP:IAR. Common sense already is a policy. Yes, being concise is always wonderful, but there's a difference between being concise and not really having much to say. This proposal doesn't seem to add any detail or useful new rules to anything. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 20:30, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose A statement like "A person who died before the year 1450 is notable if their name is known to us." invited anyone that can gain access to ancestry data to push for their relatives into WP, or the like. I disagree that the longer that a person/organization has been passed on, the more likely they will become verifiable as it becomes the case there are less sources the farther back you go. It is more appropriate to say that once someone is notable, there will likely be more sources the longer they have been dead (more writings about Socrates than Freud for example), but that's when they've already been determined notable. --MASEM (t) 20:32, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• @User:Masem: (1) Is there ancestry data from before the year 1450, and what is the source of this data? If there is such data, at what point in the past does it cease? I can't believe it exists for the earliest periods. (2) The proposal doesn't say such people are more likely to be verifiable. It says that, if they are verifiable to begin with, they are more likely to be notable. James500 (talk) 20:44, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• Sure there is, it just won't be as complete as one would expect today. And while the notion that being verifiable from older periods will likely be more notable is leading in the right direction, it is far far from any usable truism to be an appropriate SNG metric. --MASEM (t) 21:03, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• @User:Masem: I'd like to see some examples, because I have never heard of this. If you are talking about ancestry data for the ancient and medieval aristocracy and nobility, for the rich, famous and important people, which I can imagine being available, those people do tend to be notable. James500 (talk) 21:26, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• "Tend to be" is not equivalent "nearly always". Sub-notability guideline criteria should be selected that we do not get a lot of false positives (that is, topics that ultimately aren't notable despite meeting the criteria), so we expect that the criteria is something attributed to a merit that a person or organization has done that would earn them being documented in secondary sources as to develop a strong WP article on them and not just a permastub. In this case, just being able to verify the existence of an historical person is no clear sign the person has any type of merit to talk about more than their mere existence - I'd agree that on average, yes, more than half such cases would have additional sources, but we'd want SNG criteria to be closer to 95-99%, which definitely is not the case here. --MASEM (t) 23:43, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• I think that is too high a percentage. James500 (talk) 00:55, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• Of course there is. I can trace my family to at lease the mid 1100's (that is even using material that would be considered WP:RS) and while there are several people who are considered notable (the reason the records were kept) there are a huge number of sons, daughters and cousins who were not even notable in their lifetimes much less notable now. Jbh^Talk 21:31, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
• I could put an express restatement of NOTGENEALOGY in the proposal. That would clearly eliminate someone known only from genealogical data. (Though they would be excluded by the policy NOT, which is already included in the rubric of the guideline, in the introduction, so a person known only from ancestry data wouldn't be entitled to an article even under the present terms of the proposal). James500 (talk) 21:59, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• Nope this would likely trump NOT or at the very least cause conflicting guidelines which is also bad. Guidelines do not exist in a vacuum. It is the responsibility of the drafter to examine and understand not only the effects they intend but what happens when someone interprets their proposal in ways they had not intended. Jbh^Talk 22:19, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

•  Done with this edit.
• I disagree on the possibility of a conflict. Firstly a policy always trumps a guideline no matter what the guideline says. That is one of the rules we have here. And WP:NOT is a policy, not a guideline. Secondly the introduction to this proposal has at all times (strictly unnecessarily) said in express words that it is entirely subject to WP:NOT. If we can't have a guideline because someone might misunderstand it, we would have to demote all of them. And a misunderstanding is unlikely because I have now included an express proviso for WP:NOTGENEALOGY. James500 (talk) 22:36, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• You are correct. My error. That should exclude those people who we simply know the names of but that creates an internal inconsistency in your proposal. What is considered 'genealogical information' and what is not? This changes implies some minimum coverage and that brings us right back to GNG/BIO or the introduction of some other explicit notability threshold which this guideline does not have. Jbh^Talk 12:35, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose, speedy utterly vague and pointless. I'm pretty sure common sense is used throughout AfD discussions already, we don't need a rule for this. In order to write articles there must be sufficient independent reliable sources to summarise the content of. --ℕ ℱ 20:47, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
• Reliable sources are required to write an article. Independent and secondary sources are required for other reasons that may be less relevant. And "significant" is presently and undefined quantity. James500 (talk) 20:59, 10 July 2015 (UTC). James500 (talk) 20:54, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Tag {{failed}} or allow the author to move it to his userspace as a single authored disputed user essay. The author is non-conversant with important concepts of Wikipedia-notability. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:59, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• I am more conversant with them than you are, though I may not agree with them, and I am not the original author of the criteria proposed. I copied them from others, as I have repeatedly pointed out. So it is not single authored. James500 (talk) 22:07, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose as written. I have no objection to a statement in GNG that, the farther back in time a subject is, the less likely that documentation would be available, so less documentation is required for notability. (I came here from WP:VP (policy); although I agree that this and WP:NPUBLISHING are sufficiently bad that other proposals by this editor should be carefully scrutinized.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:38, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• @User:Arthur Rubin: I was put under pressure to bring both proposals to RfC immediately. James500 (talk) 00:40, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

My apologies. Under the circumstances, you probably should have userfied them, rather than bringing them to RfC. There is little in any of the three proposals which might get consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:28, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

This draft was started on 17 Feb 2015 the last edit prior to this RfC was 20 Feb 2015. When these were brought up as other examples of 'bad' proposals by James500 and he was challenged about having no intention of bringing the proposals he wrote to RfC he replied "I have every intention of bringing them to RfC and I will be happy to move immediately to RfC, since I think they will pass in their present form." [2] Yep. Pressured. Thumbscrews. Not. Jbh^Talk 01:55, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

If I predicted the possibility of failure that would be likely to make it happen. I was under the impression that they would be sent to MfD (with the object of deletion, not userfication) if they were not sent to RfC. Under the circumstances, I could not possibly accept userfication of them now. James500 (talk) 02:13, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Far too broad, and addresses a non-existent problem. If all we know is a person's name, what could we possibly have to say about them? Is everyone mentioned in the Domesday book notable? Or the Bible? In the end, all the proposed criteria defer to "common sense," which will simply lead to endless arguments. Overall, too inclusive, too specific in some areas (1450), and too vague in others (common sense). Pburka (talk) 03:43, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

I had forgotten the name of the Domesday book. Thanks. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:12, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• @User:Pburka: As far as the Domesday book is concerned, many of the chief landholders are unidentifiable, because their full name is not given (Bagley, Historical Interpretation I, Penguin, 1971, p 29). From the extracts I've seen thegns, priests, bordars, villeins, socmen, and serfs are not named at all. Who specifically is named that you think is not notable? It looks like mostly numbers of people, chattels, the type of land and buildings and its financial value. I seem to recall suggestions that figures named in the Bible normally satisfy GNG. This guideline would not stop those seeking deletion arguing that they were not real people. James500 (talk) 04:45, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
• Doomsday People by K. S. B. Keats-Rohan seems to be a biographical dictionary of the people named in the Domesday Book. The biographies I saw in the limited preview appeared to be of reasonable length, frankly. So my provisional view is that they are notable, unless you can provide significant numbers of specific counter examples. James500 (talk) 05:24, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
• Since land was the main form of wealth at that time, and correlates with power, a person's holdings may be the main thing we want to know about them. This would make the Domesday book a perfect source for our purposes. James500 (talk) 05:43, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• Here is a typical biography that could be generated from Doomsday People. I simply did a fast scroll and took the person in the middle of my window.

  Hugo Filius Normani d. before 1130. Had a brother named Ralf and a son William. He lived somewhere in Suffolk and his name is attested to on the Pipe Roll. (Doomsday People KSB Keats-Rohan p. 269)

  There is no chance that anything more could be written about this person and no one would care if there were. This person was utterly non-notable then and more so now. Simply using that one source more than a thousand such useless articles would be created hence reviewed and maintained. Jbh^Talk 17:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• I do not think that is a typical biography, at least from what I have seen. They are generally more detailed than that. I looked carefully at quite a substantial number of pages. One randomly selected counter example proves nothing, particularly when you've picked one that doesn't give details of his land (ie his wealth, and the power that comes with it), which details the Domesday Book has in abundance. You would need to look at a sample large enough to draw meaningful statistical conclusions. In any event, where is the evidence that the book professes to tell everything there is to know about the subjects of its articles? Might it not be a brief summary that does not necessarily include the most important facts? I've read too many cryptic articles about notable people to assume that they always tell you why that person is notable. James500 (talk) 21:58, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• @User:James500: Can you confirm that you believe that Hugo Filius Normani is notable because we know his name, that he was born before 1450, and that he was wealthy? What about his son and brother? We know their names, too. What about everyone in List of minor biblical figures, A–K and L–Z? Pburka (talk) 00:05, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
• Here's another great source of old names: List of Personal Names from the Temple School of Nippur (1916). The author lists 1082 Sumerians, of whom we know little beyond their names. They're drawn from clay tablets, which were probably used as ledgers. This count doesn't include Idin-Istar, one of the scribes who signed his name on a tablet. Similar documents exist from ancient Egypt. Pburka (talk) 00:40, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
• If a person holds enough land, especially in a country which practices feudalism, where powers such as the holding of manorial courts come with that, he is worthy of notice. The name given on page 269 of the book is actually "Hugo Filius Normanni" (the above comments missed out an "n"). That name appears in other sources, in GBooks in particular, as do "Hugo Filius Norman", "Hugh Fitz Norman" and "Hugh Filius Normanni" (all of which mean, unless I am mistaken, something like "Hugh, son of a Norman"). Unless I am mistaken, it seems that, in particular, his holdings and acts of philanthropy on his part are described at some length.
• I think it is worth pointing out that N specifically states that notability only creates a presumption that a topic merits an article and does not exclude the merger of related topics, such merging a person into a list of people (and we do, rightly, have lists of people from the Domesday Book), and it is not my intention to exclude things like redirection under BIO1E either. James500 (talk) 04:25, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
• I also suspect that Ancient Egypt and Sumer may not be good examples, if the more extensive preservation of artefacts with writing on them, such as papyri and baked clay tablets, is due to arid conditions prevailing in Egypt and Iraq that are not typical of the rest of the world. They may be exceptions that prove the rule. James500 (talk) 19:04, 13 July 2015 (UTC) Actually, looking at the sources available, I am not convinced that the Idin-Istar mentioned above is not notable either. There is some secondary coverage of him. James500 (talk) 23:03, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• There is no indication HFN was a noble and no indication the other HFN's are the same person. All of the mentions in Google Books seem to be from the same source, likely from his listing in the Doomsday Book. At least the Latin is the same in the sources. What philanthropy are you speaking of? Source? Jbh^Talk 13:25, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
• Rohan Keats says "Hugo Filius Normanni" was a tenant of the Hugh of Chester. Since he only includes one HFN in his biographical dictionary, I assume he is saying that all the HFNs in Domesday are one and the same person. A translation of parts of the Domesday Book relating to Cheshire has details of lands of "Hugo Filius Norman"/"Hugh Fitz Norman" in Cheshire, some of which is held from Earl Hugh: [3] [4][5][6]. Tait has the same. Hanshall has Codlington Church, in particular, given to the Abbot by "Hugh Fitz Norman"/"Hugo Filius Normanni", citing the Foundation Charter of Chester Abbey. Ormerod and Chetham Society and British Archaeological Association [7] [8] have the same and some other transfers. Monasticon Anglicanum has "Hugo Filius Normanni" giving property to God and St Peter (presumably the Church), in the time of the abbott Walter de Lacy (appointed 1130, which if I read Rohan Keats correctly is the last year Domesday's Hugo's death could have occurred, the Pipe Roll being for that year). Perhaps the gift was in Hugo's will. Parentalia has the grant of Gostrey and Lawton to Chester Abbey by "Hugh Fitz-Norman" in 1119, and the grant of Codlington etc by the same in 1093 (which are within the right dates) [9][10]. All of this assumes that I am not misunderstanding the Latin. There are more sources for each of the transliterations of his name I've given. I won't go so far as to say that I'm certain its all the same person, but I equally don't see certain proof it that isn't (such as impossible or implausible dates and places). At this point, I don't see the door to notability being obviously closed for HFN. James500 (talk) 19:33, 12 July 2015 (UTC) The aforementioned Charter from Chester Abbey specifically says that HFN therein mentioned has a brother ("frater") Ralf/Ralph/Randolf ("Radulfus"/"Radulphus"): see Hanshall, Ormerod, Chetham Society; this matches with what Rohan Keats says. It is also worth noting that the tenants named in the book were often knights who accordingly satisfy criteria 1 of ANYBIO anyway, as knighthood is a well known and significant honour. James500 (talk) 18:30, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

If this is all true then HFN would pass GNG and BIO so no need for this new notability criteria. QED. Jbh^Talk 19:41, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

• One of the accepted purposes of an SNG is to identify topics that are likely to satisfy GNG in order to save time. That is the gist of what Masem says above. That said, one example chosen at random can't prove that all or most cases satisfy GNG anymore than it can prove the opposite. The sample is too small. In any event, I'm sure that no matter how much coverage HFN has, some editors will argue that it isn't significant. James500 (talk) 18:30, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Too broad. If an editor plays the "common sense" card, it will make whatever they desire notable. Objective criteria, such as the GNG, is sufficient. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 07:18, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose for now I agree with the idea of this proposed guideline and think we need such a thing. However, as of now the proposed guideline is not specific or detailed enough to be useful. Happy Squirrel (talk) 15:39, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose the whole point about a guideline is to provide guidance. Telling people to apply common sense is incredibly broad guidance. And the longer someone is dead the more notable they are? Seriously?? LibStar (talk) 14:08, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - Automatic notability for anyone born before 1450? That's an............... interesting idea. I really don't see the need for a notability guideline for history, AfD works pretty danged well as it is and I'm not seeing unfortunate deletions of historical articles for reasons that need the correction of a new special notability low bar. Carrite (talk) 14:27, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

• You and I chiefly participate in different AfDs. I have seen far too many completely absurd deletions at AfD chiefly because it is too easy to put a spin on "significant". This tends to happen to "high brow" topics generally, including history. James500 (talk) 18:30, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose and snowball: We already have over 200 guideline pages. Unless this is modified to provide more guidance than "be careful" and "again, common sense" (which is blatantly obvious), I can't see this being of much use, except for avid and prolific wikilawyers. The "before 1450 = notable" and "long dead = likely notable" don't make sense. It would mean that tens of millions of people who aren't worthy of notice can have a permanent stub. Notability requires verifiable evidence. Esquivalience ^t 17:15, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• User:Esquivalience: This proposal does not say that anyone who died before 1450 is notable. It only applies to people whose names are known to us (and are not excluded by NOTGENEALOGY, BIO1E and so forth), which would necessarily require a verifiable source, since no one from that period is alive today. The names of the vast majority of such people are not known because they were never written down, or, if they were, the text hasn't survived. I don't know how many people would satisfy the criteria but it could not possibly be tens of millions. There just aren't enough artefacts from that period. Another user has estimated it at tens of thousands, which is very low. For example, M I Finley says we know, mainly from later writers, the names of about 150 writers of tragedy (one half of all plays, the other half being comedy) for the whole history of Ancient Greece (The World of Odysseus, p 23). That is how small these numbers are. They were probably all mega-notable in antiquity (think NTEMP). The list of one thousand Sumerians mentioned above is miniscule for a society of that size. This proposal already expressly excludes unverifiable people, so NRVE is not engaged.
• I'm prepared to accept that the proposal requires a considerable amount of expansion. It would be more helpful if you were to suggest the substantive criteria you would specifically like to see. James500 (talk) 23:03, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Comments

• I think I should mention that the two editors above came to this from an MfD were the possibility of an RfC for this proposal was first mentioned. I think it would be seriously inappropriate to speedy reject this proposal on the basis only of !votes from people coming from that MfD (most of whom got to that MfD from a single AfD and its DRV), and not the wider community. I can see no harm in leaving the thing open for the full thirty days, or at least till it has been commented on by significant numbers of editors who are not coming from that MfD. James500 (talk) 19:15, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
• I think that this needs more refining. While the article does bring up NOTGENEALOGY, it kind of contradicts this because it doesn't entirely go into depth about how much of a mention someone would need. Now common sense would say that if a trusted academic source devoted several paragraphs to a person from the 900s and didn't just cover them in relation to someone else, that person would likely be notable. However at the same time, this is phrased so vaguely that it could somewhat cover someone who is mentioned in passing in 1-2 sentences. I also have to worry about the vagueness of how old something/someone would have to be in order to really qualify. Obviously this is more intended to cover people who have been dead for long periods of time (50+ years at the least), but it could be somewhat abused easily without this being more explicitly stated. I do like the general gist of this, but I think that it likely needs to be expanded more and I'd probably recommend that this focus more on one specific topic (persons, events, or organizations) because this could cover them quite differently. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:38, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• A particular issue, in my view, is that "In general, the longer a verifiable person has been dead, the more likely they are to be notable." followed by the absolute notability after 1450 seems to set up an implied progressive notability standard ranging from "named" in 1450 to BIO at some point in near historical times. What does that implied notability curve look like? Also making a guideline that depends on "common sense" is just bad. Guidelines exist for the express purpose of when common sense is not enough to go on or various well meaning individuals view of what is common sense is at odds. For instance where Tokyogirl79 puts a number of 50+ years as the point this guideline could kick in I would say a minimum of 200 years because 50 years takes us back to 1965 and we have very good records even in the 1800's. I could even argue for the 1600's. Jbh^Talk 12:54, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• Significant coverage is a decent sized paragraph of perhaps no more than one hundred words. That is about the size of a periodical obituary or an article in a biographical dictionary.
• The level of depth necessary to satisfy NOTGENEALOGY ought to be specified in NOTGENEALOGY itself.
• If I was going to suggest a cut off point for "history", the obvious one is 1945. It appears to be accepted as a starting point for "contemporary history". It is also the end of the last general war. Other possible dates are 1900, 1918 and 1923.
• Even if nineteenth century records (primary sources) are good, secondary and tertiary sources from that period seem much less extensive than those from the contemporary period. The number of scholarly periodicals for a particular subject, for example, seems to be much smaller than the number that exist today. The tendency of this is to create recentism, which is unacceptable since there is no reason in principle why a nineteenth century topic should be less notable than an entirely equivalent twentieth century topic.
• Biographical articles in Victorian sources seem to be relatively concise, even for exceptionally important figures.
• Even though there were newspapers during the nineteenth century, they seem to be undigitised or difficult to find online. I cannot even find The Times for that period in GNews. One can find a few twentieth century newspapers such as the Glasgow Herald, but ... they are almost illegible. Periodical book reviews are, however, often included in GBooks. That source however is reported to be three quarters incomplete. In setting notability criteria, we have to allow for the fact that participants at AfD rarely look beyond Google, and Google does not know everything.
• If I was going to propose a "gold standard" for biography for the mid to late nineteenth century, it would be an article in Boase's Modern English Biography (6 vols, 1892 - 1921). For the early to mid twentieth century it would be an article in A & C Black's Who's Who. The people included for those periods are notable. The ODNB, while an important source, simply omits too many important figures. James500 (talk) 21:58, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
• Notifications of this RfC have been placed on Wikipedia talk:Notability, Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)

Wikipedia talk:Notability (people), Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies) Wikipedia talk:Notability (events)Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). James500 (talk) 01:17, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.