Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works

Wikipedia's notability requirement is perhaps the most confusing of all of Wikipedia's core requirements and guidance. The system mostly works in practice, but is very difficult to fully understand or explain. Lack of recognition of how it actually works presents a roadblock to progress and clarification in this area. This essay seeks to fix that by summarizing how wp:notability actually works in areas where the common memes and understandings are not correct. Note that this is nothing but an analysis an summary of current practice.

Notability is Wikipedia's name for it's main "should this be allowed to be a separate article?" determination. The criteria is ostensibly and primarily (but not only) the wp:notability guidelines. "Not only" means that other considerations have some influence in wp:notability decisions.

Rather than being truly defined in one place, wiki-notability has a defacto definition which is the end result of a complex fuzzy wiki-notability ecosystem. This ecosystem consists of guidelines, established practices and values, venues and other pages and human decision making which includes weighting and combining multiple considerations.

Terminology use in this page

• "Wiki-notability" refers to the entire Wikipedia ecosystem done in the name of "notability".
• "WP:Notability" refers to that specific Wikipedia page
• "Sourcing-GNG" refers to the sourcing-based criteria portion of the WP:Notability page
• "SNG" refers to the subject-specific guidelines listed at WP:Notability, a common abbreviation derived from "special notability guidelines".

The wiki-notability criteria

The wiki-notability ecosystem is the main screening system for existence as a separate article. Decisions made in the name of notability are primarily based on a combination of these three criteria:

1. Degree of availability of suitable sourcing/coverage from which to build a suitable article
2. Some degree of exclusivity based on degree of (longer term) importance, impact or prominence of the topic.
3. Degree of encyclopedic-ness of the topic.

Variable weighting is assigned to these and then they are combined in the decision-making process. In general, greatest weight is given to #1 (sourcing) and sourcing is also a main gauge of #2 making sourcing doubly influential. The decision is couched in terms of whether it complies with the sourcing-GNG or with a SNG criteria, although the actual situation is actually influenced by other factors.

Now let's explore each of these three separately

#1 Degree of availability of suitable sourcing/coverage from which to build a suitable article

The most common measure of this quality is degree of compliance with the sourcing-GNG. Wikipedia's method is enclyclopedia articles. One of the purposes of the sourcing-GNG is as an indicator of whether this would be possible.

#2 Some degree of exclusivity based on degree of (longer term) importance, impact or prominence of the topic

This is a part of being encyclopedic / an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia with 10 million selective articles is a better information source than one with those 10 million articles lost in a sea of 10 billion resumes/CV's, business listings and other data, factoids and pieces of information that are not encyclopedia articles. Metrics of this include:

• Published coverage of the topic gauged by the amount and depth of coverage dedicated to the topic and the prominence (=exclusivity) of the source. Note that this is a second different use of sourcing as a measure, this time as a measure of the "Degree of importance, impact or prominence of the topic".
• Many of the SNG criteria also measure this. This is contrary to the concept that SNG's are only predictors of Sourcing-GNG coverage.
• Making a general assessment of this attribute

#3 Degree of encyclopedic-ness of the topic

The main measure of this is the degree of it's compliance with WP:Not. "Degree" means how far it exceeded the very low bar where it would be rejected based only on WP:Not. When the nature of the topic is extremely encyclopedic, an SNG (for example, WP:Notability (geographic features) ) can make this a dominant factor in the notability decision.

Other lesser considerations

These also affect wp:notability decisions a small amount:

• Demonstrated GNG compliance counts more than abstract arguments. I.E. GNG sources IN THE ARTICLE counts more than mere arguments that they exist
• Another component of degree of enclyclopedicness is to what extent where the article exists to serve enclyclopedia readers vs. to serve the subject of the article. At the weaker end of this spectrum are articles which primarily exist for promotional purposes.
• Investment of time by the editor to create the article / amount of content and sources in the article. Or the opposite extreme of this which is mass creation of stubs.

Components of our notability ecosystem - structural notes

Main Wp:Notability guideline

The first section / "lead" of the WP:notability guideline (plus a few paragraphs in the body) is actually a functionally separate meta-guideline covering both overall wiki-notability and Wikipedia's meta statement of the main criteria for existence of an article. For example, this portion gives Wp:not a prominent procedural place and defines the place SNG's (Special Notability Guidelines) have and defines which are official. The remainder of WP:Notability is a sourcing-based criteria, often referred to as "GNG" or the "General Notability Guideline"; we'll call it the "sourcing-GNG". Thus the term "GNG" has two common meanings, either the latter, or the entire WP:Notability page.

Special notability guidelines

Meeting the requirements of an SNG is an alternative to needing to meet the requirements of sourcing-GNG criteria. A common statement by editors, and a common statement is SNG wording is that they are mere predictors of compliance with the sourcing-GNG. This is an important and influential statement, but is not always true. Examples of exceptions to both of theses statement include:

• They sometimes help measure criteria #2 (importance) and #3 (encyclopedicness) above
• Sets up criteria which reflect non-GNG considerations (e.g. WP:Notability (geographic features) recognizes the particular encyclopedicness of geographic features)
• WP:Ncorp modifies the application of GNG to apply tougher sourcing criteria.
• Several others set up alternate criteria where GNG is not commonly used or usable
• The effect is that some bypass the need for sourcing-GNG compliance rather than merely predict it.

WP:What Wikipedia is not

WP:What Wikipedia is not is invoked in the meta-guideline portion of WP:Notability. The prima facie requirement is for no outright rejection by that policy. This is a very low bar. Its more common influence is by influencing decision made in the name of wp:notability. Specifically, the "degree of enclyclopedicness" measured by how far it exceeded that low bar. A highly encyclopedic topic will get more lenient treatment and a barely enclyclopedic topic gets stricter treatment. The two main mechanisms for this are:

• Influence by criteria in the SNG's
• Strictness or leniency in applying GNG criteria

Other components

• Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion pre-screens some severe cases
• WP:Five pillars states or summarizes key points
• WP:AFD and WP:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes
• WP:New page patrol and WP:Articles for creation makes some decisions
• Notability article tags express concerns about wiki-notability
• Article titles define subjects, and wp:notability is about subjects and so guidance regarding subjects and titles also interacts with wp:notability.

Decision venues

Decisions (of varying weight) are made at the article (including tagging and nomination for deletion or speedy deletion), during Articles for Creation and New Page Patrol decisions, and at Articles for Deletion

Implementation

Mechanics of the decision

The basic mechanism ostensibly is to decide whether or not a topic meets the sourcing-GNG criteria or an applicable SNG criteria. All of the above considerations (including incorporation of considerations often not considered to be a criteria of wiki-notability) operate through this basic mechanism. The term "ostensibly" is used because this decision also takes into account other factors which are not explicitly in the notability guidelines.

Structure of Wiki-Notability decision making

The structure of Wiki-Notability decision making is the same as with most other Wikipedia decisions. Noteworthy here is what is described at Wikipedia:How editing decisions are made. The process weights and combines all of the above criteria. So rather than being a flow chart where the criteria are applied separately, it operates as a neural net.

Notes on common memes

A common statement is that in the end, only meeting the sourcing-GNG matters. And, for example, that the SNG's are merely predictors of it. This concept is important, essential and influential in the wiki-notability ecosystem, even though this overview describes that it is not categorically true.