On Notability

(English) This is an essay. It expresses the opinions and ideas of some Wikimedians but may not have wide support. This is not policy on Meta, but it may be a policy or guideline on other Wikimedia projects. Feel free to update this page as needed, or use the discussion page to propose major changes.

Notability is a concept used at several sister projects, most notably Wikipedia, in multiple languages.

Notability by itself is defined as

• the property of being worthy of notice, having fame, or being considered to be of a high degree of interest, significance, or distinction. (Wikipedia), or
• worthy of notice; remarkable; memorable; noted or distinguished. (Wiktionary).

Within guidelines framework, notability plays a role in article inclusion criteria. It is defined as, for example,

• one that has gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time, with evidence from reliable independent sources to gauge this attention. (Wikipedia:Notability)

Such concept, when put to an article creator whose article does not qualify for inclusion, poses a problem. It labels the article topic with a property that is perceived as permanent. Nothing in the definition suggests what needs to be done next. But, per the concept of being Catalytic, each move should help to get to the correct end.

With the above in mind, it is encouraged to treat notability as a secondary inclusion criteria at best. Existing notability guidelines have a useful set of documentation on the entities and topics that usually are notable, but these guidelines are not to the point.

In fact, "not notable" is just means to say

I don't think that you can create accurate verifiable account of this topic in an article.

Instead, these criteria should be stressed — as they are the primary Wikimedia project article properties, occasionally required by the local project policies (Wiktionary definitions quoted):

• neutrality: the state or quality of being neutral; the condition of being unengaged in contests between others; state of taking no part on either side; indifference.
• verifiability: the state or property of being capable of being verified; confirmability.
• accuracy: the state of being accurate; freedom from mistakes, this exemption arising from carefulness; exactness; nicety; correctness.