Jump to content

Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The definition of routine coverage

[edit]

WP:NOTNEWS says, in part:

  • News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion and Wikipedia is not written in news style. For example, routine news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities, while sometimes useful, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inclusion of the subject of that coverage (see WP:ROUTINE for more on this with regard to routine events).

WP:ROUTINE says, in toto:

  • Per Wikipedia policy, routine news coverage of such things as announcements are not sufficient basis for an article. Planned coverage of scheduled events, especially when those involved in the event are also promoting it, is considered to be routine. Wedding announcements, sports scores, crime logs, and other items that tend to get an exemption from newsworthiness discussions should be considered routine. Routine events such as sports matches, film premieres, press conferences etc. may be better covered as part of another article, if at all. Run-of-the-mill events—common, everyday, ordinary items that do not stand out—are probably not notable. This is especially true of the brief, often light and amusing (for example bear-in-a-tree or local-person-wins-award), stories that frequently appear in the back pages of newspapers or near the end of nightly news broadcasts ("And finally" stories).

I don't think these two match very well, but mostly I think they are not helpful. What is "routine news coverage of sports" and how does that differ from "non-routine news coverage of sports"? There's a lot of "Planned coverage of scheduled events" for sporting events like the Olympics. If the event is so obviously newsworthy that the media outlet planned in advance to cover it, why would that make it less notable? How do you tell the difference between "ordinary items that do not stand out"? All Olympic athletes are extraordinary, on a global scale and on a national scale. But are we looking for the "non-ordinary" marathon runners among only the 194 who competed at the Paris Olympics, or out of the million-plus runners who finish a marathon each year?

As a minor point, crime logs don't "get an exemption from newsworthiness discussions"; in fact, they have gotten more discussion in recent years than ever before. News editors are trying to both keep the police accountable and not destroy someone's life with a posted-forever-on-the-internet news item. This is not a trivial thing. The steps leading to the 2023 Marion County Record raid started with a 2008 drunk driving conviction. Unknown to the convicted person, the newspaper had already discussed it and decided that it wasn't newsworthy. But I find the typical crime long entry an unacceptable basis for an article for WP:WHYN reasons: they're so brief that you can't actually write a whole encyclopedia article from them.

WP:TL;DR: What objective and subjective characteristics indicate to you that a given piece of news coverage is "routine" for Wikipedia's notability purposes?

There is no single right answer here. I'd love to hear both your own answer and also answers you've seen other people give. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:36, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the key definition of routine is that similar stories are presented regularly in an expected format. Sports scores, police blotters, wedding announcements, obituaries--these were all features of the American newspapers of my youth. There was something covered every week along these lines, and while it helped keep us up to date on what was going on, it would be a misnomer to expect people to discuss or remember these events unless they were personally involved.
At the same time, not everything more in depth really contributes to notability. By age 25, I'd had my picture in my hometown newspaper twice for non-routine but still not particularly exceptional achievements. One could make an argument that that would make me notable, but I certainly wouldn't. Jclemens (talk) 03:16, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(I'd be happy to have a rule that officially requires an unusually high standard for notability for Wikipedia editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:33, 2 March 2025 (UTC))[reply]
  • My read, there are two things to consider. First, this would apply to topics that would have high frequency occurrences, like daily or weekly time scales. Events that occur routinely, but on longer time scales (eg like Olympics or baseball World Series), wouldn't fall into this (but there's other reasons those topics merit an article) Then, once you have that, you have to consider how that event is typically covered in the media, which most of the time, with an event of that frequently, is going to be strictly from primary sources (newspaper coverage), which we already state by WP:N is not sufficient for notability, but the same idea applies here. Obviously, some of these types of topics or events that occur routinely could have unusual aspects that are more than just routine, eg Ten Cent Beer Night as an example of an unusual regular season baseball game. Masem (t) 03:19, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I like this concept of a "high-frequency occurrence". This would cover everything from ordinary professional sporting events to the weekly Ladies' Auxiliary meeting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:36, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It sounds to me like the primary/secondary distinction already covers this in a lot of cases. If we were to be more diligent about requiring secondary (or even tertiary) sources to demonstrate notability, much of this wouldn't be a problem. This still leaves things like biographies though where you could put together a rough timeline with newspaper clippings. In that case it would be secondary about the person, even if it's primary for the events that took place in their lives. Obligatory link to my essay which goes into more detail on how I see this: User:Thebiguglyalien/Avoid contemporary sources. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 01:18, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We still have a fair number of editors that do not consider typical newspaper reporting as primary, despite our PSTS page explicit on this. Keep in mind that primary sources are not bad sources, they are just not what we can use to demonstrate long-term, enduring coverage. Masem (t) 02:00, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In their defense, the kinds of news articles that are most often being used by editors are more likely to be secondary sources (or are at least secondary-ish) than the average newspaper article. For breaking news, we have to temporarily use the best sources that are actually available, which are all primary sources. But even that usually gets resolved within a week or so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:36, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on what we're talking about. For sports, I generally find routine coverage to be a level of coverage any match would receive. There are (admittedly quite rare) times a match report could still be non-routine significant coverage of a specific player, though. And coverage of the Olympic marathon may not be routine for purposes of reporting on the Olympic marathon, but may be routine if it only briefly discusses a runner. For politics, it's generally any local coverage of any local affairs in order to prevent flooding Wikipedia with local politician biographies. For events, it's generally events that only get one blip of news coverage, or if the news coverage is only local. Sometimes there are feature articles written about random people in a column that profiles someone weekly - these are generally routine. It's not a firm definition, it's more of knowing it when you see it. SportingFlyer T·C 05:42, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So you would say that the typical football game gets (for example) 10 column inches in the next newspaper, so we could discard anything that gets that amount of coverage or less as 'routine'. However, a single game that gets multiple news articles or a dramatically larger amount of space is probably not routine. (To actually be notable, more is required than just non-routine coverage.)
That would align with our notion that youth games and ordinary season games are usually 'routine' and non-notable, while individual season tournament games (e.g., each year's game in the Category:Rose Bowl Game) usually are non-routine coverage. Similarly, that would match our notion that local elections usually get routine coverage but major/national elections are not.
How would you apply this to books? My impression is that the median amount of independent coverage is zero. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:47, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not about column inches, it's about the fact every game will receive some sort of match report in the paper. This is clearly WP:ROUTINE for both the game and the players involved (but the fact that a team received continuous ROUTINE reports throughout a season may make a team "worthy of note" - not necessarily on its own, but it's a very clear indicator that a team is notable.) The FA Cup final, though, will have multiple articles written on it, will have retrospectives, et cetera. The match report will be detailed but not enough on its own for an article.
I don't really edit in the book world but routine sources for books would likely be simple listings that the book is being released. Independent reviews though wouldn't be routine. SportingFlyer T·C 06:54, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not convinced that this piece of NOT is valuable at all. It is routine that when one pope dies another one will be elected, and that newspapers will cover these events. Nevertheless, we will and should have a Wikipedia article on each pope. It is routine that people eat and sleep. Nevertheless we have articles on eating and sleeping. It seems to me that this criterion is mostly just a covert way of introducing subjectivity into our notability decisions, so if I think a topic is boring or uninteresting I can argue against including it by elevating my own boredom with it into a judgment that the coverage is routine. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:02, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
With eating and sleeping, "this just in, someone had lunch" would be routine coverage while "a study on global eating habits" would be non-routine coverage, and the latter is what should be used in articles. But I agree that the term "routine" really doesn't lend itself to a policy that's already somewhat difficult to apply. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 01:12, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we removed the word routine from this policy, it'd still be true that Wikipedia is WP:NOTEVERYTHING (the general category that NOTNEWS falls under). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:48, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This does happen from time to time with regards to incorrectly arguing ROUTINE, but that's not the only incorrectly argued point, and I'd be very opposed to removing it. SportingFlyer T·C 02:04, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It would be helpful if we can have links to where ROUTINE is being used to purposely deny what is normally encyclopedic content from having coverage on WP, as argued here. If there are editors using ROUTINE as a sledgehammer to deny valid topics, that's an issue to be addressed, but I've not seen it used that way. Masem (t) 02:29, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have absolutely seen it used that way, not recently, and nothing that comes to mind immediately. I do not remember how often it was successful. Someone with database access and time to program a script can search my contributions to AFDs for links to NOT#NEWS and you'll probably find some. Jclemens (talk) 02:56, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2017 Patan riots or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2016 Mukilteo shooting (2nd nomination)? This list of search results might help you find another example. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:46, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Those are two great examples of what I was talking about. Doesn't look like either was found to be convincing, which tracks with my recollection as well. Jclemens (talk) 05:59, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Going by my first comment in this topic above, since these events clearly were not routine themselves, trying to call out the sources in those events as being "routine coverage" is a bad use of ROUTINE. Many non-routine events will have coverage that is wholly expected of the type of event, a hurricane will have its path documented for example. While one could call that "routine" coverage, that's not the spirit of what ROUTINE is meant to capture.
There are issues with those articles/AFDs and the weight given to primary sources, but that's a problem with how we deal with NOTNEWS, primary sources, enduring coverage, and the like, but should not be taken as what ROUTINE is meant to cover. Masem (t) 13:02, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I suppose there's no P&G so clear that no one will attempt to misuse it, so I don't know that we need to do anything specific about these--I just wanted to note that I'd seen it occasionally. Jclemens (talk) 06:38, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is my stance -- this is WP:IDONTLIKEIT with extra steps. It gets especially stupid when people try to use WP:NOTNEWS as a bludgeon against articles that aren't even events, as if a person can somehow be a news event. Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:38, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
...NOTNEWS is not limited to events. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. JoelleJay (talk) 07:50, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and it is under the subject "Wikipedia is not a newspaper," which begins "Editors are also encouraged to develop stand-alone articles on significant current events. However, not all verifiable events are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia," and continues on to say "While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion and Wikipedia is not written in news style." The section is clearly about events. Gnomingstuff (talk) 05:00, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gnomingstuff, you make an interesting point here. I wonder if that should say "However, not all verifiable incidents are suitable for inclusion..." and "most newsworthy incidents do not qualify for inclusion..."
The reason that news articles often begin with words like "The Acme Corporation announced today that..." is because the transient incident – the announcement – is what makes it different from yesterday and therefore "news". It doesn't have to be "an event" in the sense of Event planning or "the Super Bowl is an annual event"; it just has to be a something-that-happened. An open mic gaffe is "an incident". For a major public figure, it is "newsworthy". And it almost never qualifies for being mentioned in an existing article, much less for inclusion as a separate article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For example, routine news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities, while sometimes useful, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inclusion of the subject of that coverage (see WP:ROUTINE for more on this with regard to routine events). JoelleJay (talk) 18:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I am able to read. There is no need to condescend to me or to repeat what you have already said. I have pointed out the overarching thrust of this section. I know you have a burning desire to eradicate all cricketers from the face of the earth by force but I would like to be excluded from it. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:48, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
? I have nothing against cricketers...?
Regardless of the overall "thrust", NOTNEWS still explicitly makes a policy statement on the concept of "routine coverage" as it applies to non-events, and even specifically distinguishes it from guidance on events. JoelleJay (talk) 18:56, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe there is and always will be subjectivity built into our understanding of notability. The guideline starts with a statement that editors must decide whether a topic deserves a stand alone page, and the next paragraph contains guidance that articles must be "worthy of notice." This is language that is not mechanical, but leads each editor to have differing ideas of which topics should have a stand alone article. Or in other words, our standards are, and always will be, fuzzy. - Enos733 (talk) 15:37, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, for sports I think it's important to note that there are non-significant items that are practically always covered, often in a boilerplate format: transfers, injuries, matches, post-match commentary, among others. We can expect there to be a base level of coverage of these topics that should not count towards notability; while it varies from sport to sport, I would say coverage that is (or is likely to be) primarily repeating press releases/announcements would qualify as routine. Each of these items can also garner beyond routine coverage, and thus assessing how significant coverage is in those areas can be difficult for people unfamiliar with sports reporting. I think I had a detailed discussion on this with @Alvaldi at some point that had some good examples, so pinging them here.
But the point is, there are absolutely topics where the amount of coverage has less correlation with its depth or encyclopedic value than what some editors outside the topic area might be accustomed to, and this needs to be relayed somehow so that we're not (further) inundated with bios based on the 4-sentence transfer announcements a footballer gets as he bounces around the 8th tier. JoelleJay (talk) 05:33, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here's an idea, inspired by Masem's comment above that "Many non-routine events will have coverage that is wholly expected of the type of event, a hurricane will have its path documented for example. While one could call that "routine" coverage, that's not the spirit of what ROUTINE is meant to capture": What if we (unofficially, voluntarily) avoid the word routine except when speaking exclusively about events, and use a different word for non-events? That would mean a change to this page such as this one:
"For example, routine news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities..." → "For example, minor news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities..." WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Routine" perfectly describes the predictable, shallow coverage generated on sportspeople and is already widely used for non-event topics anyway. JoelleJay (talk) 20:20, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"For example, predictable, shallow news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities..."?
The problem with using dictionary-definition routine in this sentence is we have Wikipedia-jargon WP:ROUTINE, and using the same word to mean two related-but-different things is confusing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that the confusion stems from WP:NOT's history as being focused on deletion; when it says "notable", it's talking about whether a source can be used to pass the WP:GNG, not about whether a source is usable at all. The point about "planned" coverage is that such coverage is not, itself, an indicator of notability when it comes to deletion discussions. If a politician gives a planned speech, the bare-minimum fact that the media shows up for it doesn't automatically make it notable. However, such planned speeches will often have other coverage that establishes notability; for instance, lots of coverage in the lead-up might show it's notable. Once we have that indicator, we could use bare-facts reporting to flesh out the article. And similarly, the tone and nature of the coverage might imply notability - if something dramatic happens, the bare coverage is no longer routine. To use the hurricane example, there's a lot of weather-tracking sites that produce genuinely routine coverage of tropical storms, most of which is insignificant and would not be enough to produce an article about a random storm that received no other coverage. But if the news media starts to react to a storm and cover it to the point where it passes the WP:GNG, that routine coverage can also be used (with some limitations, since it may be WP:PRIMARY.) The point is that you can't just point to the bare minimum "Senator Smith gave some prepared remarks at the grand opening of the shopping mall" as indication that it was a noteworthy event, not that that coverage can't be used at all. Anyway, this gives us what I think is the real answer - what really matters isn't whether it's routine, precisely; it's the GNG's WP:SIGCOV requirement. "Routine" is mostly here as a shorthand for that because such coverage is rarely significant. (Although maybe not - it is possible that the current wording of SIGCOV focuses too much on length. I would argue that a book-length treatise that was mostly formed by filling in the blanks mad-libs style is still not significant, and this is something that would often fall under "routine" in practice. This may become more relevant as AI coverage becomes more common and allows for massive, cheap, easy amounts of text that actually say very little.) --Aquillion (talk) 20:20, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think AI is beside the point here -- the problem with AI-generated content is not that it "says very little" but that it is not based in fact and makes things up, which makes it unusable no matter how much it "says." Gnomingstuff (talk) 05:06, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The above is a blend of several Wiki areas......WP:Not and wp:notability, events specifically, sports events and all topics in general. And the words "routine" and "notability" used in different contexts. I think that's fine because many of those things do act together. First, I think that it's worth noting that while some potential articles might violate wp:not so badly that they get ruled out by wp:not alone, that the most common influence of wp:not is to influence decisions that are done in the name of "wp:notability". My view of how it actually works is at: Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works. It basically says that WP:GNG is the main influence in several ways. One is our main well-documented obvious one.....material from which to build an encyclopedia article from. If that's all that mattered a full high school newspaper article would count the same as a front page article in the New York Times. In reality the prominence of the source and the amount of resources/space that it invests in the topic is an indicator of real world notability which IMO has some influence on wp:notability decisions. In addition to GNG, the degree of enclyclopedicness and real world notability/impact enter into the decision. For news events, if an event is of immense worldwide real world notability, an article which hasn't demonstrated enduring coverage still passes. For all others, no points are given for this and thus stricter interpretation of GNG or the notability applies which is for in-depth coverage. For sports events there are problems. First the situation for athletes has had impacts on article outside of athletes (such as sports events). We went from the excessively lenient "did it for a living for one day" standard to basically the GNG standard (which few athletes meet fully). The second is that whereas in other areas, the quantity of coverage generated is an indicator of notability, in sports generating coverage is creation of entertainment and thus less of an indicator. So immense amount of shallow depth coverage exists making it easy to think or say "coverage exists" while ignoring the question of whether it is GNG grade (or even 1/2 of GNG grade). We have huge amounts of "stats only" sports event articles (doubly so if you count "the 2011 season of the XYZ team" as an event article) being created by completionists, and then they usually turn one or two of the factoids into sentences. They typically don't have any references that are even 1/2 GNG. IMO GNG (or at least 1/2 of GNG) should be fully applied on these. These are going to remain as stats/factoid only articles forever. So, the huge amount of factoid coverage generated for entertainment purposes would be counted as "routine" coverage in this context. And, when there is a more thoroughly discussed AFD, I think that this is defacto standard. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:01, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The second is that whereas in other areas, the quantity of coverage generated is an indicator of notability, in sports generating coverage is creation of entertainment and thus less of an indicator. So immense amount of shallow depth coverage exist making it easy to think or say "coverage exists" while ignoring the question of whether it is GNG grade
Yes, that's one of the big problems with sports coverage and really needs (to continue) to be addressed in P&Gs in some way. I think the NOT wording of "routine coverage of announcements" is especially appropriate for this as it aptly describes the predictable coverage generated over announcements from clubs/players. Local media receive press releases announcing every transfer and injury, and the vast majority of the time they simply reprint it with light refactoring. Such coverage is the definition of routine, even if it contains four sentences listing out the player's former clubs and simple statistics. Merely proseifying data from someone's transfermarkt profile is not secondary significant coverage even if the amount—or even number of details—resembles what counts as SIGCOV in other topics. JoelleJay (talk) 20:48, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If our notability guidelines based on the extent of the coverage are causing problems for determining what is notable, the solution is not to introduce subjective judgments that some coverage is "routine" and somehow does not count. The solution is to use achievement-based guidelines rather than publicity-based guidelines. Our older standard based on competing in the Olympics or a top-level league may have had its own problems, but it set the line at an appropriate level and was more objective. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:09, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that that is the main goal of SNG's. To define or influence notability decision. It's fine and useful (even if inaccurate) say "they are merely predictors of GNG" but in reality they are either an alternate "way in" or an influencer on wp:notability decisions which might also take into account sources. But it's tough to do given the multiple (official and defacto) roles that SNG's play (and that's without even counting wikilawyering roles where any specific guidance can be taken out of this overall context. North8000 (talk) 21:58, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Who is introducing anything? We already have guidance concerning the "depth" of coverage, which is directly related to the (also existing) concept of "routine" coverage of people. SNGs would work if they were anywhere near reliable in predicting whether a neutral, encyclopedic, comprehensive biography could be written. That was clearly not the case for the sports criteria, which have been repeatedly found by global consensuses to be almost universally too lax when developed by fans and people who value complete standalone coverage over article quality. JoelleJay (talk) 01:30, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is possible to have an in-depth routine report. It is possible to have a shallow non-routine source (e.g., most breaking news). Therefore, depth ≠ routine. If all the sources are shallow, then the subject should be rejected for lacking depth of coverage. AFD discussions shouldn't even mention the word routine in such cases. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Routine" being basically synonymous with regularly-scheduled coverage (or whatever) is not how it is actually implemented by the majority of sportsperson regulars. Routine coverage of the type I describe is inherently shallow, but for reasons that are not always evident to people unfamiliar with sports reporting. E.g., transfer announcements are often regurgitations of the same basic facts from press release, just with the newest announcement tacked on + new quotes. Adding another entry to the prose list of former teams that accompanied a player's last transfer announcement doesn't make him more notable even if the amount of words dedicated to him technically increases. JoelleJay (talk) 02:33, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like a word or short phrase that describes exactly that kind of source. "Regurgitated press release" is derogatory and too specific (e.g., it doesn't cover ordinary 'eyewitness' sports reporting). At the moment, shallow still appeals to me, but you're right to indicate that it will be confused with WP:DEPTH. Ordinary? Commonplace? Trivial? Unremarkable? Basic? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Run-of-the-mill" is sometimes used as a synonym. JoelleJay (talk) 18:44, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like that better if Wikipedia:Run-of-the-mill didn't exist on a different subject (it advocates for having articles only on "unusual" and "unique" subjects), and especially if editors didn't cite it for something it doesn't say (e.g., we shouldn't have articles about boring subjects). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Routine should also apply beyond notability assessments. For example, whole the stock price of a company like Apple or Microsoft is reported on a near daily basis as routine, it is not appropriate to include daily updates to that, a facet covered by ROUTIBE. But at the same time, historical discussion of the trends of stock price is reasonable. Masem (t) 21:02, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ROUTINE shouldn't be telling editors what to include/exclude from Apple Inc. It should only be addressing a List of Apple Inc. daily stock prices. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It really should. As a prime example, nearly all of our COVID time-line articles like Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in California are based on what was routine day to day coverage of the situation, rather than focusing on major points and summarizing other stats, and thus far from what is expected for encyclopedic coverage. And in the case if Apple stock, we'd not want editors including the daily stock price changes on the Apple article, much less as a separate article. ROUTINE is getting editors to focus on the long term. Picture rather than the day to day, and that applies to article content as well as standalone notability. Masem (t) 21:22, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Timeline articles are basically list articles, where any "article existence" guidance that Wiki gives is minimal and scattered. That's an area which really needs some work.North8000 (talk) 22:01, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that there is a reason ROUTINE is at NOT and not confined to WP:N, in that WP articles in general should not be written to the levels of day to day coverage of routine aspects of the topic using sources that are routine in discussing the topic, applying at both standalone article level and at in article content level. Masem (t) 22:29, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ROUTINE is not at WP:NOT. WP:ROUTINE is part of WP:NEVENTS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Masem, why should Wikipedia:Notability (events) be telling editors what content belongs in Apple Inc. (or any subject whose notability is not tied to any events)? Are you proposing that Wikipedia:Notability#Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists be repealed, or were you briefly forgetting that WP:ROUTINE is an SNG? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:45, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agree this isn't NOT. A notable article can have a perfectly usable ROUTINE source. It may have multiple perfectly usable ROUTINE sources... but you can't base an entire article's notability on ROUTINE sources. SportingFlyer T·C 01:49, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You obviously can base an article on such sources. Dogmatic statements that one shouldn't base an article on such sources carry no weight; it is a choice past editors have made, not something that came down to us on stone tablets. I'm not particularly interested in changing that choice, but we need to keep in mind why we made that choice: because basing inclusion purely on the existence of sourcing would overwhelm the encyclopedia with certain topics and we need to be more selective. Calling sources "routine" and discounting them as not good enough is a way to be more selective, but a subjective way, and not the only way. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:56, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but I specifically said "an entire article's notability." One can write many articles just using routine sources. SportingFlyer T·C 03:05, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOT#NEWS speaks to what is typically routine coverage, and while the context is generally with respect to events and their notability, that should also apply to article content. I'm not saying that routine coverage cannot be used to build out article content among other independent secondary sources with the significant non-routine coverage that we look for, but to have an article section that goes into excessive detail on routine coverage of a topic (like the daily stock price of a company, game-by-game performances for a player during regular season games, etc.) is not encyclopedic coverage. It goes back to that we are summarizing sources, not rote repetition of those sources. Masem (t) 04:47, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel like NOTNEWS "speaks to what is typically routine coverage". It says only For example, routine news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities, while sometimes useful, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inclusion of the subject of that coverage (see WP:ROUTINE for more on this with regard to routine events). That sounds to me like "Everybody intuitively knows and agrees with each other about what routine new coverage is. That coverage isn't enough to demonstrate notability if it's about announcements, events, sports, or celebrities".
I'm looking for something closer to "You can tell that this article about a celebrity is routine because it has qualities A, B, and C, whereas this other one about the same celebrity is non-routine, because it has qualities D, E, and F." WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that when one reads NOTNEWS in conjunction with WP:SS that what should come out that is we should be glossing over the type of details that come from routine news coverage and certainly should be creating articles just because routine coverage exists, though there are parts of routine coverage that are completely fair to use as to create the appropriate summary and narrative, if not covered by non routine sources. What that still leaves is what is routine, and this I think gets field specific, and impossible to define broadly for all wp. Masem (t) 21:43, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we should be writing encyclopedic summaries, but that's not the problem. The problem is that we need to answer the question "What is routine?"
Imagine an ordinary reliable source that contains some useful, encyclopedic facts (e.g., number of employees in an "announcement" about a business; founding year for an annual "event"; season results for "sports"; birth place or alma mater for a "celebrity").
Some editors look at this reliable source and say "It's routine, so it's not useful". Other editors look at the same reliable source and say "It's useful, so it's not routine". We need editors to have a good shared understanding.
If we need field-specific advice, then let's write it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:46, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this whole discussion implies that "routine" highly depends on context, eg the difference between routine events, and routine coverage of even non routine events, as one example. They way the wording is phrased, the current stance is related to a combination of routine reporting on routine events, that is, primary, near-term coverage you can expect to see on daily-weekly basis. We should be clear such sourcing should not be deemed unusable, just that this type of sourcing alone wont justify a standalone article nor should be given excess weight beyond what is needed to summarize a topic. But how to word all that in a clearer fashion I don't know. Masem (t) 17:57, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We might need a {{supplement}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that that has to be decided on a case-by-case basis; it's too context-specific for a sweeping rule. We often use routine coverage to fill in basic details in biographical articles, say, and I don't think that that's likely to change. There's some context-specific stuff like that that is just self-evidently worthy of inclusion. Obviously if it's contentious or exceptional, we need a better source, but unless there's an actual dispute over it for some reason, basic stuff like when and where they were born or how many kids they have can be sourced to routine coverage. Of course, there are some cases where things like this become contentious for one reason or another and require better sourcing - nationalist disputes over how to categorize someone, or their age being unclear and having conflicting accounts, etc. But absent that we regularly use routine coverage for those things and I don't think it's a bad thing. There's a lot of basic, uncontroversial data worth including in various articles via routine coverage. Of course there's even more that we shouldn't include, but that's what has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. --Aquillion (talk) 22:04, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Do not base....." uses a vague undefined term "base" and so is problematic. I think that what is accepted & intended is that routine coverage can't be used to establish meeting the wp:notability requirement. Aside from that routine coverage is fine to build article content from. North8000 (talk) 03:58, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • WhatamIdoing, I really appreciate that you started this conversation. Most of what I'd like to say has already been said: That "routine" is a silly, vague term and almost never means what the people who cite it in deletion discussions think it means; that routine coverage can be perfectly fine to use as a source, and can also be sigcov; that it depends really on what you're talking about, with the conventional definition of "routine" seemingly aimed at sports and local news. I dislike the term "routine" and how it is used at AfD as a form of lazy and often fallacious argument, when often better arguments are available, yet it has its utility. One factor that I haven't seen mentioned is age – the total volume of coverage has proliferated massively over time, so that a "routine" source today, if found in a newspaper from the 1800s, suddenly becomes a strong indicator of notability. And to add to the primary/secondary distinction, "routine" is sometimes used to dismiss coverage that is actually paid or based solely on press releases, coverage which is much more problematic than simply being "routine". Toadspike [Talk] 13:09, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NOTSTATS

[edit]

Excessive listings of unexplained statistics On that #3 can we just remove the word unexplained, because you can still have excessive explained lists. Right now at AfD is List of goals scored by Cristiano Ronaldo, that is an explained list, it's just excessive in content and wiki is not suppose to be an almanac. It's been a while, but I continue to see the same problem over and over again when we want to delete articles with this policy. I do feel we need to adjust the writing on this. Can we review the NOTSTATS again and adjust this please. Regards. Govvy (talk) 09:40, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Theoretically, we could, but "unexplained" – just raw data dumps – is what was actually intended to be covered was raw data dumps: "an article shouldn't just be a string of datapoints. It should contain at least some encyclopedic text explanation that puts the data in context." The List of goals scored by Cristiano Ronaldo meets that standard.
Also, please see item #1 in Wikipedia:Five pillars about Wikipedia being an almanac. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:18, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we have to keep an adjectival modification of "statistics", "unexplained" ought to be replaced with something closer to what is practiced, such as "shallow". JoelleJay (talk) 20:28, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Shallow" is meaningless. SportingFlyer T·C 01:55, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Shallow? Really, I am saying we should remove one word so we just have Excessive listings of statistics and then go on why NOTSTATS applies. Govvy (talk) 09:36, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then we can go on to fights about what's "excessive". Is the length of each song in a discography "excessive"? Are the stats in {{Infobox baseball biography}} "excessive"? What about the contents of {{chembox}}, which are incomprehensible to most people?
"Unexplained" is something that editors can usually agree on: Either there's some sentences on the page, or there's not. But "excessive" is a matter of personal preference. One person's "excessive" baseball stats is another's insufficient information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:41, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree we should remove that word. JoelleJay (talk) 18:46, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Unexplained" is doing all of the work in this item. We have an awful lot of articles that are all about statistics (baseball record holders, planetary data, demographics, etc.). What matters is that they're given context to have educational value rather than just being a data dump. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:06, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've always consider that stats that are nominally published by other reliable sources for that type of topic are viable for us to include. So a baseball player's per season stats is very common in those books, or the type of chemical information we present on chemical infoboxes. I don't know enough of how assc football is covered to know if every goal made by one player is tracked by sources routinely but it feels out if place and unusual. — Masem (t) 19:57, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that in soccer, goals are uncommon enough that every report of any game includes an account of each goal scored, who scored them, etc. There are frequently only one or two goals in a whole game. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No. When you have a qualifier in an important policy like this, it's there for a reason. You may not understand it, but that's hardly a reason to remove it. Jclemens (talk) 03:27, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When you wonder what to do

[edit]

Not sure how actionable this is, but physical encyclopedias are becoming rather rare (my own observation) and WP has largely supplanted them. Even if you've seen an encyclopedia recently, when is the last time you opened an encyclopedia to find information you're looking for? IMHO, using the expected content of an encyclopedia as a gut-check for what belongs in WP is becoming less meaningful over time. 173.251.116.66 (talk) 16:10, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that you're right, especially for younger editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Adding tone cleanup templates

[edit]

Somebody asked me to defer back to the talk page about my tone cleanup template edit. The reason why I added that line was because Template:Research paper and Template:Textbook linked back to the "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal" section. I see no reason as to why listing those templates is a bad idea, as that gives any user who reads it to know about them and to use them in future articles who have that same problem. It is definitely not off-topic, the templates directly links to the section, so I see no problem in simply linking it back. Although I do apologize for not talking about it first. Senomo Drines (talk) 13:10, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The prescription is a total tangent and too clunky of a general recommendation here, where we're teaching what not to do, not what maintenance templates are—moreover, most of the recommendations are about content, not tone, so recommending a small category of mostly-useless templates for tone problems is bizarre. Remsense ‥ 论 13:25, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then, I'll add in the specific templates most directly related to the topics of the section without the use of deferring back to the category. Senomo Drines (talk) 03:13, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not in policy. Write an essay, and if it's a good one, we'll link to it from here. NOT is one of the core-adjacent policies and we don't need this here. Jclemens (talk) 03:19, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Scratch that, most of the templates don't directly relate to the section, although I did find one, and added it in appropriately. Senomo Drines (talk) 03:24, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You still do not seem to appreciate a core problem multiple other editors have touched on—i.e. you telling editors what they should be doing in a given situation. Do you not understand why that is pretty inappropriate and unhelpful to put in one of our policies? Remsense ‥ 论 03:27, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Changed it again, this is getting pretty semantic. Senomo Drines (talk) 03:34, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even moreso than with normal articles, you need to stop making changes to site policy no one else has agreed to. You're not entitled to impose your preferences on everyone else; this isn't something for you to shape in your own idiom, it's the norms we all respect and generally follow. I mean it when I say you need to get a clue, and fast—because your entire attitude here is completely beyond the pale. Remsense ‥ 论 03:40, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please refer to this page.
"Although most editors find discussions helpful, especially at well-developed pages, directly editing these pages is permitted by Wikipedia's policies. Consequently, you should not remove any change solely because there was no discussion indicating consensus for the change before it was made. Instead, give a substantive reason for challenging it either in your edit summary or on the talk page." Senomo Drines (talk) 03:43, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you serious? We've spent the last several messages and edit summaries telling you no, and why, over and over, in no uncertain terms. Unbelievable. Remsense ‥ 论 03:45, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest you cool your head before you get yourself blocked for WP:NPA. Senomo Drines (talk) 03:47, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good call to edit that out. Senomo Drines (talk) 03:48, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone can see the damn edit history. Remsense ‥ 论 04:00, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your conclusions and interpretations of others' remarks and site policy have been beyond obtuse and self-serving, and you seem almost entirely unconcerned with actually reaching meaningful consensus with other editors. I am being perfectly level headed when I say you need a serious attitude adjustment if you want to continue working with others on here going forward. I can't stop you from taking that as a personal attack, but I do mean it as advice, otherwise I wouldn't bother and would let you keep shooting yourself in the foot. Remsense ‥ 论 04:00, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Page Protected

[edit]

Protected page for 3 days due to the back-n-forth reversions. If this continues, sanctions, such as blocking, may occur. Please discuss and find consensus. - jc37 04:04, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a newpaper

[edit]

On 14 December 2024, a fifth subsection was added called Uptime tracking. This is a hyperspecific example of what sort of news content is not appropriate. Countless other examples of what should not be included could also be added, which would make the section unreadable. I see this as an example of instruction creep. I tried to remove it but my change got reverted because of an unrelated edit war. I intend to remove it when the current full protection expires in a few days, unless consensus emerges to keep it. Cullen328 (talk) 05:17, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the text, while valid, is too specific and should be removed. It was added on 14 December 2024. Johnuniq (talk) 05:35, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Go ahead and boldly remove if you have the ability. It was boldly added, you can boldly remove. I do not mind adding this if there is a clear reason for it, but I don't edit in those areas. SportingFlyer T·C 10:47, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree its unnecessary as it overlaps with other NOT concepts.
That said, we should be making clear that NOT should not be read as an explicit and exhaustive list of things we are not (eg not prescriptive), but a descriptive attempt to say where the bounds and shape of the type of content we do not want to see on WP is, and the specific cases lists are more to help define that shape but should not be considered exhaustive. That is, without the new section, it should be clear that uptime tracking is similar to many of the other concepts on this paper and thus would fall under what WP is not without saying that expressively. Masem (t) 12:14, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I want to echo this. NOT isn't for things we don't do, NOT is for things we don't do even if all other relevant policies and guidelines are met. That is, a page of pure statistics can be notable, verifiable, NPOV, etc. and it's still not appropriate as a Wikipedia article. Jclemens (talk) 17:40, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Having said all that, I do think we should keep NOT up to date with potential misuses (although not al of them), and should probably be proactive in doing so. I thank Cullen328 for his reversion; and also with Jc37's protection. The edit-warring was getting stupid. I agree that uptime doesn't warrant it's own section. However, perhaps there is a way of including it within another? E.g., '...other misuses of Wikipedia might include logging UP or DOWNTIME, or...' Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 14:15, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the subsection. Cullen328 (talk) 17:09, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Travel time, proximity to another spot and such

[edit]

I'm currently in a disagreement whether such is considered WP:NOTGUIDE given that information is tailored to encourage traveling. Should a travel time to a resort, or a national park be considered "guide" per WP:NOTGUIDE? Discussion is at Talk:Mammoth_Mountain_Ski_Area#Travel_time although let's have a more general discussion here. Graywalls (talk) 00:22, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not&oldid=1282439096"