Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)

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Proposal: expand the "Politicians and judges" header to "Politicians, judges, and government officials"

I propose to expand the header on this page for "Politicians and judges" to encompass "government officials" who hold an appointed statewide office equivalent to one that would qualify for deeming an elected official notable. It seems fairly straightforward to me that if one state has an elected cabinet official with broad authority over a significant aspect of people's lives, like a secretary of agriculture, a secretary of education, or a chairman of a statewide power commission, and their neighboring state has the same officials being appointed by the governor and approved by the legislature rather than being appointed, then there should be no difference in treatment for purposes of encyclopedic notability. While I expect that some editors will just assume that appointed officials in government count just as much as "politicians" as elected officials, others would not, and I think we should make their inclusion clear.

I would likewise be inclined to amend the second line under that section to cover "Major local political figures and government officials who have received significant press coverage", again to make clear that appointed officeholders who some might not consider "politicians" are not thereby excluded from coverage. BD2412 T 02:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support both changes. They are both consistent with the rationale behind NPOL, which per the footnote is ensuring the complete documentation of statewide government officials. Appointed vs. elected is an arbitrary distinction regarding that purpose. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:14, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• Support: This never made sense to me. The difference between appointed government officials and elected government officials is not relevant in our context. The guideline should not arbitrarily exclude one or the other. C F A 💬 02:19, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Oppose Elected officials at the statewide or provincial level get far more scrutiny and far more attention from reliable sources than appointed officials do. And in the end, what really counts is whether the official has received the amount of significant coverage in reliable, independent sources that is required to write a policy compliant article. As an example, consider two most populous US states, California and Texas. The elected agriculture commissioner of Texas gets far more attention than the appointed secretary of agriculture in California. I have lived in California for 52 years and could not name a single one of the California officials. But I can easily remember the name of a Texas agricultural commissioner who served over 30 years ago. Cullen328 (talk) 02:30, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

• Does "gets far more attention" equate to "is more important for encyclopedic purposes"? I would hope that it would not be. I would note by comparison that we include all federal judges, even though none of them are elected. BD2412 T 03:05, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose As redundant. The government officials who fall under WP:NPOL as cabinet ministers are political officers, even when those positions are filled by civil servants (e.g. even though Dick Schoof is a civil servant, he fills the political office of prime minister). Non-cabinet positions (which are almost exclusively filled by civil servants) do not fall under NPOL. Curbon7 (talk) 02:43, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
  • Confusion arises from the fact that many people would consider "political officers" and "politicians" as two different things, the politician being the person kissing babies and gladhanding for votes. BD2412 T 03:03, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• Support - Agree with Voorts and CFA. I do not see the relevance of being appointed or elected when it is a high position in the government. --CNMall41 (talk) 04:39, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose I do agree that there can be some confusion in the difference between an elected and appointed official, especially across governmental entities, but the general assumption is that elected officials will receive significant coverage in reliable sources. There is not the same expectation for civil appointees, and this would become especially true for acting or temporary appointees to these positions. Bottom line, I do not think the presumption of notability exists for civil servants, but nothing stops a stand-alone article of any individual if significant, independent, reliable sources exist. (And this proposal also would raise a question of which government officials would be major). --Enos733 (talk) 04:49, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose as worded; "government officials" is too broad and covers many people who would absolutely fall under WP:LOWPROFILE, and for whom a brief but broad burst of coverage related to one event would not be sufficient to establish notability per WP:BLP1E. Someone working for the post office or a tax collector for the IRS, for instance, should not have a lower bar for notability than any random citizen. You say "statewide office" but the actual proposal you're making for the text would apply to the local dogcatcher; if you mean for this to be limited to high-level statewide government officials like the secretary of education then it would have to say so explicitly. (And I don't think just "statewide" is enough; the secretary of education is a statewide official, sure, but so is everyone working directly under them. Their assistants and interns shouldn't fall under this category, surely.) --Aquillion (talk) 05:14, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose: not convinced it'd be beneficial to make what's already an exceptionally broad SNG even broader. The presumption that political figures will meet the GNG gets weaker and weaker the further we get from the "elected politician" heartland of NPOL, and affording notability to large groups of people who don't meet the GNG almost always runs into the problems discussed at WP:WHYN, which applies to "all articles, not solely articles justified under the general notability criteria". Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:16, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
  • @Enos733, Aquillion, and Extraordinary Writ: I am sympathetic to the concern that this opens the door to the local dogcatcher having an article, which is not my intent. I am not trying to broaden the the SNG so much as to make it clear that actual statewide agency/commission heads should be deemed equally notable based on their significant positions of actual power over substantial areas irrespective of whether they are elected or appointed to that position. I would have no problem with language excluding "acting" or "temporary" appointees, and/or limiting this to statewide offices, and exclusively to the individuals in the topmost position in their agencies. My concern is most directly that "Politicians" brings to mind people who campaign for elected office, and not necessarily political appointees who do not campaign. BD2412 T 03:56, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

    Beyond the sourcing concerns, I fear this is a US-centric approach that has limited applicability across US states and nation-states. The response here is to limit to "topmost position in their agencies," but there are many more agencies than we know about (Indiana has 11 state agencies that start with the letter "A"). If we limit it to cabinet-level positions, we still would run into the problem that is purported to be the issue - that editors are confused about which agencies are covered by NPOL across jurisdictions.

    Fundamentally, I do not think editors get confused. I have seen very few discussions at AfD that indicate a flood of marginally-notable agency directors. Nearly all stand-alone articles are evaluated through the context of WP:GNG, including civil servants. While this proposal is described as not intending to broaden the definition of who is notable, I believe it broadens the SNG quite a bit. - Enos733 (talk) 05:57, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support. Seems obvious to me. There's nothing sacred about being elected. It doesn't make one more notable. In addition, the current wording favours the United States, where far more officials are elected than they are elsewhere. It is true that in general we have considered appointed officials in equivalent positions to be notable, but it needs to be more explicit as they still get nominated for deletion and some editors at AfD do state that WP:POLITICIAN doesn't cover them simply because they aren't elected. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:35, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

  • Agree and Support; Comment (without weighing in on the sanctity of election itself): if this modification is accepted, then the second sentence of the first bullet point should also read This also applies to people who have been elected or appointed to such offices, etc. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 09:06, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support, as whether or not an official's position requires campaigning shouldn't be the determinative factor here, although I do think there may be more to be worked out on wording, as BD2412 alluded to. Star Garnet (talk) 23:06, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

  The question is not about campaigning per se, but the amount of reliable, independent sourcing that elected officials (and candidates) receive. In the course of becoming a candidate (in a system with candidate-centric elections), there is a certain level of coverage in local press in the context of the election. And service in a legislature, or in an executive office, entails frequent stories about actions the individual takes (sponsoring of legislation, votes, speeches) that are covered in reliable sources. The same cannot always be said about an appointed official (even to a cabinet-level agency).

  Sticking with my earlier example of Indiana, a member of the cabinet is the appointed Indiana State Examiner. The position does not currently have a stand-alone page. The incumbent of that position is Paul Joyce. I can only find one newspaper article that quotes the incumbent and no articles that would actually cover the subject in-depth.

  Looking at comparable positions, (elected v appointed), compare the coverage of the auditor of Oregon, Kip Memmott, versus the auditor of Washington, Pat McCarthy. Both auditors took office in 2017, but the coverage is quite different. - Enos733 (talk) 06:22, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

  @Enos733: Perhaps some language reflecting the relative notability of the office would help, if taken with an appropriate grain of salt. I was inspired to come here by recent experience working on an article for a specific state commission that is ridiculously powerful, with the chair of that commission clearly being more notable in terms of influence over people's lives than a typical elected member of the legislature of the state. BD2412 T 16:03, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

  I generally believe that our community's system of notability is quite fuzzy and the more we try to precisely define what subjects are notable, the less likely we are to have a simple, clear statement that is easy for editors to understand. Our system works, as the intro to GNG says, determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity. The basis for a stand alone article is coverage, and SNGs help editors understand when "sourcing likely exists". Nothing in NPOL or GNG now prevents stand alone articles from being created (either about the individual, or a governmental agency). - Enos733 (talk) 16:27, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

  I am not disagreeing here, but there are undoubtedly some unelected statewide public offices for which reporting about the officeholder is as likely as for the typical state-level legislative officeholder, and some term broader than "politician" is needed to acknowledge that. BD2412 T 04:42, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Not every government official is automatically notable, even with press coverage. For example, the local dog warden. The Banner talk 11:01, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
  • Nobody is saying minor officials like that should be considered to be notable, as is fairly obvious. The proposal is simply to change the wording to reflect that appointed officials are as notable as elected officials in equivalent positions. A dog warden clearly wouldn't be notable even if they were elected. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:38, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
    • The wording makes it possible. WP:GNG is enough, no need to lower the threshold. The Banner talk 16:10, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

  This argument is such a strawman that it borders on nonsense. No one in this discussion thinks the local dog warden should receive presumptive notability (in fact, this is countered in the guideline with Just being an elected local official [...] does not guarantee notability) and this proposed adjustment does not change that. Curbon7 (talk) 05:30, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, no reason to presume that these are notable a priori. Those that really are can have an article, there is nothing here that excludes them if they meet GNG: all this addition can do is include the ones that don't meet the GNG, and I see no reason to do so. Fram (talk) 15:04, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: The broader question, in my view, comes back to: what is the purpose of WP:SNGs? Is it to clarify that some subjects should be covered in this encyclopaedia regardless of GNG (i.e., providing alternate pathways to N along the lines of WP:UCS), or is it something else? -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 07:44, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Oppose From my personal experience, I've observed that many government officials seek to enhance their PR and image by creating a Wikipedia BLP. However, many of them struggle to meet the GNG. I believe that including a clause stating that government officials fall under the NPOL could lead to an influx of BLPs for appointed officials who may not actually be WP:N, opening a new set of challenges. --— Saqib (talk I contribs) 10:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Tatiana Turanskaya

Is the leader of a breakaway region notable? Bearian (talk) 04:15, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that whether they pass WP:NPOL depends on the breakaway region. In the case of Transnistria most people with an interest in international affairs have heard of it, and even if you do not follow Russia in recognizing it as an independent country it qualifies as a state/province. As far as Tatiana Turanskaya is concerned that is probably moot as she seems to pass the WP:GNG, with coverage from the Transnistrian, Moldovan and Russian press. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:34, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

NPOL Q

Do leaders of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta qualify under NPOL (it seems their head of government is the sole entry at List of current heads of state and government missing an article)? What about leaders of disputed countries, such as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic or Transnistria? BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:42, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I would say yes, since the spirit of NPOL is that we should have an article for the leaders and national level legislators of all nations and national subdivisions. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:55, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

NACTOR, significant roles

I have seen some discussion on this but nothing I can find that is helpful to the question I am about to ask. In recent AfD discussions, I have seen keep votes based on "significant roles." It was also the topic of an ANI discussion which I think could have been avoided if there was clarification. So, are actors considered inherently notable if they have had significant roles in notable films? Or, is that only an indication, and significant coverage must still show notability? The disagreement is coming from the wording "such a person may (my emphasis) be considered notable." CNMall41 (talk) 03:45, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Noone is "inherently notable" on Wikipedia. All our guidelines, including WP:BASIC and WP:GNG, talk about a "presumption" of notability. This wording has been discussed (and explained) to the death (try searching presumed or presumption in the archives). There is not a perfect formula suitable for each and every case. The key point of NACTOR is that it requires reliable secondary coverage to backup the claim of "significant roles" (which could be some reviews, a profile on New York Times, a monograph and so on). Then, depending on the amount of coverage, its significance, the importance of the films/TV or stage works, the number/significance of the roles, plus other factors, a deletion discussion could result in different outcomes. Cavarrone 08:20, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Cavarrone:, "Noone is "inherently notable" on Wikipedia" - BINGO! That is my take as well. The arguments I see are that since an actor has held significant roles, they are notable under NACTOR, but I do not see those votes supporting a statement about the significant coverage. My take is that they still must meet BASIC in where there is significant coverage about the roles, not just mentions or verification that they played the parts. NACTOR guides us with the "significant role" wording to let those know that significant coverage likely exists, but does not guarantee that it does. Is that inline with what you are saying as well?--CNMall41 (talk) 20:02, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I mean, are there a lot of cases where a person has significant roles in movies but doesn't have anything written about her? Considering that WP:GNG only requires like a couple sentences in a couple places, not a high bar. (Also, "Noone is inherently notable", not sure about that). Herostratus (talk) 04:24, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

There are cases. I am not sure how to define "a lot." Looking for clarification on the times when there is only verification of roles and not significant coverage of the actor. There are a number of deletion discussion "keep" votes as of late that are claiming the person notable based on verifying the person had notable roles, despite there being no significant coverage. This is happening mainly in the non-US film industry. --CNMall41 (talk) 23:19, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Presumed in additional criteria

NPOL/NJUDGE has The following are presumed to be notable: and likewise SPORTSPERSON has A sportsperson is presumed to be notable if... This wording differs from the other categories, and also seems to directly contradict the head of the additional criteria section, which says meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included. Now SPORTSPERSONs are indeed almost certainly going to have plenty written about them if they meet those additional criteria, but what makes them notable is the sources, and not what we say here. Where the wording falls down is on judges. The US elects judges, but that is unusual. Oftentimes judges in a country are unremarkable at any level until they do something that gets them noticed. And then, once again, it is the sources that demonstrate notability, not the position (even though the position will often be the reason for the sources). The problem we have is that people are making one line stubs of the kind of "x is a judge in the y high court" with no secondary sources, and these are all but undeletable because people interpret this guideline that says they are presumed notable to mean the page should be kept. We have BLPs that cannot be written, because tehre are no secondary sources, but they cannot be deleted.

Proposal 1 I propose we change the wording from "presumed to be notable" to "likely to be notable".

Proposal 2 I propose we remove judges from the guideline congruent with the way we have no guideline for ambassadors. The current guideline is US-centric in treating judges like elected officials.

I note that proposal 2 may require an RfC but I hope proposal 1 is sufficiently non controversial that an RfC could be avoided. We will see. Thanks for your input. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:30, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposal 1 is not sufficiently non-controversial. I will comment more later. voorts (talk/contributions) 12:54, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose the first as an unnecessary and undesirable change to a fundamental policy that's been hashed out repeatedly, and the second, as it would produce undesirable gaps in coverage and the proposal is US-centric, even if unintentionally. The US judges that this standard applies to generally have SIGCOV (and as a side-note, are largely not elected). Judiciaries and their judges are one of the largest gaps in WP's coverage of the historical record, I assume largely due to their generally boring nature. Still, as far as I'm aware, most countries' top courts and their judges receive significant coverage at least in the local press. OP is welcome to try to illustrate a real problem here, but just because only a handful of Wikipedians have bothered to write about the judiciary of Solomon Islands and its judges does not mean that local journalists have not covered them, and the relative inaccessibility of sources should not be fodder for mass deletions where significant coverage can reasonably be presumed to exist. Star Garnet (talk) 17:24, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

  It's not just journalists. It's legal scholars and these people are probably covered in histories and national biographies. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:02, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

• First, a general note on presumption. The presumption of notability is, generally speaking, rebuttable. That is, if there are sources, one can rebut that they're reliable, independent, provide significant coverage, etc. On the other hand, the community has basically decided that some topics are inherently notable (despite many editors claiming that that concept doesn't exist) such that the presumption of notability is irrebutable. For example, certain species are inherently notable. Likewise, the community has decided that state/province/national-level elected officials and judges (elected or otherwise) are inherently notable. I think it's fine that we've decided certain topics are notable. In particular, having a page for every politician at a certain level ensures at least the possibility of complete coverage of those people on Wikipedia, which is particularly important in the current political climate where governments are becoming more repressive. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:31, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Whether the guideline includes "presumed" or "likely" we will get editors reading it as "not" and demanding that someone should prove GNG-notability with online sources immediately. As far as proposal 2 goes, I think what is US-centric is including judges in the same sub-guideline as politicians. In much (probably most) of the world they are supposed to be apolitical. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:03, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe only 9 of the 170-odd current US courts that the guideline applies to are technically partisan, and even though many have effectively been politicized, that was far less true for the vast majority of the history that the guideline covers. Most nations' supreme courts are appointed by political leaders or parliaments, and I'm not really sure what maintaining an apolitical appearance has to do with notability. Plenty of political offices and parliaments are at least technically nonpartisan. Star Garnet (talk) 19:39, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that - I'm more familiar with the British system, where most judges are conservative with a small "c", but any declaration of a party affiliation is a definite no-no. Your post makes me even more convinced that judges should not be treated as if they were politicians, but should have a separate section. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:24, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Why does it matter if they're politically affiliated or not? Judges and elected officials are powerful government figures and we should cover them on Wikipedia. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:33, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Can you explain the conflict you're seeing between presumed notable and does not guarantee in this context? IMO there isn't a conflict, presumed is not guaranteed. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:40, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Sure. I absolutely agree that this is how it is meant to be interpreted, but I think we have overloaded the word "presumed" here. The page in a nutshell has

A person is presumed to be notable if they have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.

That is, if GNG is met. But here "presume" means more than not guaranteed. Any article that meets GNG and is not excluded under WP:NOT is presumed to merit an article per WP:N, and is thus kept. That is not what the additional criteria section is telling us. It tells us

People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards.

Likely is not a presumption of notability (as quoted above), it is something less than that. What the word "likely" means is one of those frustratingly domain specific terms, but generally it's a probability >50%. It is something that will happen more often than it doesn't. Here, it is a refutable expectation that sources can be found, but it does not guarantee that the page is notable. Yet for these two paragraphs, we have fallen back to "presumed". It just seems to be the wrong choice of word here. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:15, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

"and is thus kept" isn't accurate, at that point it can still be merged, redirected, or deleted. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:49, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I do not recall any AfD discussion in which something was demonstrated to meet GNG, not excluded under WP:NOT, and was still redirected or deleted. Rarely merges happen, yes, per WP:PAGEDECIDE, but that is still keeping the information. Is presumed to merit an article is generally accepted as the inclusion standard. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 23:20, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

You've can't recall it but it does happen, most commonly for living people which are deemed to not be public figures (especially under WP:BLP1E). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:54, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Do you have an example? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:38, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

SPORTSPERSON

A bit of a tangent, but I see the wording at WP:SPORTSPERSON has come up again. The real guideline is at WP:NSPORT, and SPORTSPERSON is supposed to just be a summary—but the phrasing is slightly different, and this can lead to more confusion than clarity. When this last came up, I suggested replacing SPORTSPERSON with a neutral pointer along the lines of "Guidance on the notability of sportspersons can be found at Wikipedia:Notability (sports)"; this seemed to be well received, but the discussion petered out without a resolution. Would anyone object if I just made that change? Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:39, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

It does say the main article is NSPORT, so doesn't seem that difficult to understand. I'd be more inclined to simply redirect WP:SPORTSPERSON to NSPORT, as this is the most relevant target. But that is probably a discussion for RfD rather than here. It doesn't make sense to have a shortcut to a summary of an article, when the target is the main article, similar to WP:ATHLETE. CNC (talk) 14:12, 28 December 2024 (UTC)