Wikipedia talk:Notability (events)

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Quick opinion on this pageant

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Moved to WP:VPM

Examples

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@Raladic I’m not sure if I agree with your internationalization of the examples, given that equivalent quality English sources are explicitly preferred I don’t think we should be enshrining non-English sources as ideal. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why wouldn't we? Events don't just happen in the anglophone world, they also happen in other parts of the world and just as the paragraph above depth, discusses WP:GEOSCOPE, sometimes some events in other localities can be significant, even without english sources, that's the whole point of why we have WP:SYSTEMIC BIAS on Wikipedia. We consider Der Spiegel to be WP:RSP. But fair, we're not listing the other one I randomly picked off from the list of news magazines currently at RSP, so replacing that one with The New Yorker to pick some solid examples that doesn't have any "beware" notes at WP:RSP. So it's 3 English language sources and one solid reliable non-English example. We have plenty of non-English articles on Wikipedia about events in the rest of the world that primarily rely on non-English sources, for example say the Berlin Pride which uses predominantly German sources, which are reliable and still used to this en-wiki article, so I think having at least one in there helps to highlight and asses internalized biases. Raladic (talk) 00:41, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I didn’t dispute that they are reliable, but it is in the MOS to prefer English if they are equivalent quality. They’re fine when there’s nothing in English of an equivalent quality, which for topics localized to a specific country often is the case. But when there are English sources of an equivalent quality it often becomes an issue at FAC or GAN, so I don’t think it should be the set example in a guideline. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:06, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If we were to replace anything with Der Spiegel, it should probably be Newsweek, as that publication has declined so hard in the past decade it is at absolute best marginally reliable nowadays and often somewhat dubious for notability. Not great to list them as an ideal for event notability here. Honestly this section is quite weird now in the age of the Internet where distribution is changed and many old style newsmagazines often have pretty newspaper type coverage (sometimes) PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, I replaced Newsweek with Bloomberg Businessweek to mix up the list and also have a more business oriented source as example.
I think the 4 sources as examples now are good up-to-date reliable and non-contentious sources and include one non-English speaking one, which I think is a good thing to have since Events, which this notability criteria page is about often happen outside the English speaking world and we don't always have English language sources for them.
Can you take a look at the list now and see if it looks good? Raladic (talk) 01:19, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good to me. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:23, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Per WP:LINKBOXES, The point of these template boxes is not to list every single redirect for any given page (that's what Special:WhatLinksHere is for). Instead, they generally should list only the most common and easily remembered redirects.

Ideally, there is only only one. Multiple recommended shortcuts means that the page is telling its readers to use multiple shortcuts for the same thing. This makes it hard for others, less experienced with this page, to know what is being referred to.

This page, Wikipedia:Notability (events), the most used shortcut over the last three months has been WP:EVENT, standing head, shoulders, chest, abdomen and hips over the several others that were excessively listed last week.

User:PARAKANYAA wants to put WP:NEVENT back. It has been used a little over a third as often as WP:EVENT. However, maybe it should be recommended, over WP:EVENT, for consistency with other notability subguidelines, examples WP:NBIO, WP:NGEO, WP:NFILM.

Should the main LINKBOX for this page recommend editors to use the shortcut WP:EVENT, WP:NEVENT, or both? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:55, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your removal of most of them, because it had way too many, but I think 1 or 2 of the most used shortcuts is OK, and that's what most of the SNGs do. If we weren't meant to use multiple at all I don't think the template would have that built in. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:06, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
NEVENT is commonly used since it associated the shortcut with notability guidelines (the N part). But that should be about it that should be listed. Masem (t) 21:26, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
NEVENT. There's definitely a benefit to having one and only one shortcut as the "blessed" one to help reduce cognitive load, but we shouldn't just be looking backward. If enwiki is a sufficiently long-term project, then future editors will significantly outnumber current ones. There's also a benefit to having a consistent naming style to help reduce cognitive load -- and for notability shortcuts that's that they begin with "N" even if current editors prefer "EVENT". If shortcuts were only just being introduced something even more unambiguous and differentiated like an "N-" prefix would be even better, but that's likely a bridge too far given we're decades in. (One thing about these shortcuts that doesn't apply here: I recall seeing a few less consistent ones being used on template messages, and if these were changed to a standardised one then their numerical superiority would likely vanish). ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 23:38, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NPOL and ROUTINE

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Please consider offering feedback in the discussion Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Possible issue with standard interpretation of NPOL, as it deals with material related to WP:ROUTINE. ~ Pbritti (talk) 01:43, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, there needs to be more enforcement.

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It is beyond time we go hard on enforcing the notability guideline for events. Too many articles, mainly shooting articles, get created way too fast then somehow get !voted keep at AFD despite obviously not belonging. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 22:33, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Even if there’s enforcement, people will still vote keep. Even on older events in non-western nations you have a sizable contingent of people, including admins, who vote based on death toll because to do otherwise would be western bias and racist or something, or who will piece together an article based on no significant coverage at all, and that will still somehow get voted keep. Sometimes AfD is wrong but it’s about consensus so that is all that can really be done about it. What "obviously" does not fit clearly varies... I considered vandalism to be in that category, but others do not. I'm not even a deletionist when it comes to events I just like consistency and there is very little. About new events there isn't much to be done that would change anything except banning articles on anything in the past few years like frwiki does. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:41, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus is harmful, but that's another discussion for another day. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 22:50, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it’s what the project is built on, so if you’re going from that start we might as well ignore the concept of notability (formed of consensus) altogether. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:56, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, one admin. One that received a formal warning at ANI some years ago about lying at AfD, which they have ignored ever since. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:21, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would be helpful to survey a bunch of recent event AFDs and determine the results to determine what we need to inform AFD closures of the issues. Masem (t) 00:45, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NPP and WP:AFC might be a good place to look. Reviewers in these areas should be aware that real-time news coverage isn't helpful, and that articles failing this should stay in draft space. Relisters at AfD could request that !voters address these things more directly when relisting, encouraging them to present secondary sources if they want their !votes to be valid. We should encourage people to write about the event in the context of the main subject as well. For example, if a bridge collapse is part of the history of a bridge, then shouldn't it be covered in the bridge's article instead of its own article? Making an article about a bridge collapse right after it happens is the equivalent of an inappropriate fork, even if the content was technically never actually in the main article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:20, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with this is that this is kind of contradictory if you look at policy; WP:NOTNEWS says "Editors are also encouraged to develop stand-alone articles on significant current events." Initially, there are only going to be news sources on something. The problem with this whole deal is that it involves some amount of crystal balling either way, because we are encouraged to write articles on significant current events, but we cannot truly determine whether an event will or will not be significant unless we can see the future. With something like "man murders current head of state" that will plainly be significant, but everything below that we just have to do our best. It's always going to be awkward. I find the provisions at NEVENT useful in this regard for a sort of guideline for what to do in the meantime. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:25, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd argue that "significant current events" is closer to Gaza war than "some guy stabbed someone". Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 01:56, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And now we've just had Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2025 New York City shooting where several people demonstrated they don't understand how notability works by saying these news sources meet GNG or that it's special and therefore notable because of their own made up criteria (location where it happened, people died, etc). These sort of WP:CIR !votes should be discarded, not appeased. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 17:15, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we are due a much wider discussion about consensus. Because some recent closes at AfD have been really off (in the sense that they've ignored the guidelines). It's not about blame in that closers are only doing their best, but it is about how clearly spurious arguments are seen to be part of a consensus. JMWt (talk) 17:28, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if we can be more specific in WP:NEVENTS. For example maybe the guideline could give a timeline: pages on minor events will not be considered for notability until six months after the events. Pages on major events need to wait a week.
Of course there's a discussion to be had about what is considered a "minor" versus a "major" event, but at least that's something to be discussed rather than waved away. JMWt (talk) 12:17, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Meanwhile, the guidelines at Wikipedia:In the news states that "Any event that is older than the oldest entry in the current 'In the News' box is considered stale", which leads to rapid and possibly premature article creation of current events. At the current moment, the stale article cutoff point is five days. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does raise a point that there's a real tension between efforts to delay article creation for current events and the value that ITN brings by keeping readers informed with up-to-date and in-depth context. Not to mention the increase in Wikipedia engagement that results. RecycledPixels (talk) 15:35, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, sadly I think this just shows which parts of the worldwide audience matters to us, collectively, on en.wiki. JMWt (talk) 15:51, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ITN is not supposed to be a news ticker but to feature quality articles on topics that have been in the news. That can include new articles on breaking events, but it should not be taken as encouragement to create articles on an event to try to make it into ITN. Masem (t) 16:23, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]