Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)

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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)

One thing I have noticed is that some (rather many, actually) editors treat NACTOR as a hard rule, when all guidelines are meant to be broken (no not really :). I'm not being facetious, I'm saying that every rule has its exceptions, which is a time-honored Wikipedia tradition. I kind of wish guidelines were not written so absolutely, because it apparently makes editors think inclusion can be decided programmatically and with a clear-cut binary yes/no answer. This is simply not true. We have - and should keep having - articles written for entertainers that a) do not have more than one significant role in a notable work but b) still doesn't haven't made "unique, prolific or innovative contributions", maybe because they're still new to the industry. It is easy to see that exceptions need to be made, not often, but not never either, perhaps when an actor or actress rises from complete obscurity to a world-wide sensation overnight, and it would just be silly to consider Wikipedia using stodgy rules to argue for exclusion. Imagine, just for the sake of example, if Margot Robbie hadn't done earlier roles when she rose to instant A-lister fame with Wolf of Wall Street and you can easily see the creation of her article, and, unfortunately, some misguided editors arguing for its deletion.

My point? Only that I wish WP:IAR was invoked more often in (Biographical) AfDs. Regards CapnZapp (talk) 11:47, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Basic criteria, bullet 1

If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not usually sufficient to establish notability. Did this sentence get vandalized at some point? It seems to me like it's missing a "not". In my experience with notability and AFD and GNG on Wikipedia, it is not my impression that you can take a few poor sources that don't contribute to notability, and add them together to make one source that contributes to notability. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:07, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Not vandalism, but definitely an oddity, albeit a longstanding one. It's not applied at AfD as often as it could be, although it does get cited pretty frequently. I'd be interested to see if it could survive an RfC. There's definitely a decent argument in favor of it (ten separate articles with almost-significant coverage may satisfy the purposes of notability), but you're right that notability doesn't usually work this way, and it's odd to single out people (including BLPs) for laxer standards. (I've always thought it's especially strange that corporations are subject to the strictest version of the GNG while corporate CEOs are subject to the weakest version.) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 09:39, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

That has all the hallmarks of a camel (which, as we all know, is a horse designed by a committee). Wikipedia policies and guidelines allow for almost infinite interpretation, but usually don't contain quite such blatant contradictions. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:53, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I've always understood it to negate the need for an inevitably flawed and endlessly debated (including on AfD discussions) WP:SUBSTANTIAL section for this page. Essentially that, regardless of whether or not non-trivial=substantial, multiple, reliable, unrelated non-trivial sources are likely to demonstrate notability. Star Garnet (talk) 16:31, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

This is cited constantly at sportsperson AfDs, usually as a loophole to the global consensus at NSPORT. It is usually unsuccessful, but does require multiple other editors to waste time reminding everyone about SPORTSCRIT (rather than being dismissed outright). It's especially ridiculous that this would be a carve-out specifically for people, for whom inaccurate or misrepresentative tangential coverage can easily lead to real-world harm when repeated here. JoelleJay (talk) 19:24, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

This "oddity" runs parallel to the way WP:GNG is written, which also allows sources to be combined in a similar way. I mean according to the way GNG is written; I'm aware that some editors insist on imposing conditions for a GNG pass that the text itself does not require, parallel to WP:SIRS requirements in NORG. Newimpartial (talk) 19:29, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Ah yes, the unicorn interpretation that significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject can logically mean coverage that is (to some degree) significant, in sources that are (at least to a reasonable extent) reliable, and that have (at least some) independence from the subject, and therefore that the combination of a lecturer's profile in their college's student newspaper + their employee profile on the college website would count towards GNG, and in fact is equivalent to one profile in a good local newspaper... In an overall evaluation, I would want to ensure both that the amount/significance of content was sufficient and also that at least one source was high enough in reliability and at least one high enough in independence (7+?) - though these need not be the same source. JoelleJay (talk) 20:20, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree that GNG is written in a way that allows poor sources to be combined to count towards notability. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:59, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

That depends on what you mean by "poor sources". I am not saying that unreliable or non-independent sources should "count". This is mostly about the depth/significance of coverage - both in NBASIC and in the plain meaning of GNG. "Sources" (in the GNG) says that There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected - on the one hand it suggests that one really good source can establish depth, but the implicit corollary is what NBASIC says explicitly - that multiple "shallower" sources can weigh together to establish significance comparable to one deeper sources.

Significance under GNG is a property of the available sources as a whole, not of each individual source (though Independence and reliability are required of each). Newimpartial (talk) 03:24, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

That's certainly not what you argue in the quotes above, where significance can be attained through student newspapers and company profiles... JoelleJay (talk) 17:12, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't see a diff so I can't detect a date for your quotes, but in any case they do not reflect my current understanding of WP:GNG. Newimpartial (talk) 20:39, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

This was 3 months ago... JoelleJay (talk) 23:43, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

So, to be clear, the quoted text was explicitly part of an analogy I was drawing four months ago: it was never intended as exegesis of GNG, and was especially not intended to be quoted selectively the way JoelleJay has in this discussion.

I tried making that analogy, it didn't "hit", and I have moved on from it. The analogy doesn't reflect my current views, and in fact it never reflected my personal interpretation of GNG at all closely. I suggest that other editors also move on - it is healthy for our understandings to evolve, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 00:08, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

This was an analogy to...what, exactly? Because it sure looks exactly like a hypothetical example of what you would consider acceptable under GNG, per your comments there and elsewhere claiming that non-independent sources can ever count towards GNG. If you don't actually believe a school newspaper profile or employer website or anything else that is unequivocally non-independent can contribute to notability under any circumstances, that's a real strange "analogy" to use. JoelleJay (talk) 00:19, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

To answer your question, the analogy was intended to distinguish between editors who see independence and reliability as zeroes and ones (yes or no), versus editors who see independence and reliability as each situated along a continuum.

To answer what I take to be your specific objections, I don't think the consensus on wiki is that student newspapers are in every instance unreliable for every claim, nor that employers are in every instance non-independent (and therefore to be disregarded) for every statement about employees.

But the point of the analogy wasn't that people gain notability from student newspapers or employer press releases; it was that some editors see sources in black and white, in relation to notability, and others see notability in shades of gray. I still believe the latter, though not in any straightforward way the former.

digressing about the analogy

The scenario I illustrated using the analogy was that, in a hypothetical situation designed to cast light on editor assumptions, a source from a student newspaper plus another source from a reliable employer might "add up" to as much notability dust as a profile in a local newspaper. But a single profile in a local newspaper would never grant Notability, so of course the scenario should not be read as saying such a person is notable. If anything, read with painful literalness, the scenario says that a local newspaper profile plus the student paper source plus the employer source might be treated by a hypothetical editor as giving as much notability dust for one person as two mutually independent local newspaper profiles would for another. Intuitively that does make sense to me, in terms of triangulation and real-world significance. But I am not assuming that either person would be notable, even within the confines of the analogy.

Ultimately, there are two kinds of people: those who divide people into two kinds, and those who don't. :) Newimpartial (talk) 00:36, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Copying my response from Discussion at WT:BLP:

Is this not just a clarification of how WP:GNG applies to people because of how people are inherently less likely to be a primary focus of a reliable source at similar levels of notability than things such as events or published works? By contrast, businesses can very easily be mentioned in reliable sources, so WP:CORPDEPTH pushes the guidelines in the other direction.

"Significant coverage" is already defined at WP:SIGCOV as: addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material. and could have been used at WP:BASIC if it was trying to say that "substantial [coverage]" = SIGCOV.

The following line at BASIC says trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not usually sufficient to establish notability and the accompanying footnote seem to be basically saying the same thing as how SIGCOV defines significant coverage. To me this is saying something like a person don't necessarily need to have a biography, book chapter, academic paper, longform article, etc. written about them to be notable as long as non-trivial (i.e. SIGCOV) exists in multiple sources. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 16:48, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I believe the "multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability" should be kept unchanged to allow flexibility with GNG and also the same reason WP:GNG is not a policy: the change would be overly-restrictive on articles that could be included on Wikipedia and preclude the use of common sense. The issue with coverage not significant enough for GNG is already addressed in how GNG is interpreted in WP:TRIVIAL and the "routine coverage" part of WP:NOTNEWS#2. ミラP@Miraclepine 01:35, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Acting Vice President of the United States

Howdy. Twice I've had to delete "Acting Vice President of the United States" from the infobox of Lafayette S. Foster & once from his bio's lead. I've also had to delete "Acting Vice President of the United States" from the bio of Thomas W. Ferry. It's my understanding, that we should not be using 'non-existent' offices in bios such as these. GoodDay (talk) 22:07, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree. There is no such thing as an "Acting Vice President of the United States". voorts (talk/contributions) 22:11, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

(But also shouldn't you discuss this on article talk? Or WikiProject US if that doesn't work? Why the talk page for NBIO?) voorts (talk/contributions) 22:11, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I've begun a discussion at Foster's talkpage. GoodDay (talk) 22:33, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

The statements made by the above editors are incorrect and misguided. I invite all who can to participate in the discussion about this well-documented position on the talk page of the article. Aquabluetesla (talk) 19:00, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Do notable supplements count towards "multiple" roles criterion for entertainers?

The first criterion of WP:ENTERTAINER reads: The person has had significant roles in multiple notable films, television shows, stage performances, or other productions. Should supplemental shows, like RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, Whatcha Packin', and The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice count towards this "multiple" requirement, thus making every contestant appearing on the parent shows (RuPaul's Drag Race and The Great British Bake Off, in these examples) notable per WP:ENT, since all contestants of the main show also appear in the supplements? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 20:05, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Some more examples of after-shows: American Idol Extra, Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, and The Xtra Factor. If these count towards the "multiple" criterion, then all contestants appearing on American Idol, Strictly Come Dancing, and The X Factor and their companion shows meet the WP:ENT standard for notability. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 20:08, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Nobody is notable per se per ENT. ANYBIO still requires sigcov in reliable sources. These sorts of shows tend to get lots of write-ups online. If you can't find sources from a google search for these people, they're probably not notable. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:48, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

You’re saying one who satisfies WP:ENT is not necessarily notable? What is it, then, if not a standard for notability? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:12, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Read the first paragraph at the top of Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Additional criteria (the level 2 heading above ENT):

People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards. Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included; conversely, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included.

voorts (talk/contributions) 00:24, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! ꧁Zanahary꧂ 02:20, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Notability regarding distant relatives

To understand my question I am gonna make up something up:

Let’s say there Major John. Major John is extremely notable in his local town has been written about nonstop. He tons of books written about him, he touched about in newspapers many times, and he has a whole park named after home. However Major John is almost rarely written about anywhere else.

With one exception, let’s say a few secondary sources have connected Major John confirming he is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson.

What kind of thing would we do about this?

Give Major John a Wikipedia article? Give him a section for Thomas Jefferson (which I don’t think Major John belongs on the article of Thomas Jefferson)? Or would Major John belong on a article for the genealogy of Thomas Jefferson?

Major John is clearly a notable figure in his community. But isn’t notable outside his community except he is a descendant of a president.

What do we in this situation?CycoMa2 (talk) 22:06, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I have never heard of a small town producing multiple newspapers and publishing several books about one guy. If that town somehow existed, and the publications were reliable and sufficiently independent of the person (for example, Major Tom doesn't hold a media monopoly), that person would be notable. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:20, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

While I would say discussing hypotheticals is a waste of time, in this instance that is described, this "Major John" would not be worthy to be on Thomas Jefferson's page. If this "Major John" were to meet WP:GNG, an article could be warranted. If this "Major John" is just "a notable figure in his community" but did nothing of real significance, then "Major John" should not have an article. The question if "Major John" belongs "on a[n] article for the genealogy of Thomas Jefferson" would depend on many different factors, such as the exact way they are related, or how many generations removed is "Major John" from Thomas Jefferson. Aquabluetesla (talk) 22:30, 17 March 2025 (UTC)