User:Chrislk02/anarticleaboutaschoolthatcantfindagermanteacherisnotnotable

This is an essay on notability.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

This is an essay I am working on about clarification of WP:GNG after being involved in several deletion discussions at WP:AFD and WP:DRV

In an WP:AFD for a small school in a foreign country^[1], the creating editor added the following content from a reliable 3rd party source.

"...the school had difficulty finding qualified German teachers, so the possibility that the school would have to cancel its German classes existed."

This coverage was from a reliable 3rd party source, presumed independent of the organization in question, and seemed to pass the WP:GNG muster. That being said, applying a WP:DUCK test asking "is this notable in an encyclopedic context" should hopefully result in a no.

Hierarchical Notability Guidelines

I think the following layout for determining notability would help provide clarity of what content is encyclopedic, and what content is not, without reducing it to a single 5 lines to judge all articles.

WP:GNG is the first test that an article must pass to be deemed notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia
Projects/sub guidelines can/should provide clarification on top of the WP:GNG assuming that it clarifies what is "notable" in the context of the articles domain.^[2]

Example

Imagine the following two hypothetical WikiProjects: WPROJ:Dumb Sports and WPROJ:Thumb Twiddling

Thumb Twiddling is a type of Dumb Sport

'ThumbTwiddling, a new novelty, has received a decent amount of coverage, with various local thumb twiddlers receiving the brunt of the attention. Not all of these thumb twiddlers are truly "notable", but may pass WP:GNG so,

WPROJ:Thumb Twiddling adds the following hierarchical notability requirements

A thumb twiddler is notable if
- They meet the basic requirements of WP:GNG
- They have a record in the international database of verified thumb twiddlers, or other thumb twiddler repository
- They have thumb twiddler ranking of 100 or higher

These requirements are very specific to this dumb sport. and by applying them on top of WP:GNG allows for further refinement of notability expectations based on the specifics of this sport.

This can go on in a hierarchical manner, for example, if a imaginary Wikiproject Wikiproject:Thumb Twiddling was a sub project of Wikiproject:Dumb Sports, then the requirements for being a notable thumb twiddler can be further specified on top of the the requirements for notability in sports, on top of WP:GNG

Implications

This can only increase the requirements for an article to be deemed notable, not vice versa. All articles still must pass WP:GNG, but all articles that pass WP:GNG on the surface may not be notable enough for inclusion.
- A project cannot lower/reduce the standards

Notes

^ I would rather not cite the discussion because I believe all parties acted in good faith.
^ This is how academia has self organized. Universities say "Computer Science" is a notable domain, The Computer Science department then says "this topic is" or "this topic is not" appropriate for our domain of study.

[1] I would rather not cite the discussion because I believe all parties acted in good faith.

[2] This is how academia has self organized. Universities say "Computer Science" is a notable domain, The Computer Science department then says "this topic is" or "this topic is not" appropriate for our domain of study.