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Background

An ongoing debate in numerous discussions, including AfDs, is whether or not news is notable. Some argue that Wikipedia is not news. Others state the events they are describing meet WP:N.

The purpose of this proposal is to strike a balance and write a fixed policy on what news events are notable and which ones are not. Sebwite (talk) 08:50, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

While I mostly agree with the content of this proposal, I don't think it should become a notability sub-guideline. In large part, the essence of this proposal is captured by the following sentence in Wikipedia:Notability: "Wikipedia is not a news source: it takes more than just a short burst of news reports about a single event or topic to constitute evidence of sufficient notability." Too many guidelines will only lead to them being ignored (as is sometimes the case with WP:MOS). –Black Falcon (Talk) 15:42, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
WP:N works for most topics. But as I described above, news is a little trickier. The existing guidelines have been interpreted all different ways. This way, we can define a clearer policy for news. Sebwite (talk) 18:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Many of the thousands of murders each year get more than a "short burst of news coverage." In the U.S., over the last 50 years, there have been 8,000 to 24,000 murders a year. The typical crime and punishment news coverage will include several newspapers or TV news channels, and typically covers more than a year, from a disappearance or the finding of a body, to the sentencing of the caught and convicted criminal. Certainly a homeless person, gang member or drug dealer's murder gets less coverage than a Missing white woman, but I expect that there are still thousands of murders a year in the U.S. currently which might seem to some editors to satisfy WP:N due to significant coverage in multiple reliable and independent sources. In less murder-prone countries, a murder is likely to get even more widespread coverage. A In non-crime stories, we have kept several "watercooler" stories of transient sensationalism, such as the AFD] ending in "Keep" for Sudanese goat marriage incident. Youtube "memes" such as a publicity stunt of "bride's hair wigout" might be outside the scope of this discussion, although their coverage by newspapers as "watercooler stories" was cited to keep the articles. Cute animal stories are milked by the newspapers and news channels for as long as possible: a cat stuck in a deli wall in New York got several days' national coverage dozens of Google News archive hits, covering April 12, 2006 through November 7, 2006, long after the rescue, but I doubt many see it as deserving an encyclopedia article. In several AFDs, articles have been deleted which were clearly newsworthy, and widely covered, but judged not to be encyclopedic. Unfortunately, the standard for ""newsworthy" and "encyclopedic notability" has been largely a matter of the numbers favoring or opposing news stories in an encyclopedia who show up at the AFD. A tweak to WP:NOTNEWS would perhaps be more productive than an effort to get consensus for a new notability guideline, a very difficult task. Edison (talk) 16:54, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Comments

My reaction is: does it matter? Look at your intro. sentence: yes, there are a lot of news events that should not have WP articles because they violate WP:NOT#NEWS. Those articles also meet WP:N. THEY SHOULD STILL NOT BE IN WP, because of WP:NOT#NEWS; that they MEET WP:N is IRRELEVANT. This illustrates a bigger problem: it seems to be emerging that WP:N (and its subguidelines) are becoming the only basis for having or not having an article on a subject, and as a result, clouds of electrons are being spent on making WP:N fit every possible circumstance, and this is only the latest example. I think WP:NOT#NEWS is already one of the clearest policies we have; no need to complicate it by trying to add more to this already very unclear guideline. UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:52, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of this discussion is not to complicate a problem, but to work out a solution to one. The fact is, there are at least hundreds, perhaps thousands of articles on news events. If challenged, many of them are likely to survive AfD. This shows that despite WP:NOT#NEWS, concensus is to allow quite a lot of articles on events.
For one thing, an event being strictly local is a good reason in most cases to exclude it. But going beyond local does not mean otherwise. For example, as you can see with "amusement stories" which are often reported in national/international news, it would seem to silly for them to be notable. Stories are not automatically notable just because they were reported nationwide on three networks for a day, or they were told on 60 Minutes. Sebwite (talk) 06:53, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWSWikipedia:Notability (news)

See also the predecessor proposed guideline WP:NOTNEWS Wikipedia:Notability (news) , which also made the point that there is a difference between the judgement of newspaper editors/news show producers over what will draw readers or viewers (sensationalism, bathos): "Missing White Girls," "Bear Stuck in Tree" versus the judgement of encyclopedia editors about what things or events are of continuing significance. How is this different? Edison (talk) 17:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

What happened to the other essay/failed guideline? It is now hidden behind a redirect. It should be available for viewing and not redirected to this one. Its talk page is still visible at Wikipedia talk:News articles, but the essay itself is not viewable. Edison (talk) 15:52, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Unnecessary instruction creep sections

  • Market volatility: says little beyond WP:GNG, and attempts to artificially limit the notion of reliable sources to "notable individuals, regulatory authorities, industry leaders or politicians".
  • Individual stories: covered by WP:BIO1E already.
  • Amusement stories: entirely subjective guideline as to what constitutes "amusement".

This message approved by: VG ☎ 18:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

the intent is to set the bar a little higher for these situations. It's easy to find market commentary for pretty much anything that happens in the market. The problem is that this commentary is then used to establish notability for every market hiccup. See January_2008_stock_market_volatility. This article should never have been written and should not have survived at AfD. This isn't instruction creep - there's a real issue being addressed - i.e. using essentially non-notable market commentary to establish bona fides for an otherwise non-notable article. Ronnotel (talk) 20:19, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Why not? Because WP:IDONTLIKEIT? That article even meets your proposed standard because "the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a surprise rate cut of 0.75% on Tuesday at 8 a.m". VG ☎ 22:51, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I think this is getting contentious which was not my intent. Perhaps there is a way to improve the standard so that it can better meet the goal of filtering out common every-day market commentary in determining notability? I incorporated the term sustained to indicate that momentary or fleeting actions, which I think the rate can be seen as, would not qualify. Is there a better way to look at this? Ronnotel (talk) 23:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Revamp

I have revamped and rewritten parts of this page, and will be re-proposing it shortly. This is, in large part, a response to Colorado balloon incident, and the knowledge that we really didn't have a notability criteria for things like that. Before I open a new RFC, is there anything else it needs to be a good guideline? The WordsmithCommunicate 17:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia:News articles be merged into Wikipedia:Notability (news events)?

I saw that Fences&Windows has placed a couple merge tags. To formalize the discussion, should Wikipedia:News articles be merged into Wikipedia:Notability (news events)? Location (talk) 00:42, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Most of the content there is redundant with this, and that's only an essay. If there's anything else there that we think is worth including, we can just go ahead and boldly merge and redirect. The WordsmithCommunicate 00:48, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

  • Support. Oh, aye, I forgot about this bit. I think the two articles cover the same ground and we're best off having one essay/proposal/guideline on this. I have used some of the ideas from that essay in writing this, which has led to more convergence than before. Fences&Windows 00:52, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose A decent interval (a week or two) should be allowed for discussion of a merge, which in this case was hastily done as a redirect, thus throwing away a considerable effort which preceded the present proposed guideline. I will undo the redirect. It was a bit too bold. It is useful to have an older proposed guideline viewable even as a new guideline is under discussion, and very unhelpful to hide it behind the redirect, so that it is hard to find. We are allowed to have more than one essay which deals with a topic. Edison (talk) 15:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts) be merged into Wikipedia:Notability (news events)?

I saw that Fences&Windows has placed a couple merge tags. Someone placed a tag suggesting that Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts) be merged into Wikipedia:Notability (news events). To formalize the discussion, should Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts) be merged into Wikipedia:Notability (news events)? Location (talk) 02:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

"Routine news coverage"

WP:NOT#NEWS states: "Routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for an article." I think this (proposed) guideline should address the difference between routine and non-routine news coverage. For example, it appears as though many people think the coverage of the Colorado balloon incident is routine whereas others think it is non-routine. How would we expound upon the difference? Or is all news coverage "routine"? Location (talk) 03:07, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I think routine means things that are reported as a matter of course, and are often expected before they happen. For example, tomorrow I know that in my copy of The New York Times, there will be an article on tonight's baseball game. Wedding announcements, obituaries, sports scores, crime logs, and other things that tend to get an exemption from newsworthiness discussions should be considered routine. We should probably clarify this here, since this will essentially replace NOTNEWS as the thing to cite in relevant AFDs. The WordsmithCommunicate 03:23, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Whatever one thinks about the balloon boy reporting, it wasn't 'routine'. Spelling out what routine news coverage means is definitely something we should do here. Fences&Windows 03:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
In the older proposal discussion in WP:News articles, I believe we demonstrated that "significant coverage in multiple independent and reliable sources" is very likely for a simple murder. 1)Someone disappears, and there is a search. 2)A body is found, but not yet identified. 3)Identified as the missing person. 4)Suspect arrested. 5)Trial begins. 6)Case goes to jury. 7)Guilty verdict. 8)Sentencing. This could cover a span of a year, easily, with at least these 8 stages covered by newspapers and TV, and perhaps CNN if the victim was a Missing white woman. But it is just one humdrum crime, and would likely not survive AFD. Before the WP:News articles failed notability guideline, there was no policy based reason to use as a basis that the crime and punishment did not satisfy the general notability guideline. The more recent WP:BLP1E is cited to argue against the victim, the crime, or the criminal being notable enough for an article, but the dead person is not actually a living person, and it is considered by some a reach to apply that part of WP:BLP. The WP:NOTNEWS part of WP:NOT also came after the earlier proposal, and notes that news stories may not be historical enough for an encyclopedia. In the earlier proposal, I sought to distinguish between "newsworthy" things which sell papers or boost TV news channel ratings, thus emphasizing sensational scare stories (a FIEND is at large, and your child might be the NEXT victim!) and incidents which had some effect on society at large. This section of WP:NOT seems to me to be the proper place to make any appropriate adjustments to state what the present practice is in AFDs with respect to news stories, or "true crime" stories, rather than a new notability guideline. This could be a useful essay. Some editors object to deleting well covered crimes because they see "Routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for an article." The 8 stories listed above which commonly cover a murder (5 stories if the body is immediately found and identified) seem to some editors as satisfying the general notability criterion, and not to be "tabloid journalism." A phrase such as "typical reporting of crime and punishment" might be substituted for "tabloid journalism." Edison (talk) 16:14, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
For crimes, there already is an accepted specific guideline: Wikipedia: Notability (criminal acts). That is what should already be referred to for murders etc. Fences&Windows 21:25, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Touchstones

I think it might be useful to establish a SHORT spectrum of 'touchstone' breaking news topics as representative tools in the debate, through which to test proposals. ie: examples of topics at various levels of consensus, eg:

  • Level 1) 9/11 - notable from minutes after coverage started, with little dissent
  • Level 3) ? - notable shortly after coverage started by consensus, but only just
  • Level 5) Balloon Boy - couldn't get more controversial regards notability even a couple of days after the story broke.
  • Level 7) The Corey Delaney saga - quite a few folk thought he was notable for a short while, but the consensus decided otherwise.
  • Level 9) ? - even though a handful were convinced of notability for some time, it was always headed for the bit-bucket.

--Jaymax (talk) 12:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

So, let me try to kick off a debate starting at the top - when (relative to the moment the first plane hit) do editors feel an article on 9/11 should have first been able to survive an AfD on the basis of the event passing suitable (if not yet defined) notability criteria? --Jaymax (talk) 23:29, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Seriosly folks - I would really and genuinely like to hear opinions on this. My take is that a stub article, created within minutes, should have been okay; and the objective test is based soley on the coverage quality and quantity (almost something like coverage DENSITY - because it was unplanned, and continuously live on networks globally, the threshold for coverage quality and quantity was passed in extrodinarily little time.--Jaymax (talk) 01:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Massive, unprecedented, unexpected events are almost certainly going to be notable, and we'll probably recognise that very soon after the event hits the news. The 2004 Tsunami, the Mount St. Helen's eruption, the September 11th attacks, Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt - but massive, unprecedented and unexpected events are not what gets taken to AfD. Fences&Windows 01:24, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Objective?

To my mind, the ideal situation is to develop criteria which, applied correctly, allowed early creation and development of articles that are most likely to be regarded as notable in the long term, while discouraging and allowing the deletion of articles which will not.

Not I said "most likely to be regarded as notable in the long term" NOT "regarded as most likely to be notable in the long term" - big difference!

I'm not sure it's possible however!--Jaymax (talk) 12:18, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The best way to do that is to spell out what we believe is notable, and what is not. The problem with news events currently is that there is no notability guideline to point to, and the GNG is inadequate, which is why we're working here. People are trying to cobble solutions together from WP:NOTNEWS, WP:BLP and other policies, and it varies wildly by who participates in a given discussion. Here, we'll have a solid guideline, like WP:FICT or WP:WEB that people can look at, and make a decision as to whether or not an article meets its criteria. So, whatever it is that we set out will be a help. The WordsmithCommunicate 13:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Regarding criteria, we have 1) routine coverage vs. non-routine coverage, 2) local coverage vs. widespread coverage, 3) a little coverage vs. a lot of coverage, and 4) brief coverage vs. persistent coverage. Are there any suggestions on how to spell out these things in the guideline what is notable and what is not? Location (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Side note re 'routine' - there is 'routine coverage of events' and 'coverage of routine events' - the two, I suspect, coincide - but it's worth thinking about to avoid possible ambiguity.--Jaymax (talk) 21:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't think they do coincide. I think that routine coverage does not establish notability where as seemingly routine events (such as a murder trial or an execution) can become notable if for some reason it receives beyond routine coverage (see for example James Homer Elledge). It is the nature of the coverage not the nature of the event that should matter.Rusty Cashman (talk) 00:35, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd accept that - although it's probable that non-routine coverage arose from something around the event being non-routine, it is the coverage that drives encyclopaedic, objective notability.--Jaymax (talk) 01:29, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I agree. Most often requiring more than routine coverage will result in articles only for non-routine events, but I think it is a much easier at AfD to explain that coverage of an event was merely routine than to convince someone that their favorite kind of event is merely routine, since the latter opinion is pretty much subjective. Rusty Cashman (talk) 04:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
So what is "routine coverage"? Fences&Windows 23:40, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Routine coverage includes your typical short blurb in a newspaper (often based on short newswire blurbs) and 5 minute or less spot on the evening news. For example the San Diego Union today had a short (100 words or so) blurb on a hippo that escaped from a zoo in Mexico and was shot after a couple of weeks on the loose. Since it was based on an AP story I suspect it probably appeared a lot of papers. It also had another only slightly longer story on a local (San Diego) guy standing trial for the murder of his girl friend, and yet another short blurb on an F-16 that had to jettison a 500lb bomb before making an emergency landing in Utah. This sort of routine news story does nothing to help establish notability the way an in depth article would.Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:06, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Let's try to codify it. Routine coverage is...
  1. ...the reporting of events with little thematic connection or contextual information,[1] by 'beat reporters' rather than columnists.[2]
    This reads like its the event that is lacking thematic connection etc, not the reporting. But thrust is good.--Jaymax (talk) 01:45, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
  2. ...the reporting of pre-scheduled events,[3][4] in which those involved in the event are also involved in promoting the event, such as press conferences.[5]
    I read this to also including sports matches etc? Can we say 'the planned reporting' - some sort of get out for when something totally unpredictable happens within the scope of the event causing non-routine coverage.--Jaymax (talk) 01:45, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
    "Planned reporting" is perfect. Fences&Windows 00:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
  3. ...the reporting of events in keeping with cultural expectations,[6] and lacking insight or critique.[7]Fences&Windows 21:08, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
    I would drop the last clause. An event entirely in keeping with cultural expectatons might score a column and some analysis etc, a feature spread in a couple of papers even - it's still routine reporting for sunday media.--Jaymax (talk) 01:45, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
    This last one is a bit iffy for applying to Wikipedia. It's the reporting that is in keeping with cultural expectations, not the event, my wording wasn't clear. Fences&Windows 00:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
What I was doing here was finding outside definitions of what "routine coverage" means. They don't necessarily match with what Wikipedia means, but they should help focus our thinking. I've worked some of them into the proposal, please do edit to refine or totally rework the wording. Fences&Windows 00:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Here's a nice classification of events involving actions carried out by people:[8]
Event was intentional Event was not intentional
Promoted by those who caused the event Routine Serendipity
Promoted by an independent party Scandal Accident

Fences&Windows 21:15, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Problems with Sensationalism and Systemic bias sections

The current wording in the sensationalism section is not very helpful. Comments about yellow journalism, media circuses, and psuedo-events will not be helpful and will make it needlessly difficult to get this guideline approved. What is very relevent is the comment on the 24 hour news cycle, but that should be merged into "Persistence of coverage", which should be the heart of this guideline. The problem with terms like yellow journalism and psuedo-event is that they force editors to make judgements about content rather than about the nature of the source, and that just leads to endless argument, since one person's trivia is another person's critical news. The idea here should be to make it easier to apply WP:NOTNEWS and WP:Notability to news related topics and I believe the key wording in notability is: "it takes more than just a short burst of news reports about a single event or topic to constitute sufficient evidence of notability". To give a more concrete example many people would find the true crime books written by someone like Ann Rule to be sensationalist. However if she devotes a chapter in one of her books to analyzing a particular murder case years after the fact, it provides a depth of coverage and historical perspective on the case, as well as a demonstration of ongoing significance that contemporary news stories do not. The focus of the guideline should be: Was there extensive coverage of this topic over an extended period (more than just a few news cycles)? and Was there in depth coverage and analysis rather than just routine reporting of events? rather than focusing on the nature of the event being covered. Similarly, I strongly suggest deleting the section on systemic bias. Bringing that contentious debate into this topic will add nothing and just make settling on a guideline more difficult. I think your best chance for getting a worthwhile guideline out of this is to focus on persistence and depth of coverage and avoid making value judgements about content.Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I added the draft section on sensationalism as the issue of whether we are slaves to the agendas of the press or not is a live issue. Editors do make value judgements about news coverage: quality as well as quantity matters. Churnalism should also lead us to question whether the media are a reliable source for us to use to write articles. Ignoring these issues won't help us write a useful guideline. Fences&Windows 23:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
We had an edit conflict so I didn't see your response here, before I posted my further comments below, but I will respond to you directly here. I think quality does matter as much or more than quantity, but it is quality (and quantity) of coverage, not the quality of the topic being covered that I think is important. If the bear in a tree (or perhaps to take a better case the whale trapped in the harbor/river) story or the murder of the porn star gets enough coverage (and in depth enough coverage)over an extended period it becomes historically notable whether or not you or I or any other editor thinks otherwise. Wikipedia editors are not authors. They are supposed to reflect the opinions of experts in the field not their own. Now that doesn't mean that an article in a super market tabloid carries the same weight in establishing notability as an article in The Economist, but that is a judgement about the source not the topic, and if it receives widespread enough attention even a topic like Bat Boy can become notable.Rusty Cashman (talk) 00:28, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I agree with most of this, with the strong exception to "over an extended period" because how long that period is, seems to be in some way related subjectively to the notability of the event itself. (?) --Jaymax (talk) 01:20, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Saying that coverage should be more than a brief burst is an attempt to create an objective criterion, not subjective. Criteria about the nature of the event itself would also not necessarily be subjective. Other notability guidelines go beyond the WP:GNG and suggest what aim to be objective criteria to judge notability by, such as WP:PROF and WP:ATHLETE. Fences&Windows 16:53, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I undrestand, but brief IS still utterly subjective, extended period IS still totally subjective. This is why I keep trying to throw in historical examples and get folk to have a punt at how long is long enough in different cases, because I believe it will expose the great, subjective, variation. I am sure that there are some people who feel if an event has strong coverage for two hours, then the burst isn't brief, and others who think even if coverage goes on for a week it was still a 'brief burst'.--Jaymax (talk) 01:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Problems with Content subsection of criteria

I think the following text is problematical:

"Wedding announcements, obituaries, sports scores, crime logs, and other things 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."

As is:

"Non-routine coverage may include important developments regarding politics, economics, crime, war, and disasters, as well as certain aspects of law, business, science, and technology."


I think this sort of text is what has made it so hard to interpret/enforce WP:NOTNEWS in AfD. People look at topics like local elections, murders-kidnappings, tornados, etc. are exempt from the "more than routine news coverage requirement even if the only sources on a topic are a couple of short newswire stories repeated in a few newspapers or a few brief mentions on nightly news programs. Furthermore I think that any notability guidelene that makes editors focus on content rather than on the depth and persistence of coverage/ quality of sources is inherently more difficult to apply somplace like AfD. My recommendation would be to use wording like:

"Per Wikipedia policy, routine news coverage, such as daily news coverage of sports matches, brief stories on crimes or political events, human interest and humor stories, obituaries, and wedding or birth announcements, is not sufficient basis for an article. Extensive and in depth coverage of an event over time is necessary to establish notability."

This places the focus on the nature of the coverage/sources rather than the nature of the event. It is the volume, duration, and depth of coverage that makes the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping more notable than the story about a bear in a tree, or Super Bowl III more notable than last week's high school football game.Rusty Cashman (talk) 00:08, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Again, agree that focus should be on nature of coverage/sources - but have concerns around 'duration'. Because you have to wait-and-see for some arbitrary period, in the process losing the advantages of collating info during the event coverage. --Jaymax (talk) 01:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I think duration is fine, because a short burst of news coverage is not sufficient for an article. I think that's one of the key points of this proposal, and already in line with policy. The WordsmithCommunicate 02:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Policy says a short burst is not sufficient in and of itself. That is logically not the same thing as saying a short burst is necessarily insufficient. I dispute, in the strongest possible way, that a requirement for 'duration' is somehow inline with existing policy - and trust me I've been looking for it!
You and I were on different sides of the Balloon Boy debate, and yet we both agree that more formality is required, and in what areas the problems lie - It'd be better for all parties to try and understand each other and work towards a consensus, than start at the outset presupposing that a 'duration' requirement is essential to satisfying consensus.
But again, if you're going to argue for duration, please advise your opinion as to what period of time after the first plane hit the towers, an article on 9/11 should have been able to pass a 'duration' requirement, and an example of 'duration' criteria that might describe such a time window. Answering that in a way that makes sense would help convince me that well defined 'duration' criteria might be workable.--Jaymax (talk) 04:28, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Jaymax, your "at what point did 9/11 become notable" question is bit of a red herring. If duration and breadth of news coverage is limited this can be an indication that the event is of limited notability, but because we don't have crystal balls it is hard to predict what events will have enduring coverage during the event. This is why deletion discussions are tricky when events are occurring or are fresh. What editors often attempt to do is judge the likelihood of historic notability vs flash-in-the-pan - are there any criteria that are often used and that we can include to help guide future discussions? Fences&Windows 16:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
This is EXACTLY my point, and exactly the debate that raged during Ballon Boy's AfD - It's not a red herring (idiom) at all, its Reductio ad absurdum in an effort to point out that this stuff NEEDS to be considered if this guidline is going to be of any help. We need objective criteria that DO NOT RELY on any subjective duration reqirement - With 9/11 I try to point out that an objective criteria for duration must somehow relate that duration to the quantity and quality of coverage. Logically, if duration is a function of quantity and quality, and we have objectve crieteria for those anyway, then it should first be determined that the criteria cannout be expresses as objective tests against quantity of coverage, and quality of coverage.--Jaymax (talk) 02:07, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
The article currently notes subsections on "Depth", "Persistence", "Scope", and "Content". Per the discussion above, I'm wondering if "Duration" might be a better term than "Persistence". I initially used "persistence" due to the phrase "persistence of coverage" in the perp section of WP:N/CA. Location (talk) 19:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Rusty, I added that wording to the "Content" section based on some comments that were provided above and I acknowledge that it needs refined if kept. My concerns with the wording of WP:NOT#NEWS is probably the polar opposite of yours. Whereas you seem to suggest that some editors use WP:NOT#NEWS to state that nearly any event could be notable, my impression is that many editors claim that certain events are not notable because they receive attention only by, or primarily by, newspapers or television reports. Location (talk) 19:42, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
The view that more coverage is required than just news reports isn't consensus, but it does have some support - narrative news reports can be viewed as primary sources, and we want to use secondary sources to write articles. Fences&Windows 23:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
"Coverage of an event over time" clashes to some extent with WP:NTEMP. In a way we are trying to explain what WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:NTEMP mean when they appear to have their cake and eat it. Our task here is to flesh out the meaning of those two guidelines. We need to try to give guidance on those hazy areas between "a burst of news reporting" and "reporting over time", and between "newsworthy" and "historical notability". Fences&Windows 23:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Classifications

Many news stories become simple edits to existing articles. This is for the discussion of a news events which may merit the creation of a new stand-alone article.

I offer these as classes of news events for discussion, and potentially the criteria for each class is slightly different:

I can probably come up with a few more. Is such a classification helpful? patsw (talk) 04:44, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Definitely useful. Category:Events and specifically Category:Incidents will have more examples. Fences&Windows 20:31, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
I've noted another classification above of events involving human action, into routine, serendipity, scandal and accident. Fences&Windows 21:20, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Criteria of breadth of coverage

Pinching ideas from Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts)#Multiple, independent sources, what's missing from the criteria is the breadth of coverage.

We can steal borrow their wording, that also touches on the issue of scope:

Multiple sources are required, not just multiple references from a single or small number of sources. It would be insufficient to base an article on a series of news reports by a single newspaper or news channel. The requirement for national or global scope refers to how widespread the coverage of a topic is. In the case where a television or radio channel has several regional outlets, such as Fox News, one regional station counts as local coverage. Repeating this over multiple stations belonging to the same network that covers an entire country is considered to be a single instance of coverage with national or global scope.

Similarly, where a single news wire story or press release has been used by several news publications, this should only be counted as a single source in all notability decisions. Likewise, when reporters base their information on other news coverage (for example, "AP reported that ..."), the coverage is only a single source. Such derivative reports are not independent and so cannot be used to verify each other. However, if multiple mainstream news outlets report on a single event separately and without reference to others, these constitute multiple sources.

Finally, media sources sometimes report on events because of their similarity to another widely reported incident. Editors should not rely on such sources to afford notability to the new event, since the main purpose of such articles is to highlight the old event.

Fences&Windows 22:52, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

What else do we need to do?

I think the work on this proposal has been phenomenal over the last week. We're getting close to what we want, here. My question is, what else needs to be done before we're ready for an RFC? What other details need to be hammered out? The WordsmithCommunicate 02:46, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

patsw's suggestion of a classification of events by type might be useful.
I think the section Content needs the most attention, in particular we should flesh out "Non-routine coverage may include important developments regarding politics, economics, crime, war, and disasters, as well as certain aspects of law, business, science, and technology." Some references to common outcomes of discussions or particularly contested precedents might also be useful. Fences&Windows 23:59, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

How WP:MILL can be applied here

As WP:NOTNEWS implies "routine" news coverage, this is really an issue of run-of-the-mill versus something that stands out.

For example, Wikipedia is not the place to have articles on each of the several hundred homicides that take place in every major city, the watermain breaks, the rescues from burning homes, etc.

But there are things (events and associated subjects) that do stand out, that have never likely happened before (at least to the degree in which the reported case is), such as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, or events that stand out, even if a comparable event potentially could happen every several years or so, such as the 2009 Washington Metro train collision. There are also cases that should by all logic be run-of-the-mill, except they for no apparent reason receive media sensation, such as Scott Peterson or Natalee Holloway.

Where do you draw the line? Some possibilities are:

  1. Whether the coverage is reported only in the local and regional papers, or if it has extended to other farther places (see WP:LOCAL and WP:TOWN)
  2. If coverage that is reported, whether it be local, national, or international, be for just a day or two, or if it continues for at least several weeks or months thereafter (see WP:109PAPERS)
  3. Whether the story is simply a forgotten event that fades into a footnote of journalism, or if it continues to influence the way people live, legislation, etc. (e.g. Murder of Adam Walsh → Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act)

These factors may not be determinable on the day the story first breaks. Yet many current events that are viewed at the "tippity top" on that day turn into instant unchallenged Wikipedia articles. The 2009 Washington Metro train collision is the perfect example of that, having been created exactly 60 minutes after its occurrence. As it appears, this crash will have an impact on future rail safety. But who was to know that just an hour after the crash, when a rescue operation was still in place, the death toll was unknown, and the investigation into the cause was yet to have begun? Sebwite (talk) 19:51, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

This is brilliant stuff. This can help expand the 'Content' section. Perhaps there can be a new section on "Event characteristics"? I've been wary of going into event characteristics, as general consensus is that it's coverage that determines notability rather than editor's judgements on what is 'worthy'. Fences&Windows 21:31, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
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