 | This page documents an English Wikipedianotability guideline. Editors should generally follow it, thoughexceptions may apply.Substantive edits to this pageshould reflect consensus. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia should avoid articles about web sites that could be interpreted asadvertising. For material published on the web to have its own article in Wikipedia, it should benotable and ofhistorical significance. Wikipedia articles about web content should use citations fromreliable sources. |
| Notability |
|---|
| General notability guideline |
| Subject-specific guidelines |
| See also |
FromWP:NOT § INTERNET:
Internet guides. Wikipedia articles should not existonly to describe the nature, appearance or services a website offers, but should also describe the site in anencyclopedic manner, offering detail on a website's achievements, impact or historical significance, which can be kept significantly more up-to-date than most reference sources, since editors can incorporate new developments and facts as they are made known. See theCurrent events portal for examples.
This page gives some rough guidelines which most Wikipedia editors use to decide if a form of web-specific content, being either the content of a website or the specific website itself, should have an article on Wikipedia. Web content includes, but is not limited to,blogs,Internet forums,newsgroups,online magazines, othermedia,podcasts,webcomics, andweb portals. Any content accessed via the internet and engaged with primarily through a web browser is considered web content for the purposes of this guideline.[1]
Wikipedians are averse to the use of Wikipedia foradvertising, and the idea thatWikipedia articles are not advertisements is an official policy of long standing. Advertising is eithercleaned up to adhere to theneutral point of view or deleted.[2]
Wikipedia is not aweb directory, in that it is not a sitethat specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files. Articles which merely include an external link and a brief description of its contents may be deleted.
Topics that do not satisfy notability criteria are dealt with in two ways:merging anddeleting. Articles that may be non-notable can be marked with the{{notability}} template to make other editors aware of the problem. When such articles are being listed for deletion, the articles are discussed atWikipedia:Articles for deletion. Alternatively, theproposed deletion process may be used for articles that areuncontroversially deletion candidates, while the{{db-web}} template can be used to mark an article forspeedy deletion; seecriterion A7 for details.
In the dictionary,notable means "worthy of being noted" or "attracting notice." Wikipedia bases its decision about whether web content is notable enough to justify a separate article on the verifiable evidence that the web content has attracted the notice ofreliable sourcesunrelated to the web content, its authors, or its owners. Notability requires only that these necessary sourcesexist, not that the sources have already been named in the article.
"Notability" is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance," and even web content that editors personally believe is "important" or "famous" is only accepted as notable if it can be shown to have attracted notice.No web content is exempt from this requirement, no matter what kind of content it is. If the individual web content has received no or very little attention fromindependent sources, then it is not notable simply because other web content of its type is commonly notable or merely becauseit exists (see"If the content is not notable", below).
When evaluating the notability of web content, please consider whether it has had any significant or demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education. High-traffic websites are likely to have more readily availableverifiable information fromreliable sources that provide evidence of notability. However, smaller websites can also be notable. Arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger websites.
Web content is not notable merely because a notable person, business, or event was associated with it. If the web content itself did not receive notice, then the web content is not notable. For example, if a notable person has a website, then the website does not "inherit" notability from its owner. In such cases, it is often best to describe the website in the article about the notable person.
Similarly, a website may be notable, but the owners or authors do not "inherit" notability due to the web content they wrote.
Keeping in mind that all articles must conform withthe policy on verifiability toreliable sources, and that non-independent and self-published sources alone are not sufficient to establish notability; web-specific content[3] may be notable based on meeting one of the following criteria:
These criteria are presented asrules of thumb for easily identifying web content about which Wikipedia should probably have an article. In almost all cases, a thorough search forindependent, third-party reliable sources will be successful for content meeting one or both of these criteria. However, meeting these criteria is not a guarantee that Wikipedia will host a separate, stand-alone article on the website.
Wikipedia should not have a separate article on any web content that does not meet the criteria of either this guideline or the general notability guideline, or any web content for which, despite meeting the rules of thumb described above, editors ultimately cannot locateindependent sources that provide in-depth information about the web content. Wikipedia's goal is neithertiny articles with no realistic hope of expansion nor articles based primarily on what the subject or its creators say about themselves.
However, information about such web content may nevertheless be included in other ways in Wikipedia, provided that certain conditions are met. Material about web content that does not qualify for a separate, stand-alone can bepreserved by adding it into relevant articles if it:
Web content that does not qualify for a separate, stand-alone article might be described in a relevant list of web content like theList of internet phenomena. Material about websites might be merged to articles about the organizations that own the websites. Appropriate redirects from the subject's name should be created to help readers find such information.