 | This is anessay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one ofWikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not beenthoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: If you can't write an article after leaving all your prior knowledge about the subject behind, itfails the amnesia test, and regardless of how many external links you can dig up that relate to the subject, those links don't satisfynotability guidelines. |
If you're thinking of starting an article about something, chances are you know a bit about it already. But editors that have been around Wikipedia for a while will know that many articles aredeleted for failing to satisfy thenotability criteria. So, before creating the article, they may try to make sure that if the article isnominated for deletion, they can satisfy Wikipedia's myriad notability guidelines (includingWP:WEB,WP:BIO,WP:CORP,WP:MUSIC,WP:WINI, and so on).
If you do aGoogle search for most subjects, you'll usually turn upsomething that could, at first glance, appear to help your article meet Wikipedia's criteria fornotability, specifically "significant press coverage" (WP:BIO), "multiple non-trivial published works" (WP:WEB,WP:CORP) and the like, and thus be safe fromWikipedia:Articles for deletion. Nonetheless, before you start creating the article, it's a good idea to take the following steps:
The notability guidelines are there as ameans to ensuring that an article can beverifiable (which requiresreliable sources) andneutral (which requires at least one person independent of the subject who thinks it's worth writing and maintaining an article on them). Meeting them is not a standard for inclusion.
The Amnesia test is also useful when participating inArticles for deletion discussions.