 | 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: An organization is generally considerednotable if it has been the subject of significant coverage inreliable, independentsecondary sources. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. All content must beverifiable.If no independent, third-party, reliable sources can be found on a topic, then Wikipedia should not have an article on it. |
| Notability |
|---|
| General notability guideline |
| Subject-specific guidelines |
| See also |
This page is to help determine whether an organization (commercial or otherwise), or any of its products and services, is a valid subject for aseparate Wikipedia article dedicated solely to that organization, product, or service. The scope of this guideline covers all groups of people organized together for a purpose with the exception of non-profit educational institutions, religions or sects, and sports teams. If another subject-specific notability guideline applies to a group, it may be notable by passing either this or the more specific guideline. For example, bands are covered byWP:MUSIC.
Bear in mind thatonly a small percentage of the world's organizations meet the requirements for a Wikipedia article.
Simply stated, an organization is a group of more than one person formed together for a purpose. This includes commercial and non-commercial activities, such ascharitable organizations,political parties,hospitals,institutions,interest groups,social clubs,companies,partnerships,proprietorships, for-profit educational institutions or organizations, etc.
This guideline does not cover small groups of closely related people such as families, entertainment groups, co-authors, and co-inventors covered byWP:Notability (people).
Wikipedia bases its decision about whether an organization is notable enough to justify a separate article on the verifiable evidence that the organization or product has attracted the notice ofreliable sourcesunrelated to the organization or product. Notability requires only that these necessary sources have beenpublished—even if these sources are not actually listed in the article yet (though in most cases it probably would improve the article to add them).
No company or organization is considered inherently notable.No organization is exempt from this requirement, no matter what kind of organization it is, includingschools.[1] If the individual organization has received no or very little notice fromindependent sources, then it is not notable simply because other individual organizations of its type are commonly notable or merely becauseit exists(see§ If it's not notable, below). "Notability" is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance". No matter how "important" editors may personally believe an organization to be, it should not have a stand-alone article in Wikipediaunless reliable sources independent of the organization have given significant coverage to it.
When evaluating the notability of organizations or products, please consider whether they have had any significant or demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education. Large organizations and their products are likely to have more readily availableverifiable information fromreliable sources that provide evidence of notability. However, smaller organizations and their products can be notable, just as individuals can be notable. Arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger organizations or their products, though articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable perWP:NOTADVERTISING.
An organization is not notable merely because a notable person or event was associated with it. A corporation is not notable merely because it owns notable subsidiaries. The organization or corporation itself must have been discussed in reliable independent sources for it to be considered notable. Examples: If a notable person buys a restaurant, the restaurant does not "inherit" notability from its owner. If a notable person joins an organization, the organization does not "inherit" notability from its member.
This works the other way as well. An organization may be notable, but individual members (or groups of members) do not "inherit" notability due to their membership. A corporation may be notable, but its subsidiaries do not "inherit" notability from being owned by the corporation.
Note: Some sources discuss more than one subject. Example: A single newspaper article discusses a business, its founder, and its products. A trade magazine compares multiple similar products from several different companies. A magazine article discusses a celebrity's new film and a new fashion line. In such cases, the part(s) of the source that is about the subject of the article should be counted, and the part(s) of the source that are about other subjects should be ignored. Per theWikipedia:General notability guideline, the subject of the article"does not need to be the main topic of the source material" for that source to count towards notability. Do not discard source material that is about the subject merely because the source also contains information that is not about the subject.
Acompany,corporation,organization,group,product, orservice is presumednotable if it has been the subject ofsignificant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.
These criteria, generally, follow thegeneral notability guideline with a stronger emphasis on quality of the sources to prevent gaming of the rules by marketing and public relations professionals. The guideline, among other things, is meant to address some of the common issues with abusing Wikipedia foradvertising and promotion. As such, the guideline establishes generally higher requirements for sources that are used to establish notability than for sources that are allowed as acceptable references within an article.
Individual sources must be evaluated separately and independently of each other and meet the four criteria below to determine if a source qualifies towards establishing notability:
Anindividual source must meetall of these criteria to be counted towards establishing notability; each source needs to be significant, independent, reliable, and secondary. In addition, there must also bemultiple such sources to establish notability. If the suitability of a source is in doubt, it is better to exercise caution and exclude the source for the purposes of establishing notability.
Imagine that a draft article onAcme Inc. cites four sources: a single-sentence mention in an article byThe New York Times while pointing out a missing feature in a rival's product when compared to the product by Acme; an extensive company profile in aForbes.com blog by a non-staff contributor; a blog post by a tech enthusiast who has provided a review of the product; and a court filing by a competitor alleging patent infringement. Analysis:
- TheNew York Times article is reliable, independent, and secondary – but not significant (a single-sentence mention in an article about another company).
- TheForbes blog profile is significant and secondary – but not independent or reliable (most such posts are company-sponsored or based on a company's marketing materials - seeWP:FORBESCON).
- The tech blog review is significant and secondary – but may not be independent (blog posts are often sponsored) and is not reliable (self-published sources are generally not reliable, unless they are written bysubject-matter experts).
- The court filing is significant and reliable (in that the court record is a verified account of a legal action being taken) – but not secondary (court filings are primary sources) or independent (they are written by the parties to the legal action, which have a vested interest in the outcome).
Therefore, the article does not have a single source that could be used to establish the notability of the company, let alone multiple sources.
The analysis of the above example can be summarized in the following table:
| Source | Significant? | Independent? | Reliable? | Secondary? | Pass/Fail | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The New York Times |  N |  Y | Y | Y | N | A single-sentence mention in an article about another company. |
| Profile inForbes | Y | N | N | Y | N | Most such posts are company-sponsored or based on company's marketing materials. |
| Tech blog post | Y |  ? | N | Y | N | Blog posts are often sponsored and self-published sources are generally not reliable unless written by a subject-matter expert. |
| Court filing | Y | N | Y | N | N | Court filings are primary sources. While we hope they will be truthful, court filings are written by the company (or its opponents in court), so they are not independent. |
| Total qualifying sources | 0 | There must be multiple qualifying sources to meet the notability requirements | ||||
 | Tip: How to create a source assessment table If you'd like to add a source assessment table to any deletion discussion page, you may use the user scriptUser:DannyS712/SATG or the template{{Source assess table}}. |
The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject is not sufficient to establish notability. Deep or significant coverage provides an overview, description, commentary, survey, study, discussion, analysis, or evaluation of the product, company, or organization. Such coverage provides an organization with a level of attention that extends well beyond brief mentions and routine announcements, and makes it possible to write more than avery brief, incomplete stub about the organization.
Quantity does not determine significance. It is thequality of the content that governs. A collection of multiple trivial sources does not become significant. Views, hits, likes, shares, etc. have no bearing on establishing whether the coverage is significant. Similarly, arbitrary statistics and numbers (such as number of employees, amount of revenue or raised capital, age of the company, etc.) do not make the coverage significant. For the coverage to be significant, the sources must describe anddiscuss in some depth the treatment of the employees or major changes in leadership instead of just listing the fact that the corporation employs 500 people or mentioning that John Smith was appointed as the new CEO. Further, the significance is not determined by the reputation of the source. For example, a 400-word article inThe Village Voice is a lot more significant than a single-sentence mention inThe New York Times. However, the reputation of the source does help to determine whether the source isreliable andindependent.
Sources are not transferable or attributable between related parties. Sources that describe only a specific topic related to an organization should not be regarded as providing significant coverage of that organization. Therefore, for example, an article on a product recall or a biography of a CEO is a significant coverage for the Wikipedia article on the product or the CEO, but not a significant coverage on the company (unless the article or biography devotes significant attention to the company itself).
Examples of trivial coverage that do not count toward meeting the significant coverage requirement:
The examples above are not meant to be exhaustive. See#Product reviews for a full discussion on what reviews of restaurants, events, and products qualify as significant coverage.
Articles headlined about trivial coverage may still contain substantial coverage, though this is not often the case, and such articles are often press releases that are notWikipedia:Independent sources.
Examples of substantial coverage that would generally be sufficient to meet the requirement:
The source's audience must also be considered. Significant coverage in media with an international, national, or at leastregional audience (e.g., the biggest daily newspaper in any US state) is a strong indication of notability. Attentionsolely from local media (e.g., the weekly newspaper for a small town), or media of limited interest and circulation (e.g., a newsletter exclusively for people with a very unusual job), is not an indication of notability. At leastone regional, statewide, provincial, national, or international source is necessary.
It is possible that an organization that is not itself generallynotable will have a number of significant sources discussing its (alleged) illegal conduct. Sources that primarily discuss purely such conduct cannot be used to establish an organization's notability under this guideline. However, the organization may still be notable, in whole or in part due to such sources, under different guidelines, e.g.,WP:CRIME.
A primary test of notability is whether unrelated people with novested interest in the subject have actually considered the company, corporation, product or service notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial, non-routine works that focus upon it.Self-promotion,product placement, or any other form ofpaid media do not count towards qualifying for an encyclopedia article.Onlyunpaid sources count. There are two types of independence to consider when evaluating sources:
Trade publications must be used with great care. While feature stories[3] from leading trade magazines may be used where independence is clear, there is a presumption against the use of coverage in trade magazines to establish notability.
If a source's independence is in any doubt, it is better to exercise caution and exclude it from determining quality sources for the purposes of establishing notability. If contested, consensus on the use of sources can be sought at theReliable sources/Noticeboard.
Once notability is established,primary sources andself-published sourcesmay be used with appropriate care to verify some of the article's content. SeeWikipedia:Autobiography for the verifiability and neutrality problems that affect material where the subject of the article itself is the source of the material.
Examples of dependent coverage that isnot sufficient to establish notability:
A single significant independent source is almost never sufficient for demonstrating the notability of an organization.
"Source" on Wikipedia can refer to the work itself, the author of the work, and/or the publisher of the work. For notability purposes, sources must be unrelated to each other to be "multiple". A story from a single news organization (such asAP) reprinted in multiple newspapers (say, in theLos Angeles Times, theChicago Tribune, and theOrlando Sentinel) is still one source (one newspaper article). If multiple journalists at multiple newspapers separately and independently write about the same subject, then each of these unrelated articles should be considered separate sources, even if they are writing about the same event or "story". A series of articles by the same journalist is still treated as one source (one person). The appearance of different articles in the same newspaper is still one source (one publisher). Similarly, a series of books by the same author is one source.
The existence of multiple significant independent sources needs to be demonstrated. Hypothetical sources (e.g. "the company is big/old/important so there must be more sources, I just don't have/can't find them") do not count towards the notability requirement.
The word "multiple" is not a set number and depends on the type of organization or product. Editors should recognize certain biases, such asrecentism (greater availability of recent sources) when assessing historical companies orsystemic bias (greater availability of English and Western sources) when discussing organizations in the developing world. Therefore, for example, a Bangladeshi women's rights organization from the 1960s might establish notability with just one or two quality sources, while the same is not true for a tech start-up in a major U.S. metropolitan area.
Reliable sources, generally, are third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. The best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments. The greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source.Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest. Self-published sources,although they may be reliable for verification purposes, are generally not accepted as evidence of notability. For a full discussion on what is and what is not a reliable source, seeWikipedia:Identifying reliable sources.
Asecondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. Secondary sources are not necessarily significant, reliable or independent sources.
Aprimary source is original material that is close to an event, and is often an account written by people who are directly involved. Primary sources cannot be used to establish notability. In a business setting, frequently encountered primary sources include:
Product, event, and restaurant reviews (i.e. where author describes personal opinions and experiences) must be handled with great care and diligence. Some types of reviews have a longer history and established traditions (e.g. restaurants, wine, books, movies), while other (e.g. new tech gadgets, travel blogs) are newer and more prone to manipulation by marketing and public relations personnel.
Like any other source, to be counted towards the notability requirements, reviews must beindependent secondary sources that contain significant coverage of the subject:
Advertising is prohibited as an official Wikipedia policy. Advertising should be removed by following these steps, in order:
When establishing the notability ofcryptocurrencies and otherblockchain-related projects, the consensus is thatcrypto-centric news organizations—such asCoindesk orBitcoin Magazine—generally cannot be used, as they do not provide coverage that can be considered "independent" from their subject for the purposes ofWP:ORGCRITE. The notability of such projects must therefore be established on the basis of other sources, such asmainstream reliablenews sources. The essayWikipedia:Notability (cryptocurrencies) may offer useful guidance.
The following sections discuss alternate methods for establishing notability in specific situations.No organization is considered notable except to the extent that independent sources demonstrate that it has been noticed by people outside of the organization. These criteria constitute an optional, alternative method for demonstrating notability. Organizations are considered notable if they meet one of the following sourcing requirements
and the article complies with the policyWikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, especially with regards to avoiding indiscriminate inclusion of information.
Organizations are usually notable if they meetboth of the following standards:
Additional considerations are:
All universities, colleges and schools, including high schools, middle schools, primary (elementary) schools, and schools that only provide a support to mainstream education must satisfy either the notability guidelines for organizations (i.e., this page) orthe general notability guideline.
For-profit educational organizations and institutions are consideredcommercial organizations and must satisfy those criteria.(See alsoWP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES.)
Individual religious organizations (whether called congregations, synods, synagogues, temples, churches, etc.) must meet the notability guideline for organizations and companies or thegeneral notability guideline or both. The fact that a religious building is listed on a major historic register such as theNational Heritage List for England or theNational Register of Historic Places in the U.S. does not necessarily mean that the religious organization that owns or meets in the building is notable. However, it is possible that both the building and the institution are notable independently from each other – in which case, a combined article about the institution and the building is an option.
Some commercial organizations meet Wikipedia notability guidelines but care must be taken in determining whether they are truly notable and whether the article is an attempt to use Wikipedia for free advertising. Wikipedia editors should not create articles on commercial organizations for the purpose of overtly or covertly advertising a company. Please seeWP:NOTADVERTISING.
There has been considerable discussion over time whether publicly traded corporations, or at least publicly traded corporations listed on major stock exchanges such as theNYSE and other comparable international stock exchanges, are inherently notable. Consensus has been that notability is not automatic in this (or any other) case. However, sufficient independent sources almost always exist for such companies, so that notability can be established using the primary criterion discussed above. Examples of such sources include independent press coverage and analyst reports. Accordingly, article authors should make sure to seek out such coverage and add references to such articles to properly establish notability.
Editors coming across an article on such a company without such references are encouraged to search (or request that others search) prior to nominating for deletion, given the very high (but notcertain) likelihood that a publicly traded company is actually notable according to the primary criterion.
Many companies have chains of local stores or franchises that are individually pretty much interchangeable—for instance, a localMcDonald's. Since there is generally very little to say about individual stores or franchises that is not true for the chain in general, Wikipedia should not have articles on such individual stores. In rare cases, an individual location will have architectural peculiarities that makes it notable, such as theShell Service Station (Winston-Salem, North Carolina); however, a series of articles on every single Wal-Mart in China would not be informative. An exception can be made if a major event occurred at a local store; however, this would most likely be created under an article name that describes theevent, not the location (seeSan Ysidro McDonald's massacre for an example).
A product or service is appropriate for its own Wikipedia article when it has received sustained coverage inreliable independent secondary sources. In cases where a company is mainly known for a single series of products or services, it is usually better to cover the company and its products/services in the same article. This article can be the name of the company or the name of its product, depending on which is theprimary topic.Avoid splitting the company and its products into separate articles, unless both have so much coverage in reliable secondary sources as to make a single article unwieldy.
Forproduct lines that are produced and/or marketed by the same company, avoid creating multiple stubs about each individual product (e.g.,PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator,Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator,R-36 Explosive Space Modulator, etc.) especially if there isno realistic hope of expansion. The relationship between a continuous line of products should be discussed within a single article.
If a non-notable product or service has its own article, bebold andmerge it into an article with a broader scope (for example, an article about the type of product) or follow one of thedeletion processes.
This guideline does not apply to transport infrastructure such as railway lines and stations, airports, and toll roads, even when the company running the installation has that task as its single purpose. Other notability guidelines such asGeneral notability guidelines andNotability (geographic features) continue to apply.
Although an organization that fails to meet the criteria of this guideline should not have a separate article, information about the organization may nevertheless be included in other ways in Wikipedia provided that certain conditions are met.
Content about the organization can be added into relevant articles if it:
For organizations local to a city, town, or county, content conforming to the above criteria may be added to articles for that locale. For example, a business that is significant to the history or economy of a small town might be described in theHistory orEconomy section of the small town.
Essays: