Forum:CT Archive/Revised notability policy

After a brief discussion at Forum:SH:Draft of new notability rules, I'd like to put a revised version of Notability of fan projects up for a vote.

Please see below for the new rules. In summary, the suggested criteria for notability have been changed to hard requirements. Official recognition in some form is not a requirement, but it counts for much more than mainstream or fandom recognition. The fan project or activity must be significant: gaming guilds, websites hosting play-by-post roleplaying, and almost all message boards are specifically listed as not significant in themselves. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 00:21, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

New Draft Rules
Articles on fan projects, such as websites, fan clubs, fan activities, fan films, or fan fiction, are allowed on Wookieepedia so long as they are sufficiently notable. Articles on non-notable fan projects will be deleted, either immediately with the Delete template, after being tagged with the Notability template for seven days without showing proof that the project passes these requirements, or after a discussion in Trash compactor.

Requirements
In order to show notability, an article on a fan project or activity must pass at least one of the "recognition" requirements as well as the "content" requirement.


 * Official recognition: A fan project which has received official recognition by Lucasfilm Ltd. or its licensees may be a suitable subject for an article.
 * Fan projects which have not been officially recognized may still be notable: however, the recognition in the mainstream media or within Star Wars fandom must be significant.
 * Mainstream recognition: A fan project which has received significant coverage in a major mainstream media outlet may have sufficient recognition, even if official recognition is absent or limited to brief mentions.
 * Fan recognition: A fan project which has not been mentioned in mainstream media or recognized by official sources may still be notable if it has widespread recognition within the Star Wars fan community. Note that this is the hardest form of recognition to substantiate, and the standards of evidence must be correspondingly high.


 * Content: A fan project must be non-trivial (i.e. a completed fan film, a large-scale video game mod, etc.) A website must have substantial content.
 * Due to the ease of setting up message boards on the web, and the multitude of message boards with very few members, a website must have substantial content beyond the message board to be considered notable. The only exceptions would be a handful of very large message boards with hundreds of users contributing daily.
 * "Guilds" or "teams" for cooperative video gaming, or web sites for online roleplaying, are not notable in themselves. If these groups have notable real-world activities beyond their gaming, or host a website with substantial content, they are more likely to be considered significant.  However, the recognition requirements must still be passed.

Additional notes

 * Number of articles: Fan projects should get one and only one article.
 * If an article on a fan website can be merged with another article, it should. For instance, an author's personal blogs should simply be discussed in a section of his or her article or given as an external link at the end of the article.  A message board popular with fans hosted on the official website of a Star Wars licensee (such as a publisher or a video game producer) should be discussed on that company's article.
 * Very large websites such as TheForce.Net can have more than one article: not so much because they are more important, but because they host several projects which would be notable on their own.
 * If a person is recognized purely for creating and/or maintaining a Star Wars website or other fan project, he or she is not considered notable enough to warrant an article. A redirect may be created to the project, however.
 * Likewise, articles on individual contributors to fan films should not be created (unless, like Kevin Rubio, they have also contributed to official Star Wars material.)
 * The Star Wars fan wiki may be a good place to put information on fan projects which do not pass these requirements. Websites may also be listed on List of fan sites.

Keep as is
This would leave the current notability policy unchanged.

Adopt new rules
This would replace the current notability rules with the new ones given above. All existing articles not showing sufficient notability may be tagged with Notability or Tc. Tagged articles which do not show the subject's notability will be deleted after a short interval and/or moved to the Star Wars fan wiki.


 * 1) &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 00:21, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

Remove all fan project articles
This would require any article related solely to fan activity in Category:Star Wars culture -- especially the ones in the subcategories Category:Fan organizations and Category:Fan films -- and all unofficial sites in Category:Websites to be moved to the Star Wars fan wiki and/or deleted.

The only exception I would suggest if this option is implemented is the Wookieepedia article, which could be moved to the Wookieepedia: namespace (as "Wookieepedia:Site history", perhaps) to help explain the project and orient new users.

Discussion
With three options, I don't think any more are necessary. If you want to discuss more possible options, discussing them here first would be best. Minor amendments to the draft policy above (such as fixes to my grammar) can go here too. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 00:21, September 24, 2009 (UTC)