Forum:Discussing notability and establishing a notability policy

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Hi,

Branching from this deletion nomination, I seriously think we need to discuss what content related to The Sims series constitutes as notable enough to feature on The Sims Wiki and establish a formal notability policy as we literally don't have one at all.

I can say from the offset that these things are obvious enough that not deeming them as notable is detrimental to the purpose of the wiki:

• Games, expansions and stuff packs (e.g. The Sims 3, The Sims 3: Pets, The Sims 3: Town Life Stuff)
• Worlds/neighborhoods (e.g. Pleasantview, Riverview, Old Town)
• Canon Sims and families (e.g. Bella Goth, Cycl0n3 Sw0rd, Tara DeBateau, Goth family)
• Objects (e.g. Television, Decorations)
• General Simology (e.g. Life Stages, Traits, basically the whole of the Simology tab on the navigation bar)
• Lots (e.g. 1 Free Street, Cemetery, Rabbit hole)
• Basically anything major that I may have missed which is in-game
• Notable real life figures related to the series (e.g. Will Wright, Electronic Arts, Maxis)

I may have missed some off but you can see it's a no-brainer to deem the major things as notable.

The real point of discussion comes at the existence of related content which is outside of the series, such as YouTube accounts, fan sites, people and mainly The Sims community, and whether or not we should cover them, which is what the deletion nomination of TheQuxxn brings up.

I do have an opinion on this but to maintain neutrality, I'll keep it to myself for now. Before we consider establishing this as a policy, I would like that this is discussed so that when we do get to that stage we have something to work around.

I'd like to emphasise that this is a very important discussion as it brings a fair bit of the content on this wiki into consideration and I would very much appreciate maximum community input where possible. I look forward to the development of this discussion. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 12:38, December 21, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Most of the content you've listed above is, obviously, relevant. I think that real-world articles can have their place here, but there needs to be some criteria establishing what is and is not relevant, as well as what constitutes notability. There's a few big things this should probably include:

• Pages created about real-world content would need to be written in a neutral point of view. The purpose of the article needs to be to inform readers, not to advertise.
• Persons associated with the real-world content being written about should refrain from editing those articles or starting the articles.
• Including a page about real-world content is not an endorsement of the content or its creator.
• If it can be argued or questioned whether a particular piece of real-world content is not notable, there needs to be some citation of the content's notability. This could include Quantcast or other internet traffic measurements, number of download hits on a modification, number of page views, etc. Basically, if something is not obviously notable (like ModTheSims, which virtually everyone within the community has heard of), there needs to be some objective proof of its notability or the article will be deleted. Custom content/modifications creators should be noted if they are responsible for multiple notable pieces of cc/mods, or are otherwise very notable within the community.
• Real-world content must be related to The Sims series of games. For instance:
  • A fan website's main focus should be on The Sims games.
  • Game modifications and custom content should be for The Sims games.
  • Fan media creators (YouTubers, bloggers, etc) should focus primarily or significantly on The Sims games.

Note: I'm using the term "real-world content" to collectively refer to custom content, modifications, fan websites, custom content creators, and "fan media" creators. Some or all of these types of content could be allowed or prohibited based on discussion.

What I've listed above isn't perfect, but I think it's a start. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 17:06, December 21, 2012 (UTC)

LiR proposes a sound policy. However, I myself am not too concerned about policy itself, and I am in support of having real-world content and creator pages. Perhaps we should make a new namespace for the said contents to separate it from the canon materials and those that are directly related in development? MILK FOR THE UNYUUFEX, FLAT CHEST FOR THE CUTENESS THRONE, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL PROBES (user talk:Mathetesalexandrou) 22:02, December 22, 2012 (UTC)

I like this idea. If the wiki decides to go forward with it, I think it may be useful to have some sort of criteria, or a page that people can ask to create a page on a particular person (like nominations for a battle or adminship requests), so that we don't get accounts of people that nobody has heard of. However, if this isn't a good idea, maybe the users could just ask a bureaucrat instead. Meh. Overall, I think this is a great policy and that it would only affect the wiki for the better. ~ Waikikamukow (Anyone wanna chat?) 22:45, December 22, 2012 (UTC)

I like the policy, but it's the case of the articles involved with the Sims, but it's outside the actual series. Surely articles based on famous YouTube users would be/are on Wikitubia (which covers most YouTube-related people and groups)? I also think, to prevent a whole wave of various unknown players, I'd go with Waikikamukow's idea of the voting page. I think this policy clearly outlines what content the wiki should have. I'm in support of it. AsherÉire I'm a lonely person, so please talk to me... 23:09, December 22, 2012 (UTC)

I'm a little cautious about the idea of this new policy. Mostly about how the community will react to the new pages and content coming in. However, your argument is a good one and this sound like it could help the wiki community in some ways. You have my support but the policy should be revised by an admin or bureaucrat to help it gain some stability. Freedomtalk 00:05, December 23, 2012 (UTC)

I like all the ideas that Freedom, LiR, and Math put up, and I think this page should stay. If it has a separate category, then maybe it would be easier to differentiate and not provoke argument about it. But it was stated that it might be deleted due to not being relevant to anything specific on the wiki, but then doesn't that technically discourage users from creating Fanon? Technically Fanon isn't relevant to the wiki either, so that proposes a problem. But it's obvious that this discussion is about real world content, so maybe adding a category like [[Category:Real-World Content]] would be helpful when dealing with these types of pages...? PGR7 ^{(parler - entendre)} 00:29, December 23, 2012 (UTC)

Categorization might help. There has to be some way to determine whether the real-world contents (e.g. fan sites) are relevant and notable enough for their own article, like what makes them distinct from others. Personally, I'm opposed to the creation of fan (person) pages that people don't take account of. It's rather difficult to get the neutral point-of-view without being too subjective for a real-world person/fan article, unless they're unique from somebody else. They need to have evident reasons why a fan should have a page of its own. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 04:16, December 23, 2012 (UTC)