Comment by stevenjgarner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stevenjgarner | Hacker News Reader

Wikipedia includes entries based on notability, but they have their own idea on notability. A friend of mine is a famous voice actor who has won not one but two CLIO awards. Wikipedia deleted the page I created for him on the basis that he was not notable. Another page I created was for the person who introduced deaf sign language to New Zealand. Deleted as she was not notable.

There are more than 19,000 entries for CLIO awards [0] from 62 countries yet only 18 Clio Awards juries comprised of industry leaders from across the globe awarded 13 Grand Clios in 2020/2021 [1]. The Global Advertising Agencies Market Size in 2022 was worth approx. $332.1 billion [2].

By comparison the Academy Awards give out Oscars in 24 categories [3] to nominees selected from only 9,921 members [4]. The Motion Picture Association released a new report on the international box office and home entertainment market showing that the industry reached $101 billion USD in 2019 [5].

Oscars are considered notable. CLIOs are not. It would appear that making art is notable (except in the sad case of Bruce Faulconer), while impacting an entire industry or contributing to marketing or education in a highly visibly recognized manner is not.

[0] https://clios.com/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clio_Awards

[2] https://www.ibisworld.com/global/market-size/global-advertis...

[3] https://www.britannica.com/art/Academy-Award

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Motion_Picture_Arts...

[5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rosaescandon/2020/03/12/the-fil...

Wikipedia's notability requirements are enforced very haphazardly. Broadly, editors and admins can be split into two camps: inclusionists who want to add everything and exclusionists who want to delete everything. The life of your new article entirely depends on who happens to stumble upon it.

I've had success appealing notability deletions in the past, but it was a pain in the ass, especially after I just spent hours researching, sourcing, writing, referencing, and proofing the article. I never made a new article again after that.

Sadly, some of the admins there are power tripping idiots who will also use random loopholes to forbid edits that don't reflect their own ideologies, often in direct contrast to Wikipedia's own guidelines.

Like any bureaucracy, it has become a cabal of aristocrats who are in it for the power and control. Regular lowly editors generally don't have much recourse. It made me gave up on editing Wikipedia. Became an editor in 2004 and the climate has changed dramatically since then, from "newbies welcome, please edit" to "this is my private library, don't touch anything!"

>inclusionists who want to add everything and exclusionists who want to delete everything

That's probably a bit B&W but a lot of people tend towards one side or the other. Part of it too also relates to the availability of secondary sources which are far more available for some domains than others. Even a fairly minor politician or entertainer has probably had quite a bit written about them by third parties. A senior executive even at a large global company? Very possibly not--especially if they pre-dated the internet.

Often its related to people not finding sources when they start articles, if you do detailed research first rather than posting a stub survival rates are higher. However thats often not how articles come about.

I sourced an article from 5-6 major news sources and it was nominated for deletion within hours. It ultimately survived appeals but why the hell did I have to waste my time on that.

I didn't make it up, but I did get the terms slightly wrong. It's "inclusionists" vs "deletionists" (not exclusionists).

There's literally a Wikipedia page about it (how notable is THAT): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_i...

It's a stupid debate to even be having. IMO only. Clearly I fall into the former camp.

I know you didn't make things up and I didn't see correcting the terminology to be worthwhile. But most people don't think simply everything makes a worthwhile article while, at the same time, I for one generally don't think articles should be deleted even if they're a bit thin on detail and notability so long as they're reasonably sourced.

Maybe it's like politics, where given only two choices, people will just gravitate towards the extremes over time and become hyperpolarized?

I wish there was a sane third way. Like instead of "Speedy delete" (why the hell is that EVER necessary), maybe a friendly auto-merge suggestion ("Hey, thanks for your contribution! This article may not be notable enough to stand on its own, but your addition would be a very valuable addition as a new section of this other existing article. Mind if we put it there instead?") or something like that.

When someone spent hours creating something as a volunteer, they shouldn't ever be met with a choice of "Either convince our bureaucracy in the next few days that this is important, or you will lose all your work." That's an insanely hostile policy towards new editors.

I think that's why I'm skeptical of the notability requirements. I know plenty of colleagues with Wikipedia pages where the notability aspect is sort of suspect, at least relative to many others I know. Sometimes it seems intuitive that someone would have a page, but other times it's just another form of marketing and SEO.

In my opinion, notability better be clearly defined with a high bar, akin to encyclopedias of old, or not be used as a criterion at all.

Most people would expect there to be a table on the "Clio Awards" Wikipedia page that lists award winners. I don't think anyone would object if such a table was added to the page; just nobody has done it yet.

But there is a difference between having someone's name listed in a table on a page in Wikipedia, and that person needing an entire Wikipedia article about them.

If there's only one notable fact about someone, then that fact is data, and is best recorded together with other data of the same shape, to put it in the context of its meaning.

It's only when there are many distinct notable facts about someone, all of different shapes, where the best way to connect all those facts together is in carefully-formatted prose, that the right way to record that data becomes "a distinct Wikipedia page for that topic."

I like it. What can make a name on that list notable above other names is the plethora of other awards they may have also made - in advertising it would not just be ClIO, but IBA, ADDY, Hatch, New York International, Sunny, Silver Microphone, Mobius, RAC, London International, ANDY, EFFIE, The One Show, not to mention regional awards. A multidimensional matrix of such award winners would indicate true notability. Other factors might also include the notability of the campaign they created - e.g. the famous 1984 Apple Chiat Day commercial [0] - or the top advertising agency revenues.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I

Wikipedia's notability guideline does not pass judgement on the importance of Oscars or "CLIOs," both of which are notable and have their own pages.

Wikipedia's guideline for the notability of voice actors is:[1]

> 1. Has had significant roles in multiple notable films, television shows, stage performances, or other productions; or

> 2. Has made unique, prolific or innovative contributions to a field of entertainment.

This can be difficult to define. I'd suggest you instead follow the guideline of notability for people generally, which is:[2]

> A person is presumed to be notable if they have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.

I'm always sorry to hear about someone that has gotten frustrated editing Wikipedia. Even though I'd discourage it as a conflict of interest, editors have successfully created articles for friends by simply citing reliable secondary sources that cover them. I'd suggest you give it another try if such sources exist and reach out in the Teahouse[3] if you need help.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(people)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse

The problem isn't with the editors, but admins who spuriously make these judgment calls. It takes hours to create a new article and seconds to delete it. Not going to spend hours more in the silly appeals process.

The bar on deletion should be as high or higher than the bar on creation (spam aside, of course) or you're just going to keep losing editors. Nobody has time to play these stupid games with the juvenile admins.

> The problem isn't with the editors, but admins who spuriously make these judgment calls.

Deletion decisions are made by editors, not admins. See, for example, the decision referenced by the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...

> It takes hours to create a new article and seconds to delete it.

I think the "seconds to delete it" process you're describing is PROD[1], which is for "non-controversial" deletions and there's no appeals process—it can be added back with no justification at any time if any editor disagrees with the deletion. The full deletion process that takes time to appeal is "Articles for Deletion,"[2] through which articles are deleted only through 7 days of consensus-building. This is the process "Bruce Faulconer" went through.

I know it's confusing, and often really frustrating. I'd encourage you to try contesting your PROD deletion if you're willing to give it another try, because it really will bring the article back instantly. It can be difficult for new editors, but users of this forum are a bit better than the average person at source editing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Proposed_deletion

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...

Can I just say... no thanks? I've gone through that process and successfully appealed a deletion before, but it's a dumb policy to begin with. I'm already volunteering my time to create articles for a supposedly open encyclopedia. I'm not going to waste my time arguing with your bureaucrats about whether it's noteworthy enough.

Either Wikipedia culturally decides in favor of openness or you just drive away editors. No ifs and buts about it. Its bureaucracy sucks and has gotten worse over time.

You speak for a lot of people.

That's the problem right there. Advertising is not even included. The number one employer of voice actors (advertisements) and they're not even included in Wikipedia's guideline for the notability of voice actors. I suggest a major revision in that Wikipedia guideline.

> significant roles in multiple notable films, television shows, stage performances, or other productions

- this shows the Wikipedia bias against commercial enterprise and success.

The voice actor who was not "notable" only won over 700 awards, including most of the BIG awards – from Clio, IBA, ADDY, Hatch, New York International, Sunny, Silver Microphone, Mobius, RAC, London International, ANDY, EFFIE, The One Show, and hundreds of regional awards.

Wikipedia serves the public, and its notability heuristic is demand-driven. It doesn't matter how famous someone is within their own domain, if a member of the public outside of that domain would never have reason to look that person up, and therefore would get no marginal value out of Wikipedia having that page.

Personally, I don't know the name of a single advertising voice actor. Nor would anyone even three steps removed within my social circle. I suspect nobody would, save for people in the advertising industry. Ads don't have credits rolls; there's no distinctive visual to recognize voice-actors by, like there is for pitch-men; and voice actors even often sell themselves on their ability to imitate popular ad voices, so "that voice" isn't necessarily just one person. The dynamics of the ad audio industry are stacked against building public recognition.

This is the perfect use-case for a domain-specific wiki about advertisements (which tbh would be a really good idea for several reasons; there isn't much centralized effort currently to do presevation/cataloguing/history on ad media.)

I disagree. Information today is a unified field across all domains - wikipedia has done better than most at addressing that - you may search for something thinking of it in one domain only to find it relevant in another domain. A domain-specific wiki would not deliver that. The first thought that comes to mind is millions of (public) entrepreneurs who in search of a business / domain / trademark name invariably include in their search a peek on Wikipedia. Such searches cross-fertilize so much creativity.

And I also disagree. I'll bet you know James Earl Jones not just as Darth Vader but also because of his instantly recognized voice. In the past 30 days, commercials featuring James Earl Jones have had 28,635 airings. [0]

> The dynamics of the ad audio industry are stacked against building public recognition

While that is true, the opposite is equally true. Advertisers pay top dollar for instantly recognized voices, which are countless in number.

[0] https://www.ispot.tv/topic/actor-actress/kes/james-earl-jone...

> While that is true, the opposite is equally true. Advertisers pay top dollar for instantly recognized voices, which are countless in number.

People recognize the voice, but they don't put a name to it. And that's the thing about Wikipedia, or the Internet in general: you need a textual handle onto something to be able to find it. Even if I recognize a voice actor, I can't search them "by their voice"; I have to figure out how to name something they appeared in, and then search for that.

And advertisements don't have (viewer-visible) names either! So how do I even search for the ad, other than by struggling to describe what happened in it? (This is much of why commercials are "lost media": there's no explicit name to use as a Schelling point to gather people onto the same forum post looking for it.)

> Wikipedia serves the public, and its notability heuristic is demand-driven.

This sentence seems to be incompatible with itself.

> the public

This constitutes all public groups, including the advertising industry.

> its notability heuristic is demand-driven

Driven by who? The editors at Wikipedia? Depending on which domain they reside in, they may have a very skewed perception of what the demand in a particular area is. Donald Knuth is certainly a notable person in computing, but if I ask any of my non-CS friends (and even several CS friends) whether they would consider him notable, most would respond that they don't even know the man.

So it's hard for me to buy this argument since there are certain domains with their own experts and notable figures that are relatively, if not completely, unknown in tangential domains.

> This constitutes all public groups, including the advertising industry.

You're making a useless semiotic distinction. The default English-language connotation of the words "the public" is to refer to "lay-people; civilians; people with a non-vocational interest in a subject." As in, Wikipedia is not an academic publication, nor is it an industrial publication, nor is it an esoteric publication. When such interests are incompatible with the interests of people outside of those groups, Wikipedia chooses the interests of the people outside of the niche ("the public") over the interests of the people in the niche. Niches can go make their own websites. Wikipedia is for the average human being — one who isn't thinking "in" the context of a domain, but rather in the context of "common knowledge." One who can't just take a step back and search for "[domain] wiki" and then use that, because they wouldn't know what to plug in for the [domain] part.

See also: the job of a dictionary in defining words, vs. the job of an academic or industrial or esoteric text in defining jargon terms.

> Driven by who? The editors at Wikipedia?

Like I said — demand. As in, analytics data of what users are trying to look up — Google Analytics traffic for "[topic] wikipedia"; things typed into Wikipedia's own search box; etc. The aggregate measure of humanity's expectation of a particular Wikipedia article existing; and the generalization of that into an expectation on whether Wikipedia will cover particular classes of topics.

> Like I said — demand. As in, analytics data of what users are trying to look up — Google Analytics traffic for "[topic] wikipedia"; things typed into Wikipedia's own search box; etc

Yeah, no. That's literally never cited as a reason to keep or delete a page.

Disagree completely, with respect. Suppose you hear someone with an exceptional voice on a commercial for Toyota or whatever. Why wouldn’t you want to find it on Wikipedia even if it’s the only commercial that person that has ever done it? You may not know about the existence of specialized wikis.

First: Thank you to take the time to write these Wiki pages, especially about deaf sign language in NZ. Maybe you can repost and HN can do some "Internet battle" to keep that page alive? It would be an interesting "Internet fight".

Regarding bizarre pages that remain (but yours does not): a daily cloud -- yes, read that right... a cloud(!) -- has its own Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_(cloud)

Sounds like The Clio Awards need to get the word out

Talk to anybody in advertising, marketing, radio and television ... believe me they know what a CLIO is (and get paid accordingly). There are so many industry specialties now, that to be a dominant player in one may render you virtually unknown in all others.

that, and ads get a bad rap, but damn does it bring in the $$$

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