Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Historical archive/Policy/Notability/Arguments (section)

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{{Notability essay}}
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A topic has '''notability''' if it is known outside a narrow interest group or constituency, or should be because of its particular importance or impact. It is an extension of the notion of prominence for [[Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies|biographical articles]]. It differs, however, from fame and importance; while all "famous" and "important" subjects are ''notable'', not all notable subjects are ''famous'' or ''important''.

Currently, there are a number of consensual guidelines regarding notability within a limited subject field, such as for [[Wikipedia:Notability (music)|musicians]], for [[Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)|characters from fiction]], and for [[Wikipedia:Notability (web)|websites]] &ndash; and some others are under development. See the template to the right. An article's failure to meet these suggested requirements is frequently used as an argument to delete said article on [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]].

Lack of notability is often designated by the phrase "non-notable" or the abbreviation "nn".  Whenever using the term or its abbreviation, please explain why you consider the subject to be not notable (e.g. ''"has written a book but it was never published"'').

It is the opinion of some editors that this is what is meant by ''[[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information|Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information]]''.  Many editors also believe that it is a fair test of whether a subject has achieved sufficient external notice to ensure that it can be covered from a [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|neutral point of view]] based on [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]] information from [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources|reliable sources]], without straying into [[Wikipedia:No original research|original research]].