The following is a brief overview of new discussions taking place on the English Wikipedia. For older, yet possibly active, discussions please see last week's edition.
At Wikipedia talk:Notability#Do news reports confer notablity? John Kenney sought clarification over the meaning of guidance that "routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for a topic to have its own standalone article". Jinnai offered the opinion that it related to "stuff like late-night sports highlights on the all the professional games that were played that day, annoucements for stuff like space shuttle launching, and tabloids specifically go out to sensationalize trivial events" [sic]. However, S Marshall countered that "A reliable source is a reliable source, and if there are several of them, the article passes the GNG." Gavin.collins argued that "Notability is about which topics should be included in Wikipedia as standalone topics, and sometimes news articles on their own don't provide sufficient coverage to provide information to provide context to the reader." The debate turned to whether coverage of individual sports matches would allow for the creation of an article on that match. Gavin.collins argued that while "loads of coverage can be found for one match ... I still think rountine news reports (no matter how long) are more or less a primary source" [sic]. Masem said "(w)hen an event occurs, even if it has much coverage that day, it is difficult to ascertain if that event is truly notable to gain an article". S Marshall countered that "what makes something significant (i.e. notable) is the fact that it's been noted in reliable sources. Why should any other judgment of "significance", apart from the reliability of the sources, matter?"
A round up of polls spotted by your writer in the last seven days or so, bearing in mind of course that voting is evil. You can suggest a poll for inclusion, preferably including details as to how the poll will be closed and implemented, either on the tip line or by directly editing the next issue.
Fourteen Requests for comment have been made in the week of 14–20 September:
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