Wikipedia:Source assessment

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This is a place to collect sources and assess the notability of subjects that do not (yet) have an article on Wikipedia, or whose article was deleted. If a subject isn't notable yet, a source assessment page is still appropriate: new sources may pop up in the future, but sources you find today may become harder to find due to link rot, so having a list of sources can be helpful in this case. It's also nice if editors don't have to dig up all the sources from a deleted article all over again when new sources surface and the subject becomes notable. When a user asks why a certain subject doesn't have an article, linking to a source assessment (or suggesting the creation of one) can also be helpful.

The idea for this was first suggested on the idea lab village pump (and now boldly created).

For all source assessment pages, see Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Source assessment/.

Scope[edit]

Examples of when a source assessment page can be useful:

An article or draft for the subject has been created multiple times by different people. A source assessment page can be used to show people why a subject is not notable.
If a subject could somewhat plausibly become notable, a source assessment page is helpful to keep track of sources. This may be interpreted fairly broadly: for example a few interviews in notable magazines or media with tens of millions of views total. No, we're still not interested in your garage band. Keep WP:PROMO in mind.
For subjects that already have an article a source assessment page is sometimes useful. It can be used to organize and filter sources you've found before adding them to the article. It can also be used to keep track of bad sources that should not be added to the article.

Guidelines[edit]

Create a subpage of this page for the subject that needs to be assessed.
Add {{Workpage}} at the top.
Avoid describing the subject in detail on this page. These are not drafts or articles. You can say what it is in one line ("ACME is an American company which makes household cleaning products.") but don't describe why they are notable. Avoid summarizing the sources you link, unless that's needed to show what they contribute to notability.
Don't make the subpage look like an article and avoid images.
Use {{SAT}} and {{SA}} or, for simpler cases, make a bulleted list of sources. You can create multiple headers and move items from the list from one header to another to order them.
Using citation templates rather than bare links is useful, to give context for the source and to help if the link breaks.

Assessing sources[edit]

The WP:SIRS rubriq from WP:NCORP (Significant? Independent? Reliable? Secondary?) may be helpful as a structured assessment of sources.

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WP:SIRS

Individual sources must be evaluated separately and independently of each other and meet the four criteria below to determine if a source qualifies towards establishing notability:

Contain significant coverage addressing the subject of the article directly and in depth.
Be completely independent of the article subject.
Meet the standard for being a reliable source.
Be a secondary source; primary and tertiary sources do not count towards establishing notability.

An individual source must meet all of these criteria to be counted towards establishing notability; each source needs to be significant, independent, reliable, and secondary. In addition, there must also be multiple such sources to establish notability. If the suitability of a source is in doubt, it is better to exercise caution and exclude the source for the purposes of establishing notability.

An example

Imagine that a draft article on Acme Inc. cites four sources: a single-sentence mention in an article by The New York Times while pointing out a missing feature in a rival's product when compared to the product by Acme; an extensive company profile in a Forbes.com blog by a non-staff contributor; a blog post by a tech enthusiast who has provided a review of the product; and a court filing by a competitor alleging patent infringement. Analysis:

The New York Times article is reliable, independent, and secondary – but not significant (a single-sentence mention in an article about another company).

The Forbes blog profile is significant and secondary – but not independent or reliable (most such posts are company-sponsored or based on a company's marketing materials - see WP:FORBESCON).

The tech blog review is significant and secondary – but may not be independent (blog posts are often sponsored) and is not reliable (self-published sources are generally not reliable, unless they are written by subject-matter experts).

The court filing is significant and reliable (in that the court record is a verified account of a legal action being taken) – but not secondary (court filings are primary sources) or independent (they are written by the parties to the legal action, which have a vested interest in the outcome).

Therefore, the article does not have a single source that could be used to establish the notability of the company, let alone multiple sources.

The analysis of the above example can be summarized in the following table:

Source	Significant?	Independent?	Reliable?	Secondary?	Pass/Fail	Notes
The New York Times	N	Y	Y	Y	N	A single-sentence mention in an article about another company.
Profile in Forbes	Y	N	N	Y	N	Most such posts are company-sponsored or based on company's marketing materials.
Tech blog post	Y	?	N	Y	N	Blog posts are often sponsored and self-published sources are generally not reliable unless written by a subject-matter expert.
Court filing	Y	N	Y	N	N	Court filings are primary sources. While we hope they will be truthful, court filings are written by the company (or its opponents in court), so they are not independent.
Total qualifying sources					0	There must be multiple qualifying sources to meet the notability requirements

Tip: How to create a source assessment table

If you'd like to add a source assessment table to any deletion discussion page, you may use the user script User:DannyS712/SATG or the template {{Source assess table}}.

Scope[edit]

Guidelines[edit]

Assessing sources[edit]

See also[edit]