Wikipedia talk:Notability (music)

Do all of these guidelines imply GNG or are they stand-alone?

Do the guidelines here, the criteria for musicians and ensembles, for composers and lyricists, others, recordings and songs have stand-alone merit, or do they imply ways that WP:GNG could be met? In other words, if a band has had a single or album on any country's national music chart and has released two or more albums on a notable record label, but has no general coverage, should it be exempt from having a notability tag on it? If a single has appeared on a music chart in Scotland, and has been nominated for Mercury Prize, but fails to generate any press, does it merit an article? Please clarify. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:27, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I assume that they are specific examples of how a subject can satisfy the GNG requirements. I think the assumption here is that if an artist or work meets these criteria, there will be reliable coverage of them. What single are you referring too? I would think it would be a rather rare occurrence that a nominee for a major award would generate zero press.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 19:38, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

The single is hypothetical. The band is not.

So if they meet the criteria, but don't have coverage, they do not meet WP:N. (I know the answer, but I want another editor, or editors, to state it). Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:04, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

In fact, I would like to suggest that we modify the opening sentence. It currently reads:

This page provides a guideline of how editors should apply the concept of notability regarding topics related to music, including artists, bands, albums, and songs.

I would like to change it to the following:

This page provides specific examples of how the general notability guideline may be demonstrated regarding topics related to music, including artists, bands, albums, and songs. It is not a stand-alone guideline but assumes that subjects that meet one or more of the criteria below will have significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

We may need to take the changes to the town pump or a larger group. Let's start by agreeing on a new lede. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:18, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I tend to disagree. Meeting the GNG is the bare minimum for consideration of creating an article: no one should ever, under any circumstances, create an article until they can demonstrate that the GNG is actually met. Not "may be met in the future" or "is probably met", but actually met as demonstrated through sources. That leaves the SNGs to define the way sources can be used or how it applies to a specific subject area, such as this guideline's guidance that mentions of a song in the context of an album review don't contribute to notability. Right now, this guideline is a mix of the wishful thinking that your proposed nutshell describes and the useful material that I describe. First step is to remove all the wishful thinking.—Kww(talk) 15:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I tend to see topic-specific notability criteria as shortcuts. That a song has charted shouldn't itself mean that it's notable, but stands in for extensive experience which shows that when a song is listed on a national chart, sufficient sources will exist. In practice, however, citing the shortcuts is taken as enough in deletion debates. In other words, showing that it charted is enough; other sources not required. I don't know that this is a bad thing, but it does mean that we need to be really careful about how we're wording the criteria. WP:NFILM has a good approach which clearly defines the criteria as shortcuts that are contingent on sources, etc.

The following are attributes that generally indicate, when supported with reliable sources, that the required sources are likely to exist: ... These criteria are presented as rules of thumb for easily identifying films that Wikipedia should probably have articles about. In almost all cases, a thorough search for independent, third-party reliable sources will be successful for a film meeting one or more of these criteria. However, meeting these criteria is not an absolute guarantee that Wikipedia should have a separate, stand-alone article entirely dedicated to the film.

We could adopt something like that here. I've long had a problem with the specific criterion in question here. A song charting at the bottom of one of the Billboard charts, according to these rules, is an automatic in for the song, the album, and the band, regardless of sources, which just doesn't make sense to me. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:54, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I think we're all in agreement. Can we propose an update to the opening paragraph here? I took a stab at one. The one from NFILM is also good and, with appropriate modifications for music, wouldn't have a problem adding it here. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:26, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

On what portion do you think I agree?—Kww(talk) 16:35, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

On the idea that GNG is the foundation and that the criteria here are ways that may result in significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Are you suggesting that we do not agree in principle on that or are you being terse because you're playing a political game? Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:59, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

GNG is a requirement, but not the sole requirement. I think Kww said it best. Snuggums (talk / edits) 18:45, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't mean to be terse at all, and thought I had been quite clear earlier. The SNG isn't a way that suggests that the GNG may be met, because we don't care if the GNG may be met: we only care if it actually is met, and only the existence of reliable sources counts towards that. Meeting the GNG is an absolute bare minimum, and no one should ever create an article that doesn't meet it. All parts of this guideline that engage in that kind of wishful thinking about things that suggest something should meet the GNG should be removed. All that should remain is guidance about what kinds of sources are suitable and unsuitable (i.e, that album reviews do not demonstrate notability for individual songs on the album).Kww, (talk) 19:10, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed with Rhododendrites. –Chase (talk / contribs) 20:29, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed with Kww on this matter, because either something is notable or it is not per GNG and nothing else. This is just some of the criteria to look to in order to show GNG. A charting no matter the placement on what chart, either shows commercial viability of music (sales/streaming) or the amount it has been played (rotation/radio). So, it does not matter to me what chart or what number, only if it does chart. A musician or band does not even have to chart to show significant coverage to satisfy GNG because some people make music that is not commercial or radio friendly, yet they can receive numerous reviews for their music. So, I am fine with the criteria and wording as it is presently spelled out.The Cross Bearer (talk) 01:10, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, it's not the case that simply claiming that a topic meets any one of the criteria here becomes an automatic entitlement to keep a Wikipedia article regardless of the quality of sourcing that's available. Emerging musicians are especially prone (though not uniquely so, as film directors and writers and actors and other people in "self-employed" creative fields also do it) to making promotional claims that would appear to pass NMUSIC, but actually aren't verifiable anywhere — such as claiming "hit single" status, on the basis that it got playlisted on one or two individual radio stations, for a song that was never actually a hit on any of the IFPI-certified charts that it takes to satisfy NMUSIC's criterion for charting hits. I've often pointed out in AFD debates that it's not the claim of passing NMUSIC that gets a musician or a band over NMUSIC, but the quality of sourcing that can be provided to properly verify the claim.

Conversely, however, we often see AFD attempts on musicians who do have the necessary and properly sourced notability. I've seen people try to make AFD cases that a musician is non-notable if they haven't had a conventional Top 40 hit (or if they had one or more hits on a genre chart rather than a mainstream pop chart), or if their music wasn't released on a major label. I've seen people claim in AFDs that indie vs. mainstream in music should be treated as directly analogous to minor league vs. major league in sports, thus excluding the indie artists from Wikipedia in the same way that we exclude minor league hockey or baseball players. So while it's true that I've seen a lot of people argue that we have to keep an article about a musical artist because of an unsourced or unverifiable claim to passing this guideline, I've also seen a lot of people try to make up their own personal notability criteria, outside of whether the topic objectively meets a Wikipedia inclusion standard or not, to get artists deleted on the basis of the nominator personally not having heard of them before. Which is, needless to say, just as wrong as creating an article based entirely on primary sources — and is precisely why we need to have some objective standards in place for what constitutes a valid claim of notability for a musician or band.

The only real issue I have with WP:GNG is that since there's no single objective standard for measuring whether that rule is met or not, we have a lot of topics who fall into a range where there ends up being subjective debate about that. At the extremes, some people will argue that GNG is met if they can find just one news article about the band in their own hometown's local community weekly newspaper — while others will argue that GNG isn't met until the volume of coverage is comparable to what Beyoncé gets. Which is one of the reasons why we have subject-specific corollary guidelines: to clarify some of the points that Wikipedia accepts as valid claims of notability to support a Wikipedia article. They don't constitute an exemption from having to reliably source the content — they just clarify the kinds of things that the reliable sources have to state about the topic to make them eligible for inclusion here, and the claim itself still does have to be reliably sourced.

All of that said, I've often argued in favour of Wikipedia maintaining a stricter level of minimum quality standards, such as how much sourcing should be present in the article from the start — but the established consensus at AFD has always been that a WP:GNG-satisfying level of reliable sourcing merely has to exist, and does not necessarily have to already be in the article as written. For instance, if a politician gets elected to an WP:NPOL-satisfying office, then you get to start, and Wikipedia must keep, at least a stub article about them as soon as you can add just one reliable source confirming that they hold (or have been declared elected to) the office. Yes, that article still requires content and sourcing improvement — but since we know for a fact that people holding those levels of political office are a thing that reliable media sources do write about, its keepability is not a question of how much sourcing has already been added to the initial version of the article, but of the fact that improved sourcing already does and will exist. (It can and will still be deleted if evidence is shown that the RS was wrong — such as the source incorrectly ascribing to the topic an office that they didn't actually hold, or the topic having been declared elected to the office on the initial election count but then losing on a recount and thus not actually taking the office — but the article doesn't actually have to assert or source any additional evidence of notability, beyond the simple fact of holding the office, to be keepable.)

And similarly, it certainly isn't impossible that a band or musician could nominally meet one of these criteria while actually failing to be the subject of enough RS coverage to satisfy GNG — for example, within the past few months I personally AFDed an article about a musician who had managed the neat trick of peaking #94 on a Billboard specialty genre chart while not actually having any genuinely substantive RS coverage locatable anywhere, and whose article was thus relying entirely on primary sourcing with no imminent prospects of improvement — but it is rare enough that as long as the basic claim is properly sourced, we grant the article an opportunity to get improved rather than rushing it out the door right away, while still reserving the right to kill it off if somebody puts in the effort and determines that the necessary level of RS coverage isn't there.

So to summarize, while I do understand and accept that this guideline has been misunderstood at times, the intention of NMUSIC is as follows:

1. The claimed notability criterion must still be supported by at least one reliable source, and simply claiming it is not an exemption from sourcing requirements.
2. If the claim is made and properly sourced, then the article is granted a presumption of notability, which can also be thought of as a "grace period" for content and sourcing improvements to be added.
3. The article does not, however, gain "inherent notability", or a permanent entitlement to keep an article on Wikipedia regardless of its sourceability; if an editor makes a reasonable WP:BEFORE effort to locate improved sourcing and comes up dry, then the article can still be listed for AFD — and can still be deleted — if that "presumption of notability" fails to actually pan out in RS.

So I agree with modifying this guideline's wording to make that clearer — I like Rhododendrites' wording, and agree that NFILM does a much better job of articulating essentially the same principles. But a band or musician satisfying GNG is a question of whether quality reliable sources exist, not of whether any particular >1 number of reliable sources have already been added to the existing version of an article. Bearcat (talk) 19:28, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

This is second proposal:

The following are attributes that generally indicate, when supported with reliable sources, that the required sources are likely to exist. These criteria are presented as rules of thumb for easily identifying topics related to music, including artists, bands, albums, and songs, that Wikipedia should probably have articles about. In almost all cases, a thorough search for independent, third-party reliable sources will be successful for a topic meeting one or more of these criteria. However, meeting these criteria is not an absolute guarantee that Wikipedia should have a separate, stand-alone article entirely dedicated to the subject.

Are there any concerns or suggestions for improvement? Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:14, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

That looks like a fine place to start to me, without getting into the messiness of addressing/removing individual criteria. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:53, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

A topic is of encyclopedic relevance if it has generated sufficient interest or had sufficient impact. This guideline, and also the GNG are there to indicate when topics are likely to be of encyclopedic relevance - the GNG is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Subject-specific guidelines have never been there as a temporary 'grace period' indicator. Sourcing is a requirement of WP:V, which is a policy and therefore more crucial than any guideline. I find the obsession with the GNG obstructive to building a good encyclopedia. If we have sufficient verifiable and relevant information on a topic with encyclopedic relevance, we should have an article, if we don't we summarise the topic elsewhere if appropriate. Properly sourced stubs are fine, however. So in summary, I oppose any suggestion of this guideline indicating a 'grace period'. We get far too many attempts to change these guidelines simply because an editor disagreed with someone else or misinterpreted it (e.g. by misinterpreting the guideline as stating that any position on any Billboard chart is an indicator of notability - it isn't and the guideline doesn't say it is). The guideline is fine as it is. --Michig (talk) 18:50, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

The thing is, however, that Wikipedia's consensus has always been that a GNG-satisfying level of sourcing does not have to already be in the article as written — it merely has to demonstrably exist. Nobody's said here that any article is allowed to exist while containing no sourcing — but if it contains one RS which demonstrates that a criterion has been met which Wikipedia accepts as a legitimate notability claim, then the current quality of the article is not legitimate grounds for deletion anymore. It could still be deleted if somebody puts in the effort and can't find the necessary level of RS coverage, absolutely — but an article's keepability is conditional on whether it can be improved and not, as much as I might wish otherwise sometimes, on its current state of content and referencing. Once one RS, properly supporting a legitimate notability claim, is present in an article, the onus is on you to prove that further RS coverage doesn't exist before you have any serious chance of getting it deleted. No policy requires the article to already be in a better state of referencing than it is — once a basic claim of notability is supported by a reliable source, you have to do enough WP:BEFORE to know that additional sourcing isn't there to improve the article with before it can be considered a deletion candidate. Until somebody has done that and determined that proper sourcing isn't there, an inadequately written article may only be tagged for {{notability}} and/or {{refimprove}} — as long as RS coverage can be shown to exist, an article cannot be rushed out the deletion door just because it isn't already up to GA/FA standards. That's what I meant by "grace period". Bearcat (talk) 21:21, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

• Our guidelines are, by definition, imprecise and fuzzy, as compared with the policies which are more exacting. We have numerous articles for topics which are based upon the status of the subject rather than the demonstrable existence of significant coverage. Olympic athletes, for example. It seems likely that number one position in a major chart; gold record or other such achievement would be regarded as adequate evidence of notability. But a guideline is, by its nature, never going to provide a hard rule for such situations; they have to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Andrew D. (talk) 22:31, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

For the record

• For the record, the discussion that caused me to become frustrated enough to suggest a change here was at Talk:Sleeping Giant (band) and I'm afraid that I will write something I may regret later, so perhaps an editor or two could weigh-in on the lone topic there as we consider if and how to change the foundational statement here. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:54, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Yes, Sleeping Giant are 100 percent notable, and I proved that fact, which means for us to move onto something else more pertinent.The Cross Bearer (talk) 00:57, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Question

Does anyone find the nutshell statement and the first sentence of this policy redundant? Mkdw^talk 08:22, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Similar, yes. Redundant, no. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:37, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Notability standard for record labels

There have been some discussions in the past about what makes a record label notable and how we would evaluate that, such as in 2008, in 2009, in 2010, in 2012, in 2014, but I see that nothing has actually been added to this guideline about it. Based on a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fake Four Inc. and partly on my talk page, I think it is worthwhile to establish criteria for record labels specifically. I don't have a lot of experience in this topic area or in evaluating notability guidelines, but I'd like to see this happen. Previous discussions have suggested pointing users interested in notability guidelines for record labels to WP:CORP, which is proper, but may be too vague for this.

There's an indication from discussions that some editors think labels are inherently notable because of their impact on culture, but, for one thing, nothing is inherently notable and notability is separate from "importance", and this has to hold up to WP:GNG: if it's notable, reliable sources will have written about it. This is about creating a guideline for users to quickly evaluate if reliable sources are likely to exist. This seems to be a two-part question: what about a record label makes it so that independent authors are likely to write in-depth material about it, and who are those reliable sources? The sources, I think, are music magazines, books, newspapers, and probably others that I'm not thinking of, but this part is not the hard part.

The hard part is the criteria. What is a minimum threshold for a label to be likely to have independent coverage? Being a prolific producer of content in a particular genre, significant distribution, winning certain major awards, signing a roster of notable artists? This is outside my area of knowledge somewhat. The guideline currently defines "one of the more important indie labels" as "an independent label with a history of more than a few years, and with a roster of performers, many of whom are independently notable". Although that's a sentence about importance and not about notability, that seems like a decent place to start.

From past conversations, there is a concern that creating this guideline would have a walled garden effect, where a non-notable label and a non-notable artist signed to the label could be seen to inherit notability from each other. I don't share that concern: notability is not inherited; if a label is only noteworthy because it is owned by a notable performer, it should be written about in the performer's article, and so on. Avoiding this effect means that we should be careful to create a guideline that doesn't depend on the notability of other topics, i.e. a label is not likely to be notable just because its founder is notable, nor just because it has signed notable performers.

Okay, that's a lot of words, so how about a short question. Why do reliable sources write about record labels?

Looking forward to hearing ideas. Thanks. Ivanvector (talk) 17:48, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

@Ivanvector:, has there been a survey of record label outcomes at AFD? One thing that may want to be considered is adding a section at WP:OUTCOMES rather than giving record labels specifically a second set of guidelines for notability. This is what happened with schools where the discussion about inherent notability kept coming up. Mkdw^talk 18:01, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Good idea. No survey has been done that I know of. I don't exactly know how to request one, or where to request one. I guess I could do it myself but I don't really know what I'm doing. Ivanvector (talk) 16:42, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I've started to build a survey at User:Ivanvector/Record labels AfD survey. If anyone would like to contribute, please do. Ivanvector (talk) 15:00, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand why music labels are any different than any other corporation. We have WP:CORP. Beyond that, a product that a company sells doesn't make the company notable. While Heineken beer is notable, distributors of Heineken are not notable merely because they distribute or promote Heineken. The Dissident Aggressor 20:42, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the analogy is accurate. Beer distributors do not have a say in how the beer is made, or influence the public taste in beer, or influence beer culture in general. They just deliver product. Record labels have had a huge impact on musical culture, both on a macro and micro level. They often have a "sound" that transcends any one particular group. They often have created whole genres. They influence, for bad and for good, the output/flavor of a the artists they distribute. With the advent of the internet and the preponderance of self-distribution and a more direct-marketing method than existed in the past, a record label's influence is certainly not today what it was in the past, but when a record label shows clear signs of importance/influence to high/low/medium musical culture, I think some thought ought to be given before just judging it by WP:CORP. This is a quick summary, and I hope to expand on my thoughts later. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 20:59, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

You show a gross misunderstanding of beverage retailing if you don't think beer distributors influence consumer behavior. . They influence, "for bad and for good, the content" delivered to a market. The Dissident Aggressor 03:12, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

How about we stick to record labels? Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:11, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I would argue that we don't need any special criteria since we know that it all relates back to WP:GNG. If there's enough press, they'll meet that criteria. Otherwise, they won't and no criteria we invent can supersede that. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:15, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

iTunes

Quick question... are the iTunes charts considered a major national chart for notability purposes? Onel5969 (talk) 21:27, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I doubt it. iTunes charts are single-vendor charts and "Charts pertaining to only one specific retailer should not be used." (Wikipedia:Record charts) Random86 (talk) 00:34, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

WP:BADCHARTS. They're not even charts, they're sales records. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:00, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

WP:NTOUR needs clarification about concert reviews

There's a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/That Bass Tour (2nd nomination) where editors are divided about whether reviews of individual concerts count toward notability for a concert tour, as two different interpretations of WP:NTOUR. It would be helpful for this notability discussion, and I imagine many similar future discussions, to make the guideline explicit about this. Dreamyshade (talk) 03:16, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Wiki should develop a set of notability guidelines for special interest music of past and antique eras

I have written a lot about 60s garage rock bands and other specialty genres, but I realize that many of the acts from such genres are undeniably obscure. If a unique, but obscure performing artist or group came from fifty years ago, but is still of interest to specialists, fans, collectors, musicologists, and/or anthropologists (even a half century later), should we treat them same way that we would a more recent smalltime act that is unlikely to be of any permanent or collectable interest in the future? How, do we make the distinction? I realize that this one is a tough call. But, I think that there is a difference. Obviously, we must find reliable sources for any act. But, sometimes older acts are at a disadvantage, when it comes to passing the same kind of bar. Recently, I had to defend an article against deletion (see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Twentieth Century Zoo (2nd nomination)). So maybe this Wiki project needs to come up with a set of guidelines for dealing with older musical acts that are obscure, but are still of collectable/specialist interest. Garagepunk66 (talk) 02:40, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

We can't offer any advice that would go against WP:GNG. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:43, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but could new policies and guidelines be considered? Garagepunk66 (talk) 02:47, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

The point is that if a subject has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list. In cases like this, print sources are usually required. If you don't have access to those, it's not likely going to be easy to defend a subject's notability. So if you can indicate that the subject is notable using some other means, then you can try to wiggle in that "presumed" clause. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:00, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate what you just said. I feel more confident now that well-sourced articles covering rare/antique acts can be protected under the current guidelines--that is assuming that the articles are properly sourced, truthful, and well-written. I realize that if printed sources are unavailable, then that may cause a problem. Usually, if I cannot find a printed source, then I try to find multiple corroborating internet sources for each point mentioned, as a way to compensate, but I realize that may not be enough in every case. I suppose that comes down to a judgment by consensus of editors to have an article deleted. There is always the chance that a rare act may later become better known, and that printed sources may later become available. I have seen this happen before (i.e. the band, Death, who were almost unknown just five years ago, but now have achieved much larger level of fanfare--they even now even have a glossy documentary film about them on DVD). Garagepunk66 (talk) 23:04, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Just a couple of things it's important to understand when it comes to satisfying GNG:

Firstly, while sources do have to exist, Wikipedia does not have any requirement that those sources be web-published — you can cite stuff to old print newspapers, books, magazines and other content that isn't instantly accessible via the web, as long as you provide enough citation details that somebody can find the content in question if they have a need to go looking for it. We do have a bit of an unintentional recentist bias on here, because websourcing is easier for most people than digging into old archives is, but paper-only-no-web sourcing is allowed if you've got it.

Secondly, even if an article does get deleted, that isn't actually a permanent ban on the band ever having a Wikipedia article. If you can compile stronger sourcing than was brought to bear the first time, or if circumstances change and the band now satisfies one or more NMUSIC criteria that it didn't satisfy at the time of the original discussion, then you are allowed to create a better article than the deleted version. We have plenty of articles about musicians where an early version got deleted, because at the time it was a promotional spiel about an aspiring wannabe who hadn't actually crossed the bar yet — but then at some later point they did achieve something more than they had at the time of the original AFD discussion, the availability of quality sourcing improved, and presto, they qualified for a new article again. Even Beyoncé was once an aspiring musician who wouldn't have qualified for a Wikipedia article yet if we had actually existed at the time. So the fact that a band may become more notable in the future than they are today doesn't actually create a conflict with our rules — for some bands or musicians, an AFD deletion is not so much a case of "never" as it is one of "not yet".)

And finally, mass popularity is one way that a musician or band can attain wikinotability — but it already isn't the only way. We have lots of articles about "obscure" acts who never came close to matching the commercial achievements or the "household name" recognition of Beyoncé, The Beatles or U2 — while mainstream commercial success is one of the criteria listed here, it's by no means a prerequisite that all acts have to meet. Several of the other criteria listed here can be easily passed by "obscure" garage bands, as long as quality sourcing is present to support them — so I don't see that any new "special case" criteria would need to be added.

Hope that helps a bit. Bearcat (talk) 20:26, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Notability for non-Western Music

I want to challenge the notability standards here, and how they would apply to non-Western (US, England, Europe, Australia) music. It seems that many of those guidelines of what can be notable is based off an American concept of notability. Pertaining to how much American songs monopolize the views of what's "popular", for several political and linguistic reasons. My question here is that it could ultimately be ignorant to assess notability based on information we can get in English (not every source is being translated), how it's relevant to the U.S population, which only makes up 0.04% of the world's population by the way, 314million vs 7 billion, just ask google for the numbers.

In other words, unless an editor is fairly well acquainted with the topic, or is from the country where the artists originate, they would be the worst judge of notability. In a country like the U.S where you need to have gone through x's and squares before being considered notable, it's understandable that there be so many rules. But let's say a country like the Dominican Republic, what they will consider popular and notable, doesn't accord with what you consider notable.

I'm bringing this up because I've met with lots of conflicts about edits and removals done of Korean artists, that are being considered notable by those that are part of the scene, and these acts are receiving views and attention from their home country and international fans, however they do not meet your standards because you're expecting them to reach Michael Jackson level, or Lady Gaga. Plus, for various reasons, as Americans dominate the international market for Media exports, there's an incredible bias towards their artists. There's a difference in political outreach, electronic outreach, social economic status and population of countries, that really make it a Herculean task to be "notable". Even if new artists get assessed in comparison to their peers like Big Bang or Girls Generation,  there needs to be basic knowledge about the K-pop scene and how it works. One would actually never compare 9 year old bands with rookies of the year. The way to assess rookies is in accordance to other rookies, and whether or not in that pool of acts their relevance is actual. Compare their album sales, chart rankings and youtube views between each other that debuted the same year. It'll be easy to tell which where flops, and later in the year, if they are still relevant, they can be tagged one hit wonders or not, become regulars in the scene.  

Just saying that the current notability guidelines don't put the artists that aren't American on equal footing as their more marketed peers.--Yenamare (talk) 16:22, 3 May 2015 (UTC)