Forum:Proposing an exception to the Notability Policy

This proposal is based on a discussion on the IRC channel, which itself was sparked by the deletion of a page on the wiki that violated the wiki's Notability Policy.

The Notability Policy was adopted in March 2013, and is used to govern what content is and is not allowed in the main namespace on the wiki, based on what kinds of content are notable for the wiki's scope. The policy specifically outlines three kinds of pages which are prohibited on The Sims Wiki: Pages about YouTube or other internet/The Sims community "celebrities" that play The Sims; Pages about custom content (not including mods); and pages that are totally irrelevant to the wiki or the series.

Today, I deleted a page written about a very well-known YouTube personality and Simmer, based on the requirements of the Notability Policy. The decision to do this was discussed on the IRC channel, and there was some question as to whether that article had some place, in some form, on the wiki. Several open-ended questions were posed regarding how this information would be handled, but a basic idea was formed, wherein we would create an article on the wiki which lists different well-known Sims players and personalities in the community. Rather than creating several articles for different people, the idea was to keep one list on a single page, and limit the amount of content provided for each person.

There are a few things that would need to be resolved before such a list could be created. First is the matter of policy. Currently, the Notability Policy prohibits content about internet personalities. If there is community consent here to create that page, it would in effect amend the policy to create an exception in this case. Another matter is determining criteria for placement on the list. Surely there needs to be some cut-off to determine which people warrant placement and which do not, but no concrete figures were discussed on the channel. An additional problem worth considering is regarding whether we allow the persons written about to themselves edit their own entries, or to what degree we allow that sort of contribution. A person written about in a wiki entry might decide to edit their own history or add/delete facts to improve their appearance or reputation. While I doubt the idea of this page is to include detailed biographies on each personality featured, it's not outside the realm of possibility that this could be a problem. It is very well possible that these potential problems were the reason that the prohibition was put into place to begin with, so it will need to be something we weigh and a matter to contend with.

Ultimately, I would like us to consider the option of making an exception to the Notability Policy in order to create a list of well-known Simmers/personalities. I do not know how I land on the exact details of making this so, but those details (as well as the answer to the question of whether or not we want to do this at all) are something we can work out.

When responding, I'd appreciate an answer to these questions. 1. Should we make an exception to the Notability Policy to create a list of personalities? 2. If so, then what kinds of criteria or special conditions should be put in place for the page we create? Of course, feel free to elaborate further, or to discuss this in a different way. If you have any other additional ideas or concerns regarding the Notability Policy, it might be good to bring those up as well -  LostInRiverview talk • blog  •  contribs 06:27, June 20, 2015 (UTC)