Wikipedia:Wikipedia doesn't care how many friends you have
 | This is an essay on notability. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: The number of fans or followers a subject has is irrelevant in a deletion discussion. Notability determines if an article is kept. |
In many deletion discussions, the number of fans, followers or "friends" (in the Facebook sense of the word) the subject of a biographical article has accumulated is brought up as an argument. This information is irrelevant and citing it ought to be considered an argument to avoid.
Being notable on Wikipedia requires significant coverage in independent reliable sources. Why? Because Wikipedia is not a random collection of information or a business directory or a web or blog hosting service, it's an encyclopedia. There's a reason why you need more than just a one-off event to make you notable and there's a reason you shouldn't create articles about crap you just made up.
Having thousands or hundreds of thousands of people willing to click "Like" on a page may be an indication that a subject is notable but does not in itself make a subject notable: the standard notability criteria apply interpreted through the lens of community consensus. Having lots of people willing to read your posts may be because you are Barack Obama, but the reason Obama is notable is because he was the President of the United States, not because of how many followers he has. The fact that a reality show contestant has lots of Instagram likes doesn't mean they have enduring historical and cultural significance in the same way Jane Austen or Jawaharlal Nehru or John F. Kennedy do.
Wikipedia doesn't care about your Verified account[edit]
Businesses, celebrities, bands and other groups are often given some special kind of account: Facebook allow "Pages" in addition to personal accounts; X (formerly Twitter) has verified accounts. This also doesn't change whether someone is notable a single jot.
Being "verified" on a social media platform can mean a whole variety of things: it can be a status symbol, a means to prevent account impersonation, a way to assure users that posts are associated with a widely known brand or media outlet... or that the account owner has paid money to have a special mark on their profile. Some of these things may correlate with Wikipedia's notability criteria, but they do not always do so.
As with having a lot of fans or followers, being verified or given some other special status on a social networking service may be an indication that the person might meet the notability guidelines, but it is not a sufficient condition for it.
As an aside, it is worth remembering that just because an account is verified, it doesn't mean that it is actually the person named who is posting to it. Posts could very well be made by a ghost writer paid by the celebrity's agent or by brands sponsoring the celebrity.[1]
Being disruptive doesn't make you notable either[edit]
In a lot of discussions of "Web 2.0" and social media, the term "disruptive" is used, often with approval. Numerous companies and services are said to be "disrupting" television or newspapers or education. YouTube is often said to be disrupting television, for instance. Contra Marx, Wikipedia is not here to change (or indeed disrupt) the world's existing media structure, nor even to analyse the world (that would be original research) but simply to try and document in a neutral manner what reliable sources have had to say about the world. Wikipedia is not here to help "media disruptors" challenge the dominance of traditional media.[2] Why? Because Wikipedia is not here to tell the world about your noble cause.
New media celebrities[edit]
As media changes—gets disrupted if you prefer—many new types of celebrities, entertainers and public voices are coming to the fore. YouTube and other social media sites are allowing a new breed of Internet celebrities to exist. Playing the YouTube social game doesn't mean Wikipedia owes you an article. Sending hordes of barely literate twelve-year olds to participate in a deletion debate won't help your cause and is unlikely to give even the most sympathetic inclusionists a sudden urge to hunt down reliable sources to rescue the article.
Footnotes[edit]
- ^ Whether the public figure or one of their staff performed certain actions on their social media account has been the subject of a widely publicised High Court defamation trial, after all.
- ^ Although that occasionally is a side effect of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects