This page documents an English Wikipedia notability guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

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An organization is generally considered notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. All content must be verifiable.

This page is to help determine whether an organization (commercial or otherwise), or any of its products and services, is a valid subject for a Wikipedia article. The scope of this guideline covers all groups of people organized together for a purpose, although people gathered for more specific purposes may be governed by more specific guidelines. For example, people gathered together for the purpose of making music are covered by WP:MUSIC.

Simply stated, an organization is a group of more than one person formed together for a purpose. This includes commercial and non-commercial activities, such as charitable organizations, educational institutions, hospitals, institutions, interest groups, social clubs, companies, partnerships, proprietorships, religious denominations, sects, etc.

This guideline does not cover small groups of closely related people such as families, entertainment groups, co-authors, and co-inventors covered by WP:Notability (people).

Notable means "worthy of being noted" or "attracting notice." It is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance." Please consider notable and demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education. Large organizations are likely to have more readily available verifiable information from reliable sources that provide evidence of notability; however, smaller organizations can be notable, just as individuals can be notable, and arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger organizations.

Primary criteria

A company, corporation, organization, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the subject.

The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. Quotations from an organization's personnel as story sources do not count as substantial coverage unless the organization itself is also a major subject of the story. Neither do the publication of routine communiqués announcing such matters as the hiring or departure of personnel, routine mergers or sales of part of the business, the addition or dropping of product lines, or facility openings or closings, unless these events themselves are the subject of sustained, independent interest.

The source's audience must also be considered. Evidence of attention by international or national, or at least regional, media is a strong indication of notability. On the other hand, attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability.

Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to verify some of the article's content.

The "secondary sources" in the criterion include reliable published works in all forms, such as (for example) newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations^[1] except for the following:

• Press releases; autobiographies; advertising for the company, corporation, organization, or group; and other works where the company, corporation, organization, or group talks about itself—whether published by the company, corporation, organization, or group itself, or re-printed by other people.^[2] Material that is self-published, or published at the direction of the subject of the article, would be a primary source and falls under different policies.

• Works carrying merely trivial coverage; such as (for examples) newspaper articles that simply report meeting times or extended shopping hours, or the publications of telephone numbers, addresses, and directions in business directories.

Special note: advertising and promotion

Advertising is prohibited as an official Wikipedia policy. Advertising should be removed by following these steps, in order:

1. Clean up per Wikipedia:neutral point of view
2. Erase remaining advertising content from the article
3. Delete the article, by listing it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion if no notable content remains. However, if an article contains only blatant advertising, with no other useful content, it may be tagged per Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion instead.

Alternate criteria for specific types of organizations

The following sections discuss other alternate methods for establishing notability in specific situations. However, the text of the article must be supported by independent sources, and avoid primary research. Note that failure to meet these criteria does not disprove notability if it can be otherwise demonstrated.

Non-commercial organizations

Organizations are usually notable if they meet both of the following standards:

1. The scope of their activities is national or international in scale.
2. Information about the organization and its activities can be verified by third-party, independent, reliable sources. (In other words, they must satisfy the primary criterion for all organizations as described above.)

Additional criteria are:

• Organizations whose activities are local in scope may be notable where there is verifiable information from reliable independent sources outside the organization's local area. Where coverage is only local in scope, the organization may be included as a section in an article on the organization's local area instead.
• The organization’s longevity, size of membership, or major achievements, or other factors specific to the organization may be considered. This list is not exhaustive and not conclusive.

Local chapters

• Individual chapters of national and international organizations are usually not notable enough to warrant a separate article unless sufficient notability is established through reliable sources that extend beyond the organization's local area. However, chapter information may be included in list articles as long as only verifiable information is included.
• Even though the parent organization may be notable, individual chapters of national and international organizations may not be notable enough to warrant a separate article.
• Local chapter articles should start as a section of the parent organization article. If the parent article grows to the point where it may be split to a new article, and notability can be demonstrated using the general notability guideline, then it can be split. This should occur as a top down process. See {{splitsection}},

Commercial organizations

Publicly traded corporations

There has been considerable discussion over time whether publicly traded corporations, or at least publicly traded corporations listed on major stock exchanges such as the NYSE, NASDAQ and other comparable international stock exchanges, are inherently notable. Consensus has been that notability is not automatic in this case. However, sufficient independent sources usually exist for such companies that notability can be established using the primary criterion discussed above. Examples of such sources include independent press coverage, analyst reports, and profiles by companies such as Hoover's (a commercial source). Accordingly, article authors should make sure to seek out such coverage and add references to such articles to properly establish notability. Editors coming across an article on such a company without such references are encouraged to do a check (or request others to do such a check) prior to nominating for deletion, given the likelihood that the company is actually notable according to the primary criterion.

Chains and franchises

Many companies have chains of local stores or franchises that are individually pretty much interchangeable—for instance, a local McDonald's. Since there is generally very little to say about individual stores or franchises that is not true for the chain in general, Wikipedia should not have articles on such individual stores. In rare cases, an individual location will have architectural peculiarities that makes it notable, such as the Shell Service Station (Winston-Salem) or the McDonald's (Will Rogers Turnpike); however, a "List of Wal-Marts in China" would not be informative. An exception can be made if a major event occured at a local store; however, this would most likely be created under an article name that describes the event, not the location (see San Ysidro McDonald's massacre for an example).

Products and services

Information on products and services should generally be included in the article on the company itself, unless the company article is so large that this would make the article unwieldy. In that case, the discussion of the company's products and services should be broken out from the company article in summary style.

If the product or service is notable, it can be broken out into its own article. If it is not notable, it should not be broken out into its own article but should have whatever verifiable information about it that exists presented within an article that has a broader scope, such as an article that deals with all of the company's products and services.

If a non-notable product or service has its own article, be bold and merge the article into an article with a broader scope such as the company's article or propose it for deletion.

Notes

1. ^ Examples:
   • Microsoft Word satisfies this criterion because people who are wholly independent of Microsoft have written books about it.
   • All cars that have had Haynes Manuals written about them satisfy this criterion.
   • The Oxford Union satisfies this criterion for having two books (by Graham and by Walter) written and published about it.
2. ^ Self-promotion and product placement are not the routes to having an encyclopaedia article. The published works must be someone else writing about the company, corporation, club, organization, product, or service. (See Wikipedia:Autobiography for the verifiability and neutrality problems that affect material where the subject of the article itself is the source of the material.) A primary test of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself (or of its manufacturer, creator, or vendor) have actually considered the company, corporation, product or service notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it.

See also

• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies)
• Wikipedia:Autobiography (for companies that are creating articles about themselves)
• Wikipedia:FAQ/Business