Wikipedia:One hundred words
 | This is an essay on notability, specifically WP:SIGCOV. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community. |
 | This page in a nutshell: 100 words of coverage of a topic generally constitutes significant coverage |
At the present time, the general notability guideline requires multiple (i.e. two) independent reliable secondary sources with significant coverage, but provides inadequate guidance as to what level of coverage is significant. The example presently offered (a large book) should obviously not be taken as a minimum standard for significant coverage, as most topics that meet this criterion have not had entire books written about them.
It is therefore suggested that one hundred non-repetitious words, written in more or less continuous prose is presumed to be significant coverage. This figure is suggested as a minimum. On examination, the 100 words may be judged to be not significant (eg rambling, off topic, not actually secondary source material covering the topic), but if there are less than 100 words, do not offer it as a possible GNG source.
[These numbers were inspired by the length of articles in the New Discovery Encyclopedia (Rainbow Books, 1990), though they are not averages or any other kind of statistic. They roughly correspond with the length of a decent sized paragraph. They also happen to be round numbers. This essay is 186 words]
See also
[edit]- Wikipedia:Extracting the meaning of significant coverage (a close reading of existing guidance)
- Wikipedia:What is significant coverage?