Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)
 | This page documents an English Wikipedia notability guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. |
 | This page in a nutshell: 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. If no independent, third-party, reliable sources can be found on a topic, then Wikipedia should not have an article on it. |
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 separate Wikipedia article dedicated solely to that organization, product, or service. The scope of this guideline covers all groups of people organized together for a purpose with the exception of non-profit educational institutions, religions or sects, and sports teams. If another subject-specific notability guideline applies to a group, it could be notable by passing either this or the more specific guideline. For example, bands are covered by Wikipedia:Notability (music).
Bear in mind that only a small percentage of the world's organizations meet the requirements for a Wikipedia article.
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, political parties, hospitals, institutions, interest groups, social clubs, companies, partnerships, proprietorships, for-profit educational institutions or organizations, etc.
This guideline does not cover small groups of closely related people such as families, entertainment groups, co-authors, and co-inventors covered by Wikipedia:Notability (people).
Decisions based on verifiable evidence
[edit]Wikipedia bases its decision about whether an organization is notable enough to justify a separate article on the verifiable evidence that the organization or product has attracted the notice of reliable sources unrelated to the organization or product. Notability requires only that these necessary sources have been published — even if these sources are not actually listed or referenced in the article itself (though in most cases it would improve the article to add them).
No inherent notability
[edit]No company or organization is considered inherently notable. No organization is exempt from this requirement, no matter what kind of organization it is, including schools.[1] If the individual organization has received no or very little notice from independent sources, then it is not notable simply because other individual organizations of its type are commonly notable or merely because it exists . Notability is not synonymous with either fame or importance. No matter how important editors personally believe an organization to be, it should not have a stand-alone article in Wikipedia unless reliable sources independent of the organization have given significant coverage to it.
When evaluating the notability of organizations or products, please consider whether they have had any significant or demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education. Large organizations and their products are likely to have more readily available verifiable information from reliable sources that provide evidence of notability. However, smaller organizations and their products can be notable, just as individuals can be notable. Arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger organizations or their products, though articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable per Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not § Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion.
No inherited notability
[edit]An organization is not notable merely because a notable person or event was associated with it. A corporation is not notable merely because it owns notable subsidiaries. The organization or corporation itself must have been discussed in reliable independent sources for it to be considered notable. Examples: If a notable person buys a restaurant, the restaurant does not "inherit" notability from its owner. If a notable person joins an organization, the organization does not "inherit" notability from its member.
This works the other way as well: If an organization is notable, individual members (or groups of members) do not "inherit" notability due to their membership in the organization. If a corporation is notable, its subsidiaries do not "inherit" notability from being owned by the corporation.
Note: Some sources discuss more than one subject. Example: A single newspaper article discusses a business, its founder, and its products. A trade magazine compares multiple similar products from several different companies. A magazine article discusses a celebrity's new film and a new fashion line. In such cases, the part(s) of the source that is about the subject of the article should be counted, and the part(s) of the source that are about other subjects should be ignored. Per the Wikipedia:General notability guideline, the subject of the article "does not need to be the main topic of the source material" for that source to count towards notability. Do not discard source material that is about the subject merely because the source also contains information that is not about the subject.
Primary criteria
[edit]A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is presumed notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.
These criteria, generally, follow the general notability guideline with a stronger emphasis on quality of the sources to prevent gaming of the rules by marketing and public relations professionals. The guideline, among other things, is meant to address some of the common issues with abusing Wikipedia for advertising and promotion. As such, the guideline establishes generally higher requirements for sources that are used to establish notability than for sources that are allowed as acceptable references within an article.
How to apply the criteria
[edit]Individual sources must be evaluated separately and independently of each other and meet the four criteria below to determine if a source qualifies towards establishing notability:
- Contain significant coverage addressing the subject of the article directly and in depth.
- Be completely independent of the article subject.
- Meet the standard for being a reliable source.
- Be a secondary source; primary and tertiary sources do not count towards establishing notability.
An individual source must meet all of these criteria to be counted towards establishing notability; each source needs to be significant, independent, reliable, and secondary. In addition, there must also be multiple such sources to establish notability. If the suitability of a source is in doubt, it is better to exercise caution and exclude the source for the purposes of establishing notability.
Imagine that a draft article on Acme Inc. cites four sources: a single-sentence mention in an article by The New York Times while pointing out a missing feature in a rival's product when compared to the product by Acme; an extensive company profile in a Forbes.com blog by a non-staff contributor; a blog post by a tech enthusiast who has provided a review of the product; and a court filing by a competitor alleging patent infringement. Analysis:
- The New York Times article is reliable, independent, and secondary – but not significant (a single-sentence mention in an article about another company).
- The Forbes blog profile is significant and secondary – but not independent or reliable (most such posts are company-sponsored or based on a company's marketing materials - see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources § Forbes.com contributors).
- The tech blog review is significant and secondary – but may not be independent (blog posts are often sponsored) and is not reliable (self-published sources are generally not reliable, unless they are written by subject-matter experts).
- The court filing is significant and reliable (in that the court record is a verified account of a legal action being taken) – but not secondary (court filings are primary sources) or independent (they are written by the parties to the legal action, which have a vested interest in the outcome).
Therefore, the article does not have a single source that could be used to establish the notability of the company, let alone multiple sources.
The analysis of the above example can be summarized in the following table:
| Source | Significant? | Independent? | Reliable? | Secondary? |
|---|