Wikipedia:What is and is not routine coverage

Editors and contributors to Wikipedia may have difficulty determining what is and is not routine coverage of people and or events.

The guideline WP:ROUTINE is widely considered to be a very good guideline. Routine coverages such as weddings, funerals, sports scores, and other "and finally..." stories can be used to add to a notable article some interesting and details about a subject. That does not necessarily mean that such articles are good sources for establishing notability of a subject in the first place.

Conversely, there are many articles of notable events. Coverage in the media may be "routine" to the media (such as routine coverage of the Super Bowl or Winter Olympics) but that does not disqualify the event from being notable.

Editors should be careful in defining what is referred to as "routine" coverage, especially when determining notability.

Examples

Sports

In the world of sports, it is true that many sporting events are routinely covered, but that does not make all coverage of a sporting event "routine" at all. Modern-day sporting events appear regularly in blogs or in local news as sports scores (sometimes called "box scores") without details. Such box scores are examples of routine coverage. Also (as in the case of the National Football League), pre-season games may produce multiple transactions and roster cuts or additions. These statistics are routinely carried in newspapers, but do little to support any notability standard for players.

However, if an article goes into detail about the event, it is not necessarily "routine" coverage. Not every sporting event earns a feature article in the press, and not every professional hopeful gains significant coverage and feature articles.

In other words:

1. "routine coverage" is not a disqualification for notability.
2. "routine coverage" may indeed be significant enough to surpass Wikipedia's general notability guideline.

Politics

Once every four years, the United States holds an election for President. These elections are "routinely" covered by every news outlet and the event is a "pre-planned event" as a part of the United States Constitution. However, that does not mean that this coverage would be excluded from notability discussions because of the WP:ROUTINE guideline.

What's routine coverage of political elections?

Sources that don't suggest notability	Sources that do suggest notability
List of all candidates for office on an official voting website Bare statement of election results in the newspaper Calendar item saying that a candidate will host an event Brief announcement that a candidate is running or has dropped out of the election (less than Wikipedia:One hundred words with no analysis)	Medium-sized or longer news articles describing one or more candidates or election-related events Analysis that compares positions held by various candidates for the same office Scholarly sources describing the candidate, election, or any event(s)

Establishing notability for "people" vs "events"

Additionally, bear in mind that WP:ROUTINE is a subsection of the guideline Wikipedia:Notability (events) and therefore only applies to establishing notability about events. The primary guideline discussing notability of people is Wikipedia:Notability (people).

Conclusion

Be careful not to make WP:ROUTINE mean something that it does not. Just because a news article is written about a pre-planned event does not make it "routine" coverage.

See also

• Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions
• WP:ROUTINE
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wink Hartman AFD discussion involving several issues on this essay