Wikipedia:Notability cannot be purchased

Notability cannot be purchased.

Wikipedia has a well-established list of criteria for the creation and inclusion of articles. Among these are that the subject of the article must be notable as demonstrated through the presence of multiple, reliable, verifiable, independent, published secondary sources. However, the specifics of those criteria are sometimes vague— what counts as "reliable"? What counts as "verifiable"? This essay addresses in part the question, "What counts as 'independent'?" Briefly, notability is not something which can be purchased through a third party— paid advocacy is not independent, and Wikipedia article space is not for sale.

Obviously, very wealthy people and organizations are likely to be notable. As such, they will certainly warrant their own articles, even if the only notable thing about them is how much money they have. However, not all people or organizations with money are notable— the vast majority, in fact, are not. But the desire to achieve notoriety on Wikipedia may give some individuals the incentive to attempt to produce, if possible, what appears like real-world evidence of notability. Below are some examples.

Paying for non-existent sources

In 2010 a company called Wiki-PR came into existence with the specific goal of helping companies and individuals get into Wikipedia by charging them a fee and falsely generating electronic "sources" to support the notability claims of Wikipedia articles it then wrote on its clients (see Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia for full details). It was subsequently banned, including all of its employees, contractors, and owners, by the Wikipedia community for unethical editing, and many of its articles were identified and marked for deletion. This is an example of one way in which it is not acceptable to establish a claim of notability, through the deliberate deceitful inclusion of what are in fact non-existent sources of information. If a source cannot be verified as real, it should be discounted for the purpose of assessing notability. If a source can be identified as false or contrived, it should be removed.

Paying for a review

Another unacceptable way of generating sources for an article on a given subject is by paying someone else to write on the subject and then having that person publish their material as a seemingly independent source. While it is perfectly fine for someone to pay someone else to review their work and to write about it and even for that review to be included within an article, for the purposes of establishing a Wikipedia notability claim such writing is not considered independent of the subject. "Independent" means not only "produced by someone other than the subject", but also "produced independent of the subject's resources or influence".

Here is an example: a person wants to have a Wikipedia article written about him. He has not done anything notable, but he has an idea for a book. He writes the book and has it published for a fee by a vanity press, but cannot find an independent reviewer to read his work and publish a review. He decides to invest in a paid reviewer, and gives a company several hundred dollars to write up a review. The company may tell him that it gives no guarantee of a good review, no matter how much he pays them, because its own credibility as a legitimate reviewer is on the line. He agrees to a potentially bad review and cuts them a check. Months later his review comes out. It is a rave review of his excellent work. He pays a second company to do the same thing, and gets an identical result. He then sits down and writes his Wikipedia article (yes, despite the conflict of interest) and offers these two reviews by legitimate organizations as evidence of his notability.

Other than the fact that the reviews of a book should only be used to establish the notability of a book, the main problem is that the man has paid a third party to make him look notable when in fact he (so far) is not. If his work had been reviewed by a legitimate and truly independent organization without the man having paid for it (and whether that review was positive or negative), then a notability claim might be viable... For the book, anyway. But the financial transaction means that the review is not independent of the subject, even thought the subject did not write it himself and even though the publisher of the review is a critical, legitimate book-reviewing organization.

Paying to be in a "who's who"

Another example of an attempt to purchase notability is through paying to have one's name published as part of a list in a who's who book. While there are certain exceptions, virtually all of these are considered vanity publications and should not be cited as evidence of notability.

Paying to get an award

Another way that people create dubious notability is by paying to be the recipient of a usually non-notable and non-competitive award. A number of organizations exist which will gladly accept a $40 payment in exchange for recognizing you as being the best entrant for that year in a given (often highly obscure) category of some kind. A free certificate is offered in exchange, and often a trophy is available (for an additional fee). These kinds awards lack some of the things common to legitimate awards such as information about the identities of the judges and the holding of an annual awards banquet. Such "awards" should be carefully scrutinized before being considered valid evidence of notability for the same reasons as the aforementioned paid book review: a financial transaction between the subject and the award means the two are not independent.

Paying for membership in an organization

While there are exceptions, paid memberships in many organizations are not evidence of notability. There are countless organizations that claim a highly exclusive and prestigious clientele whom a person may apply to join by completing an application and submitting an application fee. In many cases the "application" is only a formality, and the organization then lists the person on its membership roll as soon as the check clears the bank. Often there is a regular membership renewal fee as well. Many of these organizations are genuinely notable, but that does not make all of their members notable and no person can be considered to have achieved notability simply by having paid a membership fee to one. Organizations regularly need money, and selling memberships is a virtually free way for them to get it, but a notability claim such membership on its own does not make.

In summary: though a source such as those described above may be used to augment an article on a subject whose notability has already been established on other terms, if Person- or Entity-A pays Person- or Entity-B to generate evidence of notability of Subject-X, and if Person- or Entity-A has an interest (personal, financial, political, or otherwise) in that Subject, then the evidence which is produced does not meet the "independent" clause of Wikipedia's source requirements for establishing a claim of notability and should be discounted when evaluating it. If you have to pay someone to make you or your work look notable, you and/ or your work probably are not.