In general, notability is an attempt to assess whether the topic has "gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time as evidenced by significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic.
Verifiability, or the ability for the reader to confirm that content corresponds to the cited source, is the standard. "Gather references both to use as source(s) of your information and also to demonstrate notability of your article's subject matter. References to blogs, personal websites and MySpace don't count – we need reliable sources."
Two polarized perspectives on notability are commonly known as "inclusionism" and "deletionism".
In one instance, a group of editors agreed that many articles on webcomics should be deleted on the grounds that the various topics lacked notability. Some of the comic artists concerned reacted negatively, accusing editors of being "wannabe tin-pot dictators masquerading as humble editors."Nicholson Baker noted that by 2007, notability disputes had spread into other topics, including companies, places, websites, and people.