Wikipedia:Masking the lack of notability

This is an essay on notability. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcut WP:MASK

This page in a nutshell: Excellent prose and the sheer number of citations or external links has no effect on a subject's notability.

Masking the lack of notability consists of taking steps to cover up the fact that a subject is really not notable. To do so in itself is not a violation of any policy, and no action will be taken against the creator or other editors themselves (unless a hoax is involved). But if the lack of notability is discovered, and a good cause can be given for its deletion, the article can still be deleted.

Masking is an action that is usually seen from veteran editors who know the difference between what is notable and what is not, and what other editors may look out for prior to making a deletion proposal. Naive newbies are not likely to deliberately mask an article, as they are less likely to know about notability; they are more prone to believe that an article which is well-written and has plenty of reference tags is on a notable subject simply by how it looks. However, professional writers with public relations experience often know to adopt such techniques, some of which are standard in their profession, and will do so even with their first edit. New editors submitting articles through articles for creation often react to notability challenges during the review process with citation overkill in an attempt to make the subject appear more notable than it actually is.