Wikipedia:Extracting the meaning of significant coverage

Significant coverage is a key aspect of deletion discussions at AfD. This essay aims to break down what our general notability guideline says and implies about significant coverage, and guide people to think about what it doesn't say and how the grey zone of editorial discretion comes into play.

Trivial mentions

Frequently in AfDs participants post a large amount of sources (generally ones that are reliable) and opine a 'keep' argument. That is good. But sometimes when participants do this a large amount of those sources are merely trivial mentions, which do not constitute significant coverage. The general notability guideline states:

Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention

It also provides an example to back this up:

Martin Walker's statement, in a newspaper article about Bill Clinton, that "In high school, he was part of a jazz band called Three Blind Mice" is plainly a trivial mention of that band.

It can sometimes be easy to forget that significant coverage is needed when you are new to deletion discussions.