On 3/30/07 1:13 AM, "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" <macgyvermagic(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Offering subjects to delete on request is a bad idea
IMO. If they can't
handle sourced criticism, we can't possibly have neutral articles on anyone.
The problem often is not that "they can't handle sourced criticism." The
problem is that an article about a borderline-notable person consists of a
stub written by a detractor, which contains nothing but negative minor
minutia about their marriage or the one time they had a DUI, rather than
what the person's actually done to be encyclopedic.
Adding positive sources does nothing to fix the problem - the problem is
that their marriage or their DUI has absolutely nothing whatsoever with why
they're encyclopedic. Biographies of living persons should not be scandal
sheets. The details of personal lives - who they had an affair with, why
they got fired from a job, etc. - are generally irrelevant and should not be
on Wikipedia unless there is a compelling reason which makes those details
encyclopedic.
We have too many people who spend too much time hunting down negative stuff
to write about people who have Wikipedia articles, so that their articles
can be "balanced." That is not balance - that is sensationalism. If
someone's article reads like vanity, tone it down and clean it up - don't go
Lexis-Nexis-searching for that one time he wound up in the local paper when
he injured someone in a car wreck 20 years ago. That doesn't help the
encyclopedia.
-Travis Mason-Bushman