----- Original Message -----
From: James Farrar
To: English Wikipedia
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Brandt, bios, and other thoughts
On 20/04/07, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Posted on behalf of Musical Linguist, at her request:
The argument for deleting it is that it's the
decent thing to do, and
it might stop the stalking.
"Might" isn't good enough, I'm afraid.
An argument against deleting it is that
he's notable enough to *permit* inclusion. He is not notable enough to
*require* inclusion. We would not lose credibility as an encylopaedia
if the article were gone.
I don't recognise degrees of notability beyond the binary state of
"notable enough to have an article" or "not". Talk of degrees of
notability are unhelpful because you could be faced with a question of
"where do we draw the line?" - we already have that line.
Deleting an article because the subject wants it deleted would set a
terrible precedent. What do we do in the future if someone else wants
their bio deleted? If we delete this one, we must delete all bios on
request.
------------------
Hmmm... no, I don't buy that. - I don't buy that this is precedent setting, even
were it to happen. I simply don't think any argument that includes "we
must...." is ever acceptable.
We can choose to delete for minor notables, and not for major notables. It adds a layer
of decision making (who decides who's a major notable and a minor notable?), but
that's not insurmountable. Frankly, I also don't buy that there are no levels of
notability. Sanjaya, say, is notable today, but will he be in five years? 50 years?
Whereas, Charles Darwin is notable forever.
Philippe