On 6/3/07 10:00 AM, "Jeff Raymond"
<jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
Because the line between "public" and
"private" in non-legal purposes no
longer exists. In the specific situation of Stokke, one could argue,
for our purposes, that she's not a "private" person due to her competing
in public events. Qian Zhijun was, by many probable definitions, a
"private" person to begin with, but ceased becoming one as he took his
notoriety in his own hands. Hell, even Brian Peppers stopped being a
"private" individual when he was convicted.
You don't get to choose whether you're public or private is the greater
point. It's sort of like "marginal" or "minimal" or
"slightly"
notability, or being "a little bit pregnant." You may not *want* to be
noteworthy or public or known or pregnant, or want others to be, but it
happens and that's that.
We're losing focus.
No, Jeff, we're gaining focus. We're focusing on the fact that these
articles are not and never will be biographies. They're scandal sheets.
99 percent of people "in the news" will disappear from the news within a
week. We will never find out who these people really are beyond the single
newsworthy incident they happen to be involved in. There will never be any
other information about their lives. This presents a major problem of undue
weight.
If we allow the creation of Wikipedia articles on every single one of these
people, then, what we get are not biographies, but instead out-of-context
snapshots of a random moment in their lives which happened to intersect with
media or public interest for however long it took them to change the channel
on the television. That means that everyone who ever ends up in a newspaper
will end up with that moment defining them for the rest of their lives on
this encyclopedia, regardless of anything they may have done before or
after.
There may never be a reliable source which tells us that after being the
subject of a messy, expensive and tabloid-covered 10-year custody battle,
little Jeff Doe goes on to have a successful career as a union carpenter,
raising a family and living his life. Instead, for the rest of his life
he'll be defined by Wikipedia as, "Jeff Doe is a man who was the subject of
a massive custody battle in 1992."
Is that what Wikipedia is supposed to do? Define people forever by their
single worst, most tragic, scandalous or Internet-memed moment? I don't
think so.
If we cannot write a balanced, sourced biography on someone which goes
beyond whatever 15 minutes of infamy they happened to be involved in, we
should not write a biographical article on them at all.
Claiming that every single person ever mentioned in a newspaper article is
now an "instant public figure" and should be documented on Wikipedia forever
is a radical and completely unwarranted expansion of the idea of an
encyclopedia.
-Travis