[WikiEN-l] Borderline notable bios (yes, again)

[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:36:34 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
wrote:

>> Original research.  we don't know (either way) because there are no
>> reliable sources.

>Actually, the person who claimed to be the guy's brother and started
>that rumor about the nurse admitted it was a hoax.  I sent you the
>link earlier today.

You're missing the point.  We don't know either way, there are no
reliable sources.  we don't have a court transcript, a report from the
paper, a statement, nothing.

>> The point is, this has so little neutral coverage that we almost
>> certainly won't know. If we ever get a contemporaneous news report
>> which details what happened and to whom then we might arguably have
>> enough to go on, but honestly there is nothing here on which to base a
>> biography.

>As I've said, I disagree.  I think there are enough neutral sources to
>have a short article, maybe two paragraphs long, which would be far
>better than having nothing.

We disagree here in two fundamental respects.

First, I don't think that there are any sources neutral enough, given
that virtually every source we do have is related to the "who's a
pepper?" thing.  There are no reports unrelated to that, other than
the primary sources (eSORN etc.) and they are monumentally
uninformative.

Second, I think that having a short article ''is'' worse than having
no article, because we have no idea what else the guy has done with
his life.  Maybe he spent his entire childhood rescuing drowning
kittens.  We oimply have no idea.  All we know about him is he pleaded
guilty to an attempted felony, and he looks "kinda weird".  We can
reasonably infer that he is disabled, but even that is probably
original research.  We really know next to nothing about the guy, so
we have no way of presenting a neutral biography.  

If someone writing a book on memes goes out and researches properly
and comes back with some actual substance maybe I'd change my mind,
but right now I think that these two facts - conviction and appearance
- do not, between them, constitute sufficient material for a WP:BLP.

Guy (JzG)
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG