[WikiEN-l] Opt Out for Not So Notable Biographies

[Fred Bauder]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Marc Riddell [mailto:michaeldavid86 at comcast.net]
>Sent: Sunday, April 8, 2007 01:20 PM
>To: fredbaud at waterwiki.info, English Wikipedia
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Opt Out for Not So Notable Biographies
>
>on 4/8/07 3:04 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at waterwiki.info wrote:
>
>> It has been suggested that people who are not particularly notable should have
>> the option of requesting removal of their Wikipedia biographies. This
>> suggestion has come up in the context of Daniel Brandt, who has long
>> complained, but please address the general question.
>> 
>> I doubt very many people will bother to make such a request, and even if a few
>> tens of thousands did, the loss to the utility and interest to the
>> encyclopedia would be minimal. This would not apply to prominent persons, but
>> would apply to subjects such as John Seigenthaler, whose article was so seldom
>> accessed or edited that a major error remained there for months without being
>> notice. If the person is not notable enough that we pay attention to its
>> content, there is some risk just from having it.
>
>How is notability determined in the encyclopedia?
>
>Marc Riddell

By the existence of verifiable information from a reliable source, published information. Where that goes wrong is that for people who are not public figure who are regularly covered in the media, the only coverage that is ordinarily found is some mess they got into, spot information which often produces a distorted picture of them.

As a practical matter notability is determined by the Requests for Deletion process, during which the question of whether there is verifiable information is examined.

Fred