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

[Anthony]

On 4/8/07, Fred Bauder <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.
>
John Seigenthaler (Senior) doesn't qualify as a public figure?

I dunno, I think it's a good idea, until I hear that.  This is going
to do pretty much nothing to stop errors from cropping up in the next
John Seigenthaler article, because the person has to notice the
article in order to request removal of it.

As such, I don't think "not particularly notable" is well enough
defined.  I'd support the idea if the term was defined, such as
"whether that person has already had a biography published
by a reliable third-party source, either in a form of a newspaper
article or a book".

Anthony