[WikiEN-l] On living bios and the rest of the world

[Tony Sidaway]

On 5/28/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28/05/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Yes, Wikipedia is not paper, but if we're going to write readable articles
> > not everything can make the cut. Naturally, it's notable incidents that
> > should get in. Trouble is that not everyone agrees on what is notable and
> > what isn't.
>
>
> Incidents are one thing - putting articles under a name when the
> incident is the notable thing is another.
>
>

Bingo. I have found zero opposition to edits I have made which retain
the information without needlessly attaching it to a name.

Sometimes people ask "why not use the name? it's in the references."
It would have been a good question a couple of years ago.  Now
Wikipedia is one of the primary sources of information on the planet,
and a google on a private individual's name should not needlessly
associate them with some article on Wikipedia.  The references often
contain the personal information and often that's a big factor in
verifiability, but as long as we cite the references we do not need to
give undue prominence to the names.