On 3/30/07 1:13 AM, "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Offering subjects to delete on request is a bad idea IMO. If they can't handle sourced criticism, we can't possibly have neutral articles on anyone.
The problem often is not that "they can't handle sourced criticism." The problem is that an article about a borderline-notable person consists of a stub written by a detractor, which contains nothing but negative minor minutia about their marriage or the one time they had a DUI, rather than what the person's actually done to be encyclopedic.
Adding positive sources does nothing to fix the problem - the problem is that their marriage or their DUI has absolutely nothing whatsoever with why they're encyclopedic. Biographies of living persons should not be scandal sheets. The details of personal lives - who they had an affair with, why they got fired from a job, etc. - are generally irrelevant and should not be on Wikipedia unless there is a compelling reason which makes those details encyclopedic.
We have too many people who spend too much time hunting down negative stuff to write about people who have Wikipedia articles, so that their articles can be "balanced." That is not balance - that is sensationalism. If someone's article reads like vanity, tone it down and clean it up - don't go Lexis-Nexis-searching for that one time he wound up in the local paper when he injured someone in a car wreck 20 years ago. That doesn't help the encyclopedia.
-Travis Mason-Bushman