Anthony wrote:
On 9/9/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
K P wrote:
On 9/9/07, Nick Wilkins nlwilkins@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/9/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 9/8/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/9/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote: > Presumably you knew this before you went to the article about him. Nah, I frequently follow links just to find out who the person is.
But surely the text surrounding the link tells you why the person is notable.
Well, I actually use a javascript plugin that lets you hover over a link and that shows you the first paragraph.
There are all sorts of reasons you'd end up on a Wikipedia article - not necessarily because you're searching for more information on that specific subject.
Well, yeah, if you're new page patrolling, for instance, and searching around for stuff to delete. But I would think the times "normal people" go to an article for a reason other than to find more information about that subject are extremely rare.
I use the "random article" button a lot when I'm not editing, because it's often an interesting way to learn new things. If articles didn't say quickly why the subject is notable, I doubt I'd have much interest in doing that.
-- Jonel
Yes, saying quickly why the person is notable is important. Also David's right about giving the birth date right off, and death for those who have passed. It instantly puts a person and the possible information you can gain about them in a well defined category.
And, yes, I look people up because I don't know about them, not because I do.
KP
Right! It's not at all unusual to come across someone's name in such a way that does NOT give you any real context about that person.
Just one example that comes to my mind: A few years back I was looking at the lyrics to an old pop song called "Year of the Cat". One of the lines goes (something like) "You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime." At the time, I had no idea who Peter Lorre was, but Wikipedia eliminated my ignorance. This sort of thing is not all that unusual.
Well, I'd say in that situation you already knew why Peter Lorre was notable while having no idea who he was. He was notable because he was mentioned in Year of the Cat.
One good thing about having the birth and death dates in the first line is that it helps as a sort of "disambiguation". Since names are not unique, it's not always clear that you have the right person when you look someone up. But a date will often help to determine if you've found the person you're looking for.
If you mean birth and death years, then I agree. If you really do mean dates, I disagree for the reason I mentioned before. It's too hard to be sure that you've got the birth and death date right (especially birth dates). You wind up using a quote from some pop-magazine article or something, which most likely did no fact checking to make sure the date was correct. I think in most cases it's best to just leave the birth date out, unless there's some significance to the particular date, it's trivia.
Thanks for that clarification, Anthony. I did mean "years" not the full dates. I agree that the full dates are too much for the opening line, even if there's no question of getting them correct.
-Rich