On 6/3/07, Travis Mason-Bushman travis@gpsports-eng.com wrote:
On 6/3/07 10:00 AM, "Jeff Raymond" jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Because the line between "public" and "private" in non-legal purposes no longer exists. In the specific situation of Stokke, one could argue, for our purposes, that she's not a "private" person due to her competing in public events. Qian Zhijun was, by many probable definitions, a "private" person to begin with, but ceased becoming one as he took his notoriety in his own hands. Hell, even Brian Peppers stopped being a "private" individual when he was convicted.
You don't get to choose whether you're public or private is the greater point. It's sort of like "marginal" or "minimal" or "slightly" notability, or being "a little bit pregnant." You may not *want* to be noteworthy or public or known or pregnant, or want others to be, but it happens and that's that.
We're losing focus.
No, Jeff, we're gaining focus. We're focusing on the fact that these articles are not and never will be biographies. They're scandal sheets.
99 percent of people "in the news" will disappear from the news within a week. We will never find out who these people really are beyond the single newsworthy incident they happen to be involved in. There will never be any other information about their lives. This presents a major problem of undue weight.
If we allow the creation of Wikipedia articles on every single one of these people, then, what we get are not biographies, but instead out-of-context snapshots of a random moment in their lives which happened to intersect with media or public interest for however long it took them to change the channel on the television. That means that everyone who ever ends up in a newspaper will end up with that moment defining them for the rest of their lives on this encyclopedia, regardless of anything they may have done before or after.
There may never be a reliable source which tells us that after being the subject of a messy, expensive and tabloid-covered 10-year custody battle, little Jeff Doe goes on to have a successful career as a union carpenter, raising a family and living his life. Instead, for the rest of his life he'll be defined by Wikipedia as, "Jeff Doe is a man who was the subject of a massive custody battle in 1992."
Is that what Wikipedia is supposed to do? Define people forever by their single worst, most tragic, scandalous or Internet-memed moment? I don't think so.
If we cannot write a balanced, sourced biography on someone which goes beyond whatever 15 minutes of infamy they happened to be involved in, we should not write a biographical article on them at all.
Claiming that every single person ever mentioned in a newspaper article is now an "instant public figure" and should be documented on Wikipedia forever is a radical and completely unwarranted expansion of the idea of an encyclopedia.
-Travis
Yes, but Stokke holds several world records for her age, even before the pictures spread. ~~~~