Fred Bauder wrote:
From: Fred Bauder [mailto:fredbaud@waterwiki.info]
From: Marc Riddell [mailto:michaeldavid86@comcast.net]
on 5/25/07 12:22 PM, George Herbert at george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Šif the only things which are verifyably known about someone are in the context of a notable event which included them, perhaps as a rule the person is not themselves notable, and should only be covered in the article about the event.
George,
I believe this is an excellent idea.
Marc Riddell
The exception would be someone like Monica Lewinsky who successfully parlays their 15 minutes of negative fame into a more well rounded notability.
Fred
The Rachel Marsden article is good example of this problem. The article as now constituted
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rachel_Marsden&oldid=132306894
is a product of long debate regarding such issues. There was great deal of press coverage regarding an incident early in her life, but the coverage of her current situation was rather thin. A long article about her which focused on the earlier situation was a rather nasty piece of work and did not present of fair picture of this person who had moved on long ago from the earlier troubles. I also think some editors were sticking their oar in because they did not like her politics.
There was an arbitration:
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden
Here is the basic principle applied: 'Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons requires that information which concerns living subjects be verifiable and that biographies "should be written responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone."'
This seems like support for activist judges. I didn't recognize the name until I went to the article. The Fox Channel is generally not available in the Vancuver area where I live. The incident that led to her criminal conviction is certainly well-remembered even if I could not have remembered the names of the parties involved. If you want to suggest that her opponents were commenting because of her politics, you need to admit that her supporters were doing exactly the same thing.
I did not participate in the debate when it happened, and don't particularly want to get involved now. I don't see the benefit of raising this matter when it would only stir up old wounds.
Ec