This isn't
just a matter of writing style - it' a matter of focus.
As a general encyclopedia, we need to be targetted at a general
audience - that means that, if nothing else, what the New York Times
identifies as major events in someone's life are, for our purposes,
major events.
POV! Sorry, for Derrida, some of us really don't accept that he was
born again in Yale. That is, he is a European philosopher (the French
WP defines him as 'major French philosopher') and I'll take the
[[Vincent Descombes]] view over those unreliable rascals at the NYT
any day.
That's certainly an opinion which can be represented. But that
presented by the NYT is also a major mainstream opinion on the subject.
It can of course be said that European Derrida scholars think the NYT
sucks, but simply pretending the NYT's view does not exist and is not
held by millions of other people is strange.
-Mark