Jeff Raymond wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:
a) Should we start considering whether or not the subject is a public figure in deciding whether or not the article is appropriate? There is, of course, no clear bright line...
b) If not, why not? (Bonus points for giving an ethical argument)
Because the line between "public" and "private" in non-legal purposes no longer exists.
Thinking of it as a line of demarcation, instead of a continuum, is part of the difficulty people have in dealing with this.
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.
Whether someone is a public figure is only the binary question you present it as in the most superficial sense. Many people are limited-purpose public figures. Some, though not all, are involuntarily so. But it's not just about their choice, and it's overly simplistic to elevate the denial that their choice matters into the determining issue. Chosen or not, their limited status as a public figure in one context does not mean that you can choose for them, and make them a public figure for additional contexts. People trying to connect additional dots and effectively doing original research and analysis is a serious concern here.
The status of limited-purpose public figures will depend on such issues as the significance of the issue in which they were involved, the extent of coverage, the prominence of their role and whether they sought it out, and their ability to make their personal viewpoints heard. All of this goes into where they figure in the continuum from private to public.
Inherent in someone's status as a limited-purpose public figure are limitations in how we can appropriately cover them. Sometimes it will be fundamentally impossible to cover these people neutrally in a stand-alone biographical article. Where to discuss their particular situation, whether to name them in that discussion, and whether to have their name be a redirect to that destination, are all legitimate editorial issues.
If we want to write a general interest encyclopedia, we need to be able to disconnect from our personal perspectives and situations and instead look at these issues dispassionately.
Indeed. But looking at issues dispassionately is not the same as slavishly bowing to prerogative or process, either.
--Michael Snow