On 24/05/07, C.J. Croy cjcroy@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/24/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
We need to focus on the issue BLP was intended to address, poorly
sourced controversial >information. We can't write a balanced article about a life marred by tragic error.
We can - and should - have articles about people defined by one massive error. Would we really be better off without articles on [[John Hinckley, Jr.]]? Or [[Arthur Bremer]]?
Patch Idea #1: Encourage people to contribute non-controversial information about themselves. If someone's only known as "That guy who lost 6.5 billion dollars on natural gas futures", he might balance that coverage with some generic biographical information, e.g. the kind of household he grew up in, where he went to school, etc.
Patch Idea #2: Change the MoS. If someone's only known as 'The guy who lost 6.5 billion dollars', the article should be about 'The incident in which 6.5 billion dollars were lost' and should make no pretensions of being a biography. This has the side effect of either forcing people to expand the definition of what BLP covers or it gives POV warriors a way to take their targets out from under the protection of BLP.
This is what the policy *says*.
"Wikipedia is not a directory of everything that exists or has existed. Wikipedia articles are not ... Genealogical entries or phonebook entries. Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of fame, achievement, or perhaps notoriety. One measure of publicity is whether someone has been featured in several external sources (on or off-line). Less well-known people may be mentioned within other articles (e.g. Ronald Gay in Violence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered)"
If it wasn't for that line making an example of him, I'm convinced [[Ronald Gay]] would have been an article long since.