-----Original Message----- From: Steve Bennett [mailto:stevagewp@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 05:37 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Opt Out for Not So Notable Biographies
[sorry for the blank send, misclicked]
On 4/10/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Do you consider a British child actor with a lead role in a BBC children's television series notable?
If only Wikipedia didn't have such a stupid notion as "notable" which basically translates as either writing as much as we can possible find to substantiate about someone, or writing nothing at all. A more sensible publication would probably write a paragraph or so about the actor with very basic details like what shows they'd appeared on and any future projects they were known to be interested in.
Steve
Perhaps more acceptance of stubs is in order in this area. It may be the stretching to somehow create a full biography is part of the problem. A good test would be googling to see if the published information is already rising to the top of the google hits. If it does, there is little additional harm done by having a Wikipedia article about it. The harm comes from adding additional details not contained in the standard google hit. So, to take the example posed, it does little harm to list acting projects, while ferreting out birthday, birthplace, elementary school, photos of her on holiday, opinions on religion, etc. become an invasion of privacy, at least in the case of a child. Trivial reports regarding taste in music or other popular cultural interests might be Ok, but that frames the nature of the public's legitimate interest in a child actor.
Fred
On 4/10/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Steve Bennett [mailto:stevagewp@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 05:37 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Opt Out for Not So Notable Biographies
[sorry for the blank send, misclicked]
On 4/10/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Do you consider a British child actor with a lead role in a BBC
children's
television series notable?
If only Wikipedia didn't have such a stupid notion as "notable" which basically translates as either writing as much as we can possible find to substantiate about someone, or writing nothing at all. A more sensible publication would probably write a paragraph or so about the actor with very basic details like what shows they'd appeared on and any future projects they were known to be interested in.
Steve
Perhaps more acceptance of stubs is in order in this area. It may be the stretching to somehow create a full biography is part of the problem. A good test would be googling to see if the published information is already rising to the top of the google hits. If it does, there is little additional harm done by having a Wikipedia article about it. The harm comes from adding additional details not contained in the standard google hit. So, to take the example posed, it does little harm to list acting projects, while ferreting out birthday, birthplace, elementary school, photos of her on holiday, opinions on religion, etc. become an invasion of privacy, at least in the case of a child. Trivial reports regarding taste in music or other popular cultural interests might be Ok, but that frames the nature of the public's legitimate interest in a child actor.
Fred
Yes, I would like to see a lot more stub acceptance. People tend to prefer deletion over fixing far too much. I see a lot of CSD A7 deletion. "article doesn't assert notability". I'd like to see additional explanations about what people did to see if it was truly not notable. Newbies tend to mess up doing it, so it wouldn't hurt to help them and check before deleting someone's work.
About child actors. I tend to include birthdates as I do with any biography, but I keep personal photographs and religion out of it. I only include schools if it is already mentioned in almost every newspaper article written about them, or if it's on their official website. I have written an article about a kid for whom I found a streetname where he lived. I didn't include that on purpose for privacy concerns.
Mgm
On 4/13/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
About child actors. I tend to include birthdates as I do with any biography, but I keep personal photographs and religion out of it. I only include schools if it is already mentioned in almost every newspaper article written about them, or if it's on their official website. I have written an article about a kid for whom I found a streetname where he lived. I didn't include that on purpose for privacy concerns.
And presumably for relevance. I can't see why we would be that specific about where someone lives. Some public figures may like to publicise their exact location, which would make it relevant, but most don't. The city they live in is plenty for encyclopaedicness, and their suburb is already getting a bit nosy...
Steve