If we don't have appropriate information for a biography, we shouldn't have a biography.
[..] Doc
Reliable sources state that no reliable biographical information is available for [[Sathya Sai Baba]] India's most famous living guru, but not to have an article about him would be very strange.
Andries Krugers Dagneaux
On 4/24/07, Andries Krugers Dagneaux andrieskd@chello.nl wrote:
If we don't have appropriate information for a biography, we shouldn't have a biography.
[..] Doc
Reliable sources state that no reliable biographical information is available for [[Sathya Sai Baba]] India's most famous living guru, but not to have an article about him would be very strange.
Andries Krugers Dagneaux
Considering his article has about 150 footnotes, all of them citing reliable sources, I think what you're saying is a bit disingenuous. The reliable sources may say that there's no reliable information about him, but we can reliably say that "so-and-so believes X about him, but Y says this is not necessarily reliable".
Johnleemk
On 4/24/07, Andries Krugers Dagneaux andrieskd@chello.nl wrote:
If we don't have appropriate information for a biography, we shouldn't have a biography.
[..] Doc
Reliable sources state that no reliable biographical information is available for [[Sathya Sai Baba]] India's most famous living guru, but not to have an article about him would be very strange.
Andries Krugers Dagneaux
What has this got to do with the "single incident biographies" you refer to in the title of the message? I'd be more specific and disallow "single incident negative biographies". If some newbie athlete comes out of nowhere and wins gold at the olympics, that's a single event, but I for one would consider it nuts not to have an article about them.
Mgm
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 4/24/07, Andries Krugers Dagneaux andrieskd@chello.nl wrote:
If we don't have appropriate information for a biography, we shouldn't have a biography.
[..] Doc
Reliable sources state that no reliable biographical information is available for [[Sathya Sai Baba]] India's most famous living guru, but not to have an article about him would be very strange.
Andries Krugers Dagneaux
What has this got to do with the "single incident biographies" you refer to in the title of the message? I'd be more specific and disallow "single incident negative biographies". If some newbie athlete comes out of nowhere and wins gold at the olympics, that's a single event, but I for one would consider it nuts not to have an article about them.
Mgm _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Reflecting on this, I think we need to look at it differently. Sometime the 'single incident' is so notable that reliable sources will speak to other parts of the individual's biography.
Lee Harvey Oswald may have only *become* notable for one negative incident, but that incident has meant that much more of his life has been explored and commented upon - we can obviously right a well-sourced biography. The same would be true for Monica Lewinsky and probably a 9-11 terrorist. An athlete who won gold last week is liable to have a full profile researched and printed in some newspaper fairly quickly.
The problem is where the sources are really only revealing a negative incident in depth, and two lines about the rest of the individual's life. Here we may have wonderful sources for the incident, but nothing to write a even a basic profile of the individual.
If all we can say of the individual is "she's the girl that was accused of sleeping with the local major" - then the information belongs on the mayor's article not in a spurious 'biography'.
If all we can say is "he featured in an internet meme" - then at best the information belongs in either an article on the meme or a general article on memes, not in a spurious biography.
The bottom line isn't "why is the individual notable? - was it just a single incident?" the bottom line is "is their enough about this individual available in reliable sources to merit a balanced biography?".
Basically, if no reliable source has actually profiled them, then we probably should not either - especially if all we have is negative material.
Doc