Quoting Michael Snow wikipedia@earthlink.net:
[snip]
I can see why misuse of this project to host personal vanity webpages would be a concern, but I think there may be better ways to discourage that. I don't see a good reason to ban articles about the living, especially since it's probably easier to get information about a person while they're still alive.
Instead, if the project is oriented toward genealogy rather than encyclopedic biography, it could be designed to focus on certain categories of information. "Family trees" all have something in common in terms of format, and most genealogical data is directed towards things like dates and places for major life events. A genealogy project might have more in common with Wiktionary than Wikipedia, in the sense that entries are more restricted in the types of information that are presented. An article might allow for dates and places of birth, death, marriage, etc., cause of death, names of parents and siblings, and other appropriate information, the same way that a Wiktionary article would consist primarily of spelling, pronunciation, part of speech, definition, etymology, usage, etc. If the purpose of the project is clear, we can set boundaries that prevent people from using it as a vehicle for a blog, or whatever else it is we don't want them doing with it.
Yes, this is exactly what I had in mind. My original rough template proposal is at http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobalFamilyTree. I had intended it to have a set of well-structured information, including names of relatives, dates, places, etc., with space for a few paragraphs about who the person was. That last part would be the part that could be abused, but it is also what gives the genealogy its character. If it is restricted to the format of a few paragraphs, I think the potential for abuse would be minimized.
I started a Wikipeople page http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipeople to discuss this further.
-- Joel Konkle-Parker Webmaster [Ballsome.com]
E-mail [jjk3@msstate.edu] Phone [662-518-1636]