On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 14:33, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:
Sarah wrote:
I'm increasingly wondering whether we should
be hosting any BLPs, because
these are often difficult decisions to make -- at which point there is
legitimate public interest in a person's private life -- and they can't be
reached thoughtfully in an open-editing environment.
I think anyone who has been in the "BLP trenches" has had the same thought.
The reality is that an encyclopedia without a "Barack Obama" article or a
"Nelson Mandela" article really isn't a general reference encyclopedia, or
at least isn't a very good one. The issue is making a reasonable distinction
between those types of individuals and everyone else.
MZMcBride
We could solve that by hosting only BLPs that have already had
encyclopedic or extensive treatment elsewhere, i.e. have already been
the subject of (a) an encyclopedia article; or (b) a book or book
chapter from a reliable publisher; or (c) a profile or in-depth piece
in a high-quality newspaper (one about the person, not about events
the person was involved in).
I know this has been suggested before, but it's coming time to
consider it seriously.
Sarah