You made some good points. Yes, I know that many people have the same name, even mine. :-) If there were a famous person named Josh Gerdes, though, I would want to mention that I am not him, especially if there were an article about him. It is true, though, that fame is often somewhat localized.
Josh Gerdes (en:User:JoshG)
Robert Brockway wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Josh Gerdes wrote:
I think this is a pretty unlikely scenario. However, if a person *were* to
Actually it isn't. It is quite common for people to have the same name regardless of how famous they are. This is the main reason police habitually refer to people using their full name (including middle name) if they have one.
Type your own name into www.switchboard.com and be disappointed about how many people have your name in the US alone :)
I used to work with Jim Carey. The real Jim Carey? Well the one I knew was real, although he wasn't famous. I've heard of many other examples of a person having the same name as someone who is famous.
on his or her user page that he or she is not the famous person, though.
If it were me I'd be inclined to let people figure it out for themselves :) In fact if it were me and someone insisted that I put a marker on my home page indicating I was not the other "famous" Robert Brockway I'd likely be insulted and that'd be the last you'd see of me.
Besides, who is famous is culturally dependent. As an Australian I am certain I could name people who I consider to be famous but who non-Australians would not. What if we encounter Bruce Paige or Ray Martin? I may wonder if they are the famous person but you may not (unless you are also Australian). In the case of Bruce Paige you'd probably need to be from my home state to recognise the name. I just looked up Ray Martin in Wikipedia. He's a Canadian politician? But I thought he was an Australian TV presenter. Another couple of people with the same name.
Cheers,
Rob