[WikiEN-l] What W is not

[Ray Saintonge]

tarquin wrote:

> Cunctator has made a number of additions to the "What Wikipedia is 
> not" policy page
>
> To see the diff:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&diff=0&oldid=715621 
>
>
> The one I quety is this, under the "not a genealogical or biographical 
> dictionary" heading:
>
>  A good measure of achievement is whether their lives (or deaths) were 
> newsworthy, that is, that there exist external sources on the people.
>
> It seems to me that Cunc has added this so he can better justify the 
> keeping of the Sep11 casualties in Wikipedia.
>
> any thoughts on this?

Perhaps the "(or deaths)" could be interpreted that way, but I would 
give him the benefit of the doubt.  Most of us who see no merit to 
having 11 September biographies in Wikipedia see the creation of the 
separate space for this as a reasonable compromise.  I'm sure that if 
Cunc or any others began abusing this policy statement in the way you 
suggest you would have others to complain beside you.

Cunc's proposed change is a reasonable guideline that still requires 
some measure of common sense.  (Do we really need to define 
"newsworthy"?)  It does thwart those people who would sillily interpret 
the policy as outlawing any kind of biography.  It still leaves room for 
royal genealogies where (particularly in mediaeval contexts) knowing the 
relationships is parallel in importance to having a program to identify 
the participants in a sporting event.

Eclecticology