[WikiEN-l] Re: Taste?

[Michael Snow]

Dan Miller wrote:

>>I agree that as a matter of taste, we should (for
>>now) keep this page
>>deleted.  However, as a matter of law, there is no
>>reason for us not
>>to publish this information.
>>    
>>
>True, but we'll want a page once the trial's over.  Or
>else we ought to delete [[Nicole Brown Simpson]].
>
The question nobody seems to be asking is whether this person actually 
warrants a separate page. Is there really any encyclopedic information 
worth including about her, other than as the victim in a high-profile 
crime case? In the tangents of the OJ trials, there was also a fair 
amount of publicity about Nicole personally, from which we could draw 
the information to improve on the measly stub that's there now. While on 
the other hand, Kobe Bryant's accuser is unlikely to be the subject of 
biographical features afterwards, unless she chooses to be more public 
than she has been.

"Fame" and "importance" are uncertain concepts to use here, but is 
having your 15 minutes in relative anonymity worth keeping in an 
encyclopedia? I would just redirect the page to [[Kobe Bryant]]. We can 
still choose whether to publish her name on that page, either now or 
later. I agree that for now it's better not to, but it would be less 
objectionable as time passes. Assuming that with the passage of time, 
anybody even cares what her name is. We're an encyclopedia, not a newspaper.

Lest I be misunderstood, I have at least some sympathy for the cause of 
the "low encyclopedic" we just discussed. But in the long run, a 
separate page for this woman is not like including a few significant 
restaurants in [[New Haven, Connecticut]] - it's like writing separate 
articles on each and every one of those restaurants. Not every person 
who gets mentioned in an encyclopedia article also warrants their own 
article.

--Michael Snow