[WikiEN-l] Seth Finkelstein in the Technology Guardian

[Matt R]

--- charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

> Didn't see anyone mention this article from yesterday,
> 
> http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1882027,00.html
> 
> title, "I'm on Wikipedia, get me out of here", by [[Seth Finkelstein".

Interesting. A couple of comments:

* If a biography subject is genuinely notable, then whether or not he wants an
article on himself or not to exist is irrelevant. We would try and communicate
that fact tactfully, of course.

* There's lots of disagreement on Wikipedia about what is notable. (Yeah, I'm
observant...) My personal definition would exclude a fair bit of current
Wikipedia content (so I'm a theoretical deletionist), but I'm happy to live
with it (and hence am a de facto inclusionist) because:
1) It does me no harm. I don't have to read articles that I think are
non-notable.
2) It does other people no harm. That is, few other people want to read them
either, and for the few who do, there's little real-world harm that comes from
blantant falsehoods about (say) minor Pokémon characters.

However, in the case of living person bios, "2" may not hold. Malicious persons
can write all kinds of false and libellous things that will quite possibly go
completely unnoticed until they've been widely mirrored across the Web.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com


		
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