[WikiEN-l] Fwd: Opt Out for Not So Notable Biographies

[Fred Bauder]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Steve Bennett [mailto:stevagewp at gmail.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 05:37 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Opt Out for Not So Notable Biographies
>
>[sorry for the blank send, misclicked]
>
>On 4/10/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Do you consider a British child actor with a lead role in a BBC children's
>> television series notable?
>
>If only Wikipedia didn't have such a stupid notion as "notable" which
>basically translates as either writing as much as we can possible find
>to substantiate about someone, or writing nothing at all. A more
>sensible publication would probably write a paragraph or so about the
>actor with very basic details like what shows they'd appeared on and
>any future projects they were known to be interested in.
>
>Steve

Perhaps more acceptance of stubs is in order in this area. It may be the stretching to somehow create a full biography is part of the problem. A good test would be googling to see if the published information is already rising to the top of the google hits. If it does, there is little additional harm done by having a Wikipedia article about it. The harm comes from adding additional details not contained in the standard google hit. So, to take the example posed, it does little harm to list acting projects, while ferreting out birthday, birthplace, elementary school, photos of her on holiday, opinions on religion, etc. become an invasion of privacy, at least in the case of a child. Trivial reports regarding taste in music or other popular cultural interests might be Ok, but that frames the nature of the public's legitimate interest in a child actor.

Fred