[WikiEN-l] BLP Just a quikie

[Andrew Gray]

On 27/06/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27/06/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > There is a substantial difference between "Who's Who", the original
> > general publication, and "Who's Who ---", the genre of publications.
> > The original takes "notability" (with a few odd caveats) as its basic
> > threshold of entry; the various "Who's Who in X" are not nearly as
> > discriminating, and will often take anyone willing to pay.
> > Yes, it's confusing, but there you go. I believe this all has its
> > roots in a *really complex* transatlantic trademark dispute...
>
> Being in "Who's Who" (the original) is prima facie evidence this is a
> generally notable person and warrants an article. However, the Who's
> Who text itself is pretty much written by the subject. An appropriate
> phrasing would be something like "In his Who's Who entry, X claims
> ..."

Mmm. As soon as it disagrees with a secondary source, it gets dumped
or relegated to "...<ref>some biography</ref> although Lord Archer
himself claims to have three degrees.<ref>Who's Who entry</ref>"

That said, it's pretty safe when there's no real reason to doubt it,
which is for things like career progression (ambassador Sofia in 1973,
Belgrade in 1979, break from '82 to 86, then to Moscow...). I don't
think we automatically need to add caveats unless we actually have
reason to dispute it - saying "claims in Who's Who that... [factual
statement]" sort of implies we think the subject's lying about it in
some way. "Claims" is a slightly loaded term.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk