On 27/06/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
On 27/06/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@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 ..."
At least a person who has paid to have his name in there is not likely to complain about that information being used in a Wikipedia article.
I think you've gone far off topic and I don't think that vanity publications have a place in Wikipedia. I used it as an example of simple biographical details. But would never use it to pad out a badly organised BLP that is just going to include what X has for breakfast.
Mike