[WikiEN-l] On living bios and the rest of the world

[Fred Bauder]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ray Saintonge [mailto:saintonge at telus.net]
>Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 11:57 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] On living bios and the rest of the world
>
>Delirium wrote:
>
>>David Gerard wrote:
>> 
>>
>>>On 28/05/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>
>>>>Yes, Wikipedia is not paper, but if we're going to write readable articles
>>>>not everything can make the cut. Naturally, it's notable incidents that
>>>>should get in. Trouble is that not everyone agrees on what is notable and
>>>>what isn't.
>>>> 
>>>>
>>>Incidents are one thing - putting articles under a name when the
>>>incident is the notable thing is another.
>>> 
>>>
>>I think many (most?) people agree with this in principle, but there's 
>>wide disagreement over the threshold for when someone's role in an 
>>incident is sufficient to make *them* notable. Serial killers on the 
>>FBI's "10 most wanted" list clearly meet the threshold; some lower-level 
>>executive embroiled in the Enron scandal clearly doesn't; but there's 
>>plenty in between.
>>
>What those who appear to be taking a hard-line about deleting these BLPs 
>for non-notable people should be taking note of is that the argument is 
>not about any specific person's notability. It is about how we 
>determine that they do not warrant an article. When you say that any 
>admin can delete these articles on the basis of his own opinion you run 
>into the fact that many of these admins have not established themselves 
>as having trustworthy judgement. There has been a suggestion that 
>admins who abuse the BLP excuse would be swiftly disciplined, but there 
>is no confidence that this will indeed happen as quickly as the excuses 
>are used.
>
>Ec

That's right. I don't want to see inexperienced administrators stepping out in that way. I would not start deleting stuff from a biography unless I was pretty sure that I both knew what I was doing and it was justified and was able to defend the action.
We don't want to set the bar too high though BLP is there for a good reason, survival of Wikipedia.

Fred