[WikiEN-l] Being bold doesn't work anymore, or why our prose is so bad.

[Anthony]

On 9/10/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 9/10/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 9/9/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > But surely the text surrounding the link tells you why the person is notable.
> >
> > Oh yeah. "Walter had close connections with many 18th century notables
> > including [[Fred Johnson]], [[Pierre de Bonsang]]...".
> >
> It's easy to come up with a counter-example by making stuff up.  Why
> not just say "William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an
> American entrepreneur, philanthropist and chairman of Microsoft.
> [[Paul Allen]] is a person."
>
> Or here's one: "Lara Lewington (born May 10, 1979) is a British
> weathergirl [[Jermaine Dupri]] [[John Abbott]] happy birthday to you"
>
BTW, if any of you looked up [[Jermaine Dupri]] or [[John Abbott]]
after reading this, well, *that* was a counter-example.  I admit it
occurs that people look up names without knowing why the person is
notable, but I argue that it's rare.

As for Lara Lewington, I bet some people on this list would argue
she's *not* notable, at least not by the first paragraph.  I'd
disagree, but...

"Lara Lewington (born May 10, 1979) is a British weathergirl and
television presenter on Five, joining Five News in January 2003. She
has a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology and Drama and is an NCTJ
trained journalist."