[WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com>wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 11:37 AM, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Zee problem with this standard is that it would preclude having an
> > article on the person currently running mali (admittedly the article
> > isn't up to much but I think it could be argued that we should at
> > least try).
>
> i) Have a *clear* way for the article subject to make contact and
> raise concerns. Currently, this is OTRS, but I suspect many people who
> are the subject of biographical articles are unaware of the articles.
>


Hawkins says he contacted Wikimedia (and the talk page does now contain an
OTRS reference) and never received a reply.

I am aware of another case where the subject had to wait a month for a
reply. On the other hand, an anonymous editor can get an exasperated
biography subject that types the word "libel" on Wikipedia blocked in five
minutes at AN/I.



> ii) Be respectful of the article subject and be prepared to work with
> them if they raise concerns, and don't needlessly antagonise them. For
> some editors, who chose to remain anonymous, this will be problematic,
> as some people (understandably) will want to work with a known person,
> not some anonymous screen name.
>
> iii) Use very high standards of sourcing and be aware that limited or
> restricted coverage in sources almost certainly results in errors.
> Better to keep the article short and precise, rather than write too
> much (your 'we should at least try') and run into problems.
>
> In almost all cases, a stub with the basic information is better than
> a loose aggregation of factoids. The problem is that well-meaning
> people (and sometime less well-meaning people) come along later and
> try and 'expand' what is there. I'd be in favour of locking down BLPs
> once they reach a certain stage of development and requiring a very
> high standard of sourcing for new additions.



These sound like sensible ideas.

Andreas