[Foundation-l] Request for your input: biographies of living people

Fred Bauder fredbaud at fairpoint.net
Wed Mar 4 00:55:22 UTC 2009


> 2009/3/3 Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com>:
>
>> I see no reason why having an article on someone need include
>> information not published in reliable sources.  If they're well-known
>> for something in the public eye but details of their life elsewhere
>> are not prevalent, then that's how our article should be as well.
>
>
> This will promptly become a "your source is great"/"no yours sucks
> mine rules" battle. When we started requiring references, that became
> the target of the querulous. And everyone is convinced the term
> "reliable sources" is actually (a) objectively definable (b) invariant
> for all topics.
>
> And never mind that people who know about the construction of ontology
> and how it works usually have a degree or two in the subject, I'm sure
> a bunch of people who've been on a wiki for a few months can make up
> something that passes all muster, and if it doesn't then reality is
> wrong. And the New York Times is gospel, but anything in the subject's
> own blog must be first assumed to be a tissue of lies, and the subject
> themselves buried in initialisms.
>
>
> - d.

How about something a little more helpful?

Fred






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