On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 6:24 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com>wrote;wrote:
On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 1:09 PM, Anthony
<wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:
On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 3:15 AM, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge(a)telus.net>
wrote
2009/2/23
Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com>om>:
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bowen It's a great example of maudlinism
run rampant. Why this 2-year old,
and not another who died of cancer?
Just pure random luck.
"luck" was probably not the right word there, in this context.
I was being sarcastic. Obviously there are reasons that there's an article
about Ben Bowen and not about every 2-year old that died of cancer. In
fact, there's at least one good one: There are not verifiable sources for
every 2-year old that died of cancer.
I was listening to Wikipedia Weekly from a short while ago when they were
discussing what should be in Wikinews vs. what should be in Wikipedia vs.
what should be in both, and I think a case could be made that the story of
Ben Bowen is a good candidate for Wikinews instead of Wikipedia. I think
it's a useful story, and belongs somewhere (along with, in my opinion,
stories about even less publicized 2-year-olds so long as they can be
derived from verifiable sources). But it does seem out of place in an
encyclopedia - the impact of this particular child will likely not be
historically significant 20 years from now, though I think it will provide a
glimpse into the culture in which we live. Newspaper archives are a good
source for such cultural information, I'd think. The [[StoryCorps]] project
is also archiving this "slice of life" type information, although they're
doing it in a way which doesn't enforce verifiability.
That said, I don't think Wikinews is currently in a state where it can
handle this type of content, and I have no problems with it living in
Wikipedia until there's a more suitable home (I know, this notion is
blasphemous, but I'm an outsider so I can make such blasphemous
statements). A Wikinews article on Ben Bowen would likely look completely
different from the Wikipedia article on him, and I think it'd necessarily be
worse instead of better or even just different.