[WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

Thu Nov 6 19:14:14 UTC 2003

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Gareth Owen wrote:
>  
>
>>Now tell me, would you push for his inclusion if he'd survived 9/11? 
>>    
>>
>
>But if the answer is "no" what does that prove?  He *didn't* survive
>9/11, and that's what makes him sufficiently noteworthy for someone to
>have bothered to write the entry in the first place.  That's why he's
>there, right?
>
>I mean, I don't understand the point of the hypothetical.  You might
>as well ask "Would you push for having an article about Hitler if he
>had remained an obscure and failed artist?"  Well, no, I suppose we
>wouldn't, but, uh, he didn't stay an artist, so he's apparently of
>enough interest for someone to bother writing an article about him.
>  
>
My point about this is that there are plenty of people who have died in 
noteworthy events.  In fact, there are literally millions of them.  I 
strongly oppose one-sentence stub entires reading:
"Blah blah was an eagle scout who died in the Sep. 11 attacks."
"Blah blah was a plumber who died in the Holocaust."
"Blah blah was a shoe salesman who died in WW2."
"Blah blah was a computer programmer who died in the Vietnam war."
"Blah blah was a farmer who died in the Khmer Rouge genocide."

There is plenty of verifiable material to import literally millions of 
such stubs.  There's WW2 combat casualty information available from the 
US government, for one.

If we have all these articles though, Wikipedia will be a joke.

-Mark