[Wikipedia-l] Biographies of unimportant people (was: "In memoriam")

Thu Sep 26 04:07:05 UTC 2002

--- Axel Boldt <axelboldt at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> 
> > > I'm already on record that I support allowing
> biographies of anyone
> > > at all in Wikipedia, with no regard to whether
> their accomplishments
> > > or fame would merit their inclusion in a more
> traditional reference.
> > 
> > I agree, except that I can see some problems with
> disambiguation and
> > namespace.
> 
> I disagree, for several reasons. 
> 
> First, I see an encyclopedia as a compendium of all
> human knowledge that
> is interesting or useful to a significant number of
> people. My dream last
> night, and the fact that I keep my notebook in the
> right drawer of my
> desk, are both stored in my brain, so they are part
> of human knowledge.
> They are interesting/useful to me, but not to anyone
> else, therefore they
> don't belong in an encyclopedia. A biography of an
> unimportant person is
> interesting/useful to almost no one, therefore it
> doesn't belong either.
> 
> Second, facts about unimportant people are not
> checkable. I could write
> that my father once fell from a horse, and no one
> could ever disprove this
> false claim. If an important person falls from a
> horse, it leaves a trail.
> 
> Third, and related, it is impossible to write a
> biography of an
> unimportant person from a NPOV, since essentially
> only the very partial
> point of view of the immediate family and friends
> exists.

I'm with Axel. I think a project with the goal of
world-wide biographies could be interesting, but
Wikipedia is not such a project.

Stephen

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