[WikiEN-l] Re: Proposed policy on biographies: input sought

Tue Dec 20 01:11:12 UTC 2005

NPOV is non-negotiable everywhere, of course, but relevant questions
which I think this policy tries to address are related to verifiability,
notability, liklihood of hatchet jobs, etc.  Of course the details of
the policy need to be worked on seriously and carefully, but I do think
it is abundantly clear that it is a good idea if we recognize in a more
formal way what we already all know: biographies of living persons,
especially those who are barely notable, pose particular challenges.

> What I'm getting at is that saying "NPOV works everywhere else, it must
> work here" is not self evident.  We must be really, really sure that
> both the ideal of NPOV and its actual implementation in wikipedia by
> real-life, fallible editors, actually work for living bios, now that
> wikipedia is becoming big enough and famous enough to actually matter to
> the Seigenthalers of the world.

I agree with what I think you're saying *in substance* but I don't think
it will be as persuasive to put it that way.  It is not a violation of
neutrality to note that there are special problems and concerns when we
are talking about biographies of living persons.

Neutrality does not imply that we should try to become a permanent and
extensive record of all pleasant and unpleasant facts or allegations
about living persons who are not particularly notable.

--Jimbo