[WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

Sat May 7 04:41:07 UTC 2005

slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>David, I take your point about him, but I've tried to make it clear
>that I'm not arguing about the individual, but about policy. Our
>secondary sources have to be authoritative, reliable, credible, and in
>some sense reputable. We can use Usenet as a source about itself,
>including as a source about its awards, but we can't use it to name
>individuals, because that's using Usenet as a source for claims about
>that person's notability.
>
I've been reluctant to jump in on this debate, but this position just 
seems too peculiar for me to leave it be. We can say that a Usenet group 
has voted to give an award to a person, but we can't say who that person 
actually is? What would we write instead of the name of the recipient?

> He isn't notable except in Usenet terms.
>  
>
So, if there's an article about this newsgroup, he'd be notable in that 
article's context?

IMO the newsgroup itself is notable, although I've never visited it 
myself I've heard it discussed repeatedly over the years. And if the 
newsgroup itself is notable, then I don't see the problem with 
describing the major activities that go on there.