2009/3/8 Nathan <nawr...@gmail.com>: > On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Sue Gardner <sgard...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > >> >> 1) There is a big unresolved question around whether, if >> marginally-notable people ask to have their articles deleted, that >> request should be granted. My sense -both from the discussion here >> and other discussions elsewhere- is that many Wikipedians are very >> strongly protective of their general right to retain even very >> marginal BLPs. Presumably this is because notability is hard to >> define, and they are worried about stupid across-the-board >> interpretations that will result in massive deletionism. However, >> other people strongly feel that the current quantity of BLPs about >> less-notable people diminish the overall quality of the encyclopedia, >> reduce our credibility, and run the risk of hurting real people. >> There seems to be little consensus here. Roughly: some people seem >> to strongly feel the bar for notability should be set higher, and >> deletion requests generally granted: others seem to strongly feel the >> current state is preferable. I would welcome discussion about how to >> achieve better consensus on this issue. >> >> > I would quibble with this statement a little bit. There is a difference in > my mind between raising the notability bar and granting weight to subject > requests for deletion. There seems to be a growing agreement that marginally > notable subjects make for bad biographies and greater risk; there is very > little appetite for beginning deletion discussions or deleting articles upon > subject request. > > So these two issues need to be separated, because indeed they are quite > separate.
Totally agreed, yes - thanks Nathan. In future I will separate these two points. One asks whether the subject of an article (be it a person, > corporation, or any other entity with living representatives) should be > afforded some control over encyclopedia content, even as little as the > ability to request a deletion nomination; most Wikipedians would be against > this, I believe. Hm. That's interesting. As a basic principle, that makes sense to me - that article subjects shouldn't have control over the content of the encyclopedia. But -perhaps this is a little bit of hair-splitting- OTOH I don't think we should take deletion requests any _less_ seriously than complaints from disinterested observers. In other words - someone saying "the article about me is awful and shouldn't be in an encyclopedia" should be taken equally as seriously as someone saying "that article about X is awful and doesn't deserve to be in an encyclopedia." In both instances, the article needs be assessed on its own merits. I say this because sometimes I think people may be tempted to refuse deletion requests _because_ they come from the article subject. If that indeed happens, I believe it's a mistake. > The other issue, of marginal notability and the risk it poses to Wikipedia, > is much more relevant for this discussion. Yes. I would love to see it discussed more here :-) _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
