Wiki143:Articles for deletion/David Eric Blackington

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. (ESkog)(Talk) 03:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

David Eric Blackington

  • THE DEFENSE RESTS - I've already spent more than enough time outlining the arguments for keeping the article, so this is my final post. Like I said at the onset of this discussion, I was just attempting to share... and having an article is not important to me in the grand scheme of things. When I decided to write a Wikipedia article on myself, I was under false assumptions that wikipedia was a lot freer than I had initially thought. Everyone has done a good job of disillusioning me, and I now have a much more accurate view of wikipedia. Anyway, all my points are listed in the lengthy debate below, and I have added verifiable footnotes to the article, per request of the posters. All that needs to be done now is for someone to make the final decision for or against deleting because I know it's not MY responsibility. I want to thank all the posters who sincerely tried to help improve the quality of this article as opposed to just judging and leaving. So, whoever has been elected the final judge, it's time to make a final decision. Thank you for giving the article more than enough time to list all the arguments for consideration.
  • ATTENTION: I just added footnotes to the article per WP:AUTO's suggestion at the bottom which would prefer verifiability through a self-published website than no verifiability at all. So, it now should coincide with the first 2 mandatory policies of neutrality & verifiability. I discussed the 3rd original research policy at the very end of this article. Do a keyword search for 'physics cranks' to read it. Thanks. Dave925 13:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

A website creator, fails WP:BIO -- zzuuzz (talk) 02:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

  • You know, I don't really care if it's deleted. I just thought I would try to tell you I exist, and I have had (and continue to have) noteworthy accomplishments in my life (as were stated in the biography). Wikipedia seems a bit different than it was when it started way back when as an "ideal." I believe any individual in the world should be able to tell their story to the world whether or not they have had noteworthy accomplishments or not. Notewrothy is a serious judgment call, and who is the judge? The Media? How much money you have made? No. Is wikipedia low on disk space or something? Are they worried that when you type in "Albert Einstein" you will get 500 different names and won't be able to figure out which one is the famous guy? How many other "David Eric Blackingtons" are in the world? Is this article really going to CLUTTTER up the category of other David Eric Blackingtons? Does wikipedia not have enough diskspace for everyone in the world to write their autobiography? I agree you should require a full name including middle in order to prevent the cluttered search results, though. Furthermore, website creators do meet the criteria for verifiability because you can just go to that website and look at what they are doing. If you feel the website is noteworthy, unique, newsworthy, then so be it. For profit websites should, I agree, be held up to higher standards for noteworthiness. It's really a difficult decision to be made based upon the "free" philosophy that wikipedia was founded upon. I guess as time goes on, the standards become stricter and stricter until wikipedia can just be renamed "Encyclopedia Britannica!" It just sounds a bit funny that a "free encyclopedia" would be judging whether a person's life is NOTEWORTHY to be read about by the general public. No large online dispenser of information ever wants to be in the business of being the FIRST to publish a person's life story, do they? Oh, let someone else do it. We don't want to hear about it. But wasn't that one of the reasons for the start of wikipedia? The idea was for the entire world to log on and tell their story and help write about things they know about. If you don't give people a chance to write their story, 99% of the lives of a person will go unnoticed because YOU say they are not notable. Why not let them tell their story and THE PUBLIC will decide whether or not they want to read about them or not. Just like you have a button to change the channel on the TV, you have the power to type in a different name in the search engine if you don't feel like reading about the one and only David Eric Blackington in the world. -- Dave925 (talk) 9:42PM, 21 July 2006 (PST)
You know, I don't really care if it's deleted. I just thought I would try to tell you I exist

Not even an original thought ... War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)

A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

-Stephen Crane
Daniel Case 03:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Dave, we're only applying current policy here. If you think that WP policy should be changed so that "non-notability" does not exist, you should bring up the issue at the appropriate level. For now... this content should be moved to your own user page. Delete.EuroSong talk 13:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, I went to the notable page, and it says the criteria is controversial. So, it sounds like you can be free to make up your own mind about the use of that criteria.Dave925
  • Keep Many people like Dave are feeling rejected to tell their own story here in Wikipedia. That's why AntiWikipedia opposes to this ideology of "What is notable" and "What is not notable". I didn't know we were in a popularity contest here. Still I took the liberty of adding Dave's article to the AntiWikipedia which is a place where everyone can exist and no one has to be right about anything.24.90.233.29 20:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Which is why AntiWikipedia is not Wikipedia. The goal is to be an encyclopedia, and part of that means discriminating about what material is worth including and what isn't. Peyna 03:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, per nomination. Article is also totally unsourced, hence unverifiable. This discussion is an example of THE PUBLIC [deciding] whether or not they want to read about [you] or not. Kimchi.sg 05:08, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. The disagreement is mostly philosophical, and over the years a general consensus has been reached that Wikipedia can't be the central server for knowledge of EVERYTHING. That would make it bigger than the Internet, in every sense possible. I agree wholeheartedly that everyone should be able to tell their story in some way, but Wikipedia really isn't the place for it--it's not a central directory of the Internet. Dave925, there are tons of web services out there that let you have a free web page to tell your story on your own terms, and I hope you find one that suits you and your designs. -- H·G (words/works) 05:21, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per concerns above about verifiability and notability.--Chaser T 05:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Fails WP:BIO and WP:VAIN. --Coredesat talk. o.o;; 05:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Save, per Wales philosophy. Quote from the wikipedia article of the founder of Wikipedia: Wales explained the purpose of Wikipedia by saying, "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."[19] Furthermore, THE PUBLIC constitutes how many people? Are you being paid to review wikipedia articles? Or do you just have time to kill and just decide to mark a zillion articles for deletion because you don't care to read about them? Personally, I don't have time to criticize other people's lives. I'm sure there are a lot of other people's lives which other people would consider noteworthy which you would care less about. I say have a libertarian "live & let live" philosophy like Wales suggested when he founded wikipedia. Believe it or not, the "sum of all human knowledge" also includes the knowledge I am offering to the public with my metaphysical research. If you delete the article, you will be depriving people of "the sum of all human knowledge" which Wales wanted to offer people.
  • Save, Unsourced? Actually, any idiot can figure out if they go to the external link whether or not I am legit. It >IS< verifiable knowledge which I'm offering the public. In terms of the biography, what better source would you need than the horse's mouth? Are you going to ask my Mom if I won the Gold Medal in the Nutmeg State Games in 1990? Well, the results were actually published in a local newspaper, but no one in their right mind would want to know the name of the newspaper. Even if I was to cite that newspaper, are you really going to go check up on my source to verify my name is listed under the winners? What's a reliable source that I was born in Tolland, Connecticut? Do you want me to cite the Tolland Town Hall or something? Do you want me to upload a copy of my birth certificate? What's a reliable source I received an award for being ranked #1 in my college class? How about the college? You can call and talk to them, if you don't believe me. The fact is, LOTS of KNOWLEDGE goes unpublished. Wales knew this, and this is why he created wikipedia. His intention wasn't to bar all knowledge that was never published. His idea was for humans to have access to the "total sum of all human knowledge." He didn't say "previously published knowledge." Believe it or not, there are a lot of bits of human knowledge that go unpublished. In fact, probably at least 50% of the human knowledge base is unpublished knowledge. Dave925 10:23PM, 21 July 2006 (PST) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.73.186 (talk • contribs)
    • It is not the job of an encyclopedia to collect unverifiable information, even if it were true. Other Reliable sources must have mentioned it first. Geocities, Myspace or Blogger would be a better place for unverifiable information. Lastly, duplicating your "Saves" won't increase this article's chance of survival. Kimchi.sg 05:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes, the name, date, author, and title of the newspaper article is exactly what we want. Uncle G 08:36, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as per nom. --Merovingian (T, C, @) 05:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete despite (or because of) entertaining, Mary Katherine Gallagher-esque rants. Daniel Case 05:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • PSI wasn't trying to duplicate "Saves".... I was trying to indent underneath and realized I would need to include another save to indent.Dave925 05:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, like it says in the deletion policies... this isn't a vote, It is a discussion. When does the voting start? And who makes the ultimate decision about whether I'm noteworthy knowledge in the total sum of all human knowledge? Dave925 10:53PM, 21 July 2006 (PST— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.73.186 (talk • contribs)
    • Voting never starts, this is a consensus of the community. Kevin_b_er 06:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Of course lots of knoledge goes unpublished. What my grandmother did on thursdays at 6 PM (likely TV) is part of what wikipedia is not, which is an indescriminate collection of information. Also, sources are not just sources, they are reputable sources(ie, not myspace, as kimchi.sg puts it well). This is vanity, the classic WP:BIO cite, and, in the end, unverifable by reputable sources. Kevin_b_er 06:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Userfy. I'm quite surprised no-one has suggested userfying this before now. There would be nothing wrong with this being a subpage of Dave925's user page. But it's not notable enough to belong in article space. Grutness...wha? 06:39, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • By the way, in terms of articles on wikipedia, I have seen a lot worse which haven't been marked for deletion. For example, take a look at Daniel Baier's article. If you compare this 3 sentence biography (with no photos, no sources, and very little information) to my article... honestly, which would you rather read? Tell me how Daniel's article is a great deal better than mine? And how is his life more noteworthy? The fact is, different people have different standards of whether something is noteworthy, so there are articles which get approved which others would not approve. I'm sure there are articles which never got flagged for deletion which are worse than mine. Dave925 11:25pm, 21 July 2006 (PST) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.73.186 (talk • contribs)
    • Then you flag them for deletion. Just because other non-notable articles exist is no reason for keeping one. As for the example you cited, that is a footballer in a major German team and almost certainly has been mentioned in the media before. Lastly, and for the final time, please stop putting "'''Save'''" before your comments. To learn how to properly indent comments, read Help:Editing before making your next reply. Kimchi.sg 07:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Oh yea, I forgot, media rules the world of human knowledge. Obviously, Wales' ideal is not going to go anywhere if he is hiring people with narrow minds. I vote that any human being who makes a good intentioned attempt to write their autobiography is given a chance to be heard on wikipedia. Onless, of course, you know of a webite that is already organizing legitimate attempts to share their life story. Is there a website out there called biography.com or maybe even wikibiography.com which houses real attempts of possibly "normal" people who are writing their biographies? (Believe me, I'm not considered "normal" by most, and I may even be considered noteworthy by some!) The good thing about wikipedia is you can just click on a birthdate, and it will give you a list of other people who were born on that day. You can then see what their professed occupations are and listen to what other people's lives are like who share your birthday. But, if someone comes online and starts a file with their name and says, "Today I went to the store and bought ice cream. It was good. Peace out!," this is obviously not an legitimate attempt to write your autobiography and noteworthy accomplishments. Again, noteworthy to me, may not be noteworthy to you, or noteworthy to someone else. If the media is used as a measure of noteworthiness, I can't imagine what type of society we will end up becoming (oh, don't tell me this has already happened? ;) Dave925 12:17am, 22 July 2006 (PST)
      • You don't seem to have thought of Blogger, Myspace and Geocities which do exactly what you want - host biographies for free. We have standards for biographies, so stop throwing the subjectivity card around. Your comment have, so far, made no attempt to assess yourself fairly by our standards. Kimchi.sg 07:35, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
        • There are no standards on those websites. People can write anything. Yet, the standards here are obviously no less strict than Britannica. You need to loosen up, or they need to create some standards of how to write a biography.Dave925— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.73.186 (talk • contribs)
          • Arguments that we should change the goals of the entire project just to suit you will not be well received. Wikipedia is not a primary source. It is an encyclopaedia, a tertiary source. If you want a web site for publishing primary source material, which is what an autobiography based upon firsthand knowledge is, please look elsewhere. You have been told about several possibilities. Your statement that we are serious about our standards is a compliment, by the way. Uncle G 08:36, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
            • I'd say it's time to change wiki's slogan to something other than the "free" encyclopedia. It's almost as much of a joke as calling the United States a "free nation." It's misleading. False advertising. It might be freer than some encyclopedias which don't really have a forum to argue inclusion, but it's bluntly obvious it is far from free. You might consider changing the title to Mediapedia because of your incessant need to appeal to the media to justify an article as worthy human knowledge. Also, my biography isn't a primary source. My website is the primary source which verifies the existence of unique metaphysical knowledge which is being offered to the public free of charge. It may not be of interest to you or john q public, but it may be of interest to the metaphysically-minded minority. If you're going to discriminate against all the metaphysically-minded users of wikipedia by not providing the "sum total of human knowledge" in the field of metaphysics, then so be it. Ask yourself another question. How many other metaphysical reasearch websites can you find in search engines on the net? Unique? I'd say so. In fact, I believe you should start a new article on metaphysical research and provide external links to those websites which are currently "on the case" and publishing real findings free for people to read. You can create a separate category entitled "metaphysical investigators," just like you have created a category entitled, "astrologers." Either way, whether it is now or later, this information will become part of wikipedia under some category, believe it or not. Dave925— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.73.186 (talk • contribs)
      • I'd say it's time to change wiki's slogan to something other than the "free" encyclopedia. It's almost as much of a joke as calling the United States a "free nation." How many times do we have to say this? "Wikipedia is not an experiment in Internet democracy. It is a project to create an online encyclopedia." Quod erat demonstrandum. Daniel Case 18:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
      • One of the logical flaws in your argument is that Jimbo "hires" administrators. This is simply not the case; they are promoted by and only by community consensus. They are awarded a certain degree of trust from fellow editors. --Merovingian (T, C, @) 07:45, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
        • Concensus? Oh, you mean themasses? I understand now. I'll mention that to Galileo next time I talk to him about the sum total of human knowledge. You're the type of people who would not mention a word about the world being round UNTIL some "reliable source" told you so. What you consider a "reliable source" is just like what you consider "noteworthy" or not. It is all subjective and based upon themasses consensus. That's why it took so long to figure out that Galileo was actually right-on! Yea, the sum of human knowledge. That's what wikipedia is about! ;) Remember, minds are like parachutes, they only function when they are open -- Dave925— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.73.186 (talk • contribs)
  • Delete. Utterly insignificant, -- GWO
  • Delete per nom, also WP:VAIN. Tychocat 09:45, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete: What, about the biography of this person, makes this life one that others are either curious about or that they need to be curious about to understand the world? There is no deferred rationale, in my opinion. Were the website the most popular among Deists, let's say, that would not mean that the person who created it is sufficiently famous or culturally significant to require a biography. What about this biography suggests that the person is old enough to be discussed? Delete as a vanity article and as making insufficient claim for notability. Geogre 11:54, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, per the many and wide-ranging arguments of Dave925, which demonstrate clearly that the article falls foul of WP:VAIN and WP:BIO. Vizjim 13:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete - per above. Massmato 15:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, fails WP:BIO. Believe it or not, there are a lot of bits of human knowledge that go unpublished. Let's keep it that way for this one. --Kinu t/c 16:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Notability in not notable - Let me explain how notability is not a valid criteria to judge an article. I believe it already says this under the controversial discussion of this criteria, but let me reemphasize with an example of why. If I start a new article and entitle it "John Q Public" and then begin writing my blog, what is wrong with this scenario? I'll tell you what's wrong. The STRUCTURE. It is not consistent with what the structure of an encyclopedia article would be. Wales' idea (I surmise) was not to DISCRIMINATE against the noteworthiness of people's lives, but it was merely to ensure wikipedia was organized with the correct encyclopedic structure and articles were listed in the proper categories. Then, Wales would only need to type in "John Q Public" and read what an encyclopedia would say about his life (if he was ALLOWED in the TRADITIONAL encyclopedia). Wales would not want to type in a person's name and get their blog because that is not what encyclopedia's do. Encyclopedias include biographies of people's lives, and up until today, they have all been judged as noteable by virtue of POPULARITY. I don't believe that Wales' idea of a free encyclopedia had anything to do with POPULARITY or NOTEABILITY, but I think he would have liked articles to have the correct encyclopedia STRUCTURE, be ORGANIZED, and have the correct TITLES so people reasonably know what to expect of the content of the article before clicking on it. Again, a person wouldn't expect to get a person's blog when they click on an encyclopedia article with the person's name. However, I don't see anything wrong with providing external links to their blog just in case that person was intersted in further nonencyclopedic information about the person. So, if biographies are going to be included in wikipedia (notable or not), they should have basic encyclopedic information about the person like when/where they were born, where they grew up, their notable accomplishments... stuff you would see in an encyclopedia IF they were considered a notable person.Dave925 9:58am 7/22/06
  • Furthermore, if people are so dead-set on having only Britannica-level information/biographies in wikipedia's search results, instead of trying to keep out 'non-notables,' you could provide a separate search box to search the entire wikipedia knowledge base which would include all your college professor's biographies and the serious biographical attempts of your next door neighbor who works at your local department store. This way, if you come to wikipedia to only read Britannica-status articles, you can use the 'notable-only' search box.... whereas if you want to search the entire "sum of human knowledge" which Wales initially dreamed about, you could select the "sum of human knowledge" box which would include access to the knowledge which less notables may be able to provide.Dave925 9:58am 7/22/06
  • Delete vanity page. Also the website hurts my eyes. JChap (talk • contribs) 18:19, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete fails WP:BIO. Artw 21:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. Otherwise I would like my own article, please. ... discospinster talk 22:12, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes, I believe everyone should be able to write their own encyclopedia article on their life as long as it's a legitimate attempt to write an encyclopedia article on yourself. Again, you need to include pertinent information that you would find in an encyclopedia article on a person, and THEN, and ONLY THEN, should you be able to provide your external links. If someone creates a page with their name and writes "Hi, my name is John, come visit my website at www.mywebsite.com, peace out!" Obviously, this warrant's nomination for deletion in order to urge the author to conform to the basic standards/structure of an encyclopedia article. If you are not familiar with the type of encyclopedic information to include in your biography, you can consult an professional level biography article in any local encyclopedia.
    • If you're going to judge anyone's encyclopedia article, I would hope it would be judged upon whether or not the content and structure coincides with what you might find in an encyclopedia article >IF< the person was noteworthy. The criteria of being popular, in the media, or considered 'noteworthy' by your fellow peers should not be a relevant argument for deletion. Questions like, Is the person trying to write a professional encyclopedia article on themselves? or, if you came down from another planet, would the structure/content of their article APPEAR like they are an unnoteworthy person? For example, if I created an encyclopedia article under my name and just started writing unencyclopedic information (like blogging or whatever), the person coming from another planet would notice that the structure/content of my article doesn't seem to fit in with the other encyclopedia articles.
    • Either that, or I vote for wikibiography.com where people can go and read EVERYONE'S professional biography as opposed to just the people who happen to win a popularity contest in our society. Furthermore, just because someone is popular doesn't necessarily mean they are 'noteworthy.' There are a lot of unpopular people out there who have a lot of noteworthy accomplishments and knowledge to share with the world. Remember, everyone is your superior in some aspect of life, and we can learn something from them (or their lives). Noteworthy does not mean popular. Noteworthy means you don't start an article under your name and start telling us your favorite color, favorite singer, and favorite sport without clarifying the relevance of these statements with noteworthy accomplishments which tie into these statements. For example, you can say, "John's favorite sport growing up with Basketball, and he went on to become the captain of his college team at Harvard Unverisity and win most valuable player award in 1993." He may not be that popular, but he still has had some noteworthy accomplishments which appear relevant to mention in an encyclopedia article under his name.Dave925 00:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Comment. Er, I wasn't serious. ... discospinster talk 00:26, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete. The author - and repeated poster in this AfD - seems to misunderstand the fundamental concept of an encyclopedia as well as what does (and does not) constitute bias. Although Wikipedia's goal have been sloganized as being "the sum of all human knowledge", there is plenty of "human knowledge" that will be forever outside the realm of Wikipedia. There are no shortage of other Internet outlets that do not have the standards and restrictions that Wikipedia does; they are not encyclopedias. Serpent's Choice 03:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Repeated poster? How are you supposed to have a discussion without repeatedly posting? Isn't that the word on the tab? Discussion. Never mind, don't answer that. It's clear from your "strength of conviction" that your mind was made up before you even read the first word of this discussion. Furthermore, who in their right mind would trust a Serpent's opinion, anyway? I'm sure you're familiar with the reputation of the Serpent. I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish when you chose your userid. What's in a name? A name is pretty important, and it should be choosen wisely. It gives people an immediate first impression which can influence people's perception of your credibility Dave925 09:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, I read this entire discussion prior to posting. I'm quite willing to change my mind regarding entries in Wikipedia, based entirely by fact-based arguments centered around Wikipedia's policies and, to a lesser extent, its guidelines. In fact, I've been an increasingly vocal participant in the discussion of an article whose topic I personally disagree with completely, because that is what is asked of me by policy and guideline. This entry, on the other hand, does not meet the standards set in those policies and guidelines. Specifically, under WP:WINAD, "Biography articles should only be given for people with some sort of achievement. A good measure of achievement is whether someone has been featured in several external sources." This is clarified in the guideline WP:BIO. Is it possible they are wrong? Yes, it is. Policies and guidelines have changed substantially over the history of this encyclopedia's existence. But an AfD isn't the place to argue policy. If you really want to try to sway the community, the place to do so is on the discussion pages of the policies that are almost certainly going to lead to this page's deletion -- and not here. But, as a word of wisdom, if you fashion yourself Sisyphus and wish to attempt that task, borderline-attacks on other users based on your biased point of view regarding their userids is going to get you sanction, not discussion. Serpent's Choice 12:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Userfy - not notable, but feel free to slap it on the user page like many others. -- Whpq 12:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Notability is a controversial GUIDELINE, not a policy. Plus, it says right on that page that it shouldn't be used as a criteria for deletion in itself. Notability is not the criteria anyone should mention to a new comer at the start of an argument for deletion. It should only be mentioned in passing or at the very end to add a "nail in their coffin," so to speak (for lack of a better way to phrase it). Dave925 11:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete - it does not belong in an encyclopedia. Baseball,Baby! balls•strikes 23:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree it doesn't belong in a TRADITIONAL encyclopedia, but I thought wikipedia was supposed to be more free and open. After all, isn't it's slogan "The Free Encyclopedia"? I'm quite certain it doesn't say "the encyclopedia that everyone is used to."
  • Comment - I just thought of yet another reason to allow non-notables to write encyclopedia articles on themselves. Literary Incentive. In other words, if wikipedia does allow non-notables in their "exclusive group," it will encourage more people in the world to sit down and share their story with the world. It actually may even encourage some people to get off their butts and accomplish something in their life, so they can put it in their article! Ever think of that? The world will publish your accomplishments if you have them. Verifiability won't be a large problem because people would question anyone who claimed to have accomplished something REALLY noteworthy. Furthermore, the REALLY noteworthy accomplishments of people tend to be caught by the media, anyway. And, as far as I'm concerned, the ideal would be to get every person in the world to sit down and write their biographies. Wouldn't that be fascinating to be able to read encyclopedia articles on that many people? And, again, we are talking about serious encyclopedia articles where they have the content & structure akin to that of a professional level article. Imagine clicking on your birthday in wikipedia and getting a list of people born on that day who wrote their own encyclopedia article? Remember, only .27% of the population are born on your birthday, so this would represent a quite unique sample of individuals. I'm always curious to see what type of people my birthday is producing (in general). You might even find articles written on people born on your specific DATE of birth which is usually only a handful of people (considering most don't have the patience to sit down and write their story, anyway). Aren't you at all curious what your birthmates are up to? A person is lucky to find ONE famous person who was born on their full birthdate, so it would be nice to have a few more than just one person to read about who shares your full birthdate, don't you think? Even if you aren't into the birthday scene, having access to all those biographies would be quite amazing, eh? I don't know of any other service on the net which is in the business of organizing encyclopedia-style biographies on every individual. As far as I know, no other webspace has standards for structure & content, so visiting a person's myspace page is usually far from informative compared to if we compelled people to adhere to encyclopedic standards for writing their biographies. For example, in 8th grade, our English teacher asked the class to write their biography. They required we follow a particular structure, and we were graded on whether or not we followed it. I'm sure everyone who contributed on this talk page would help our users in writing their encyclopedia article correctly/professionally if they see people going astray. But, to simply not include them because they are considered "not notable" is, to me, a serious mistake if they are actually making a ernest attempt to write a well structured article under their full legal name with encyclopedic content.Dave925 09:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Dave, frankly none of your arguments to this point have been persuasive. This article unambigiously fails many of our policies and guidelines and will be deleted for that reason. Specifically, this article fails WP:BIO, WP:V, WP:VAIN, WP:AUTO, and WP:NOR (your latest addition about something said by your prof.). You're not going to win this one by arguing with us about notability. That fight's been fought. The best you can do read our objections above about serious problems this article has with numerous Wikipedia policies and guidelines and try to fix the problems. Just try not to violate WP:ANNOY while you're at it, please.--Chaser T 09:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Oh, I'm always open to suggestions, by all means. In addition, I just found out that Wikipedians try to follow a strict policy of never biting new users. I don't know how many users are new on this talk page, but very few people on this talk page have read this policy. I think most of the users on this talk page are still stuck in the "be bold" philosophy which is only supposed to apply to NEW comers, according to policy. The more experienced you are with wikipedia (if I read the policy correctly), the kinder & gentler you are supposed to be with your words and suggestions. In fact, the problems which people keep noting in this discussion don't really come with any suggestions for rewriting or reprhasing. They just say "DELETE" and then don't have time to explain how it can be improved. Of course, if they don't want to see my face in the enyclopedia, why would they try to help me, anyway? Right? If you need me to put a footnote on my birthdate and tell you where I got the information, I will. As to whether you consider my source reliable is another story, and also a value-judgment call. So, so far, the criteria of notability and reliability are value-judgments. And I'm also noticing that a lot of the links people provide are GUIDELINES, not policies. There is a difference between a guideline and a policy. As far as I read, the "strict policy" is for everyone to be nice to new comers, all those links which you provided me to read are merely guidelines. No, it doesn't mean you can disregard them or they don't mean anything, but it also means not to apply them too strictly. Be a little loose, friendly, lighten up... all these things are in the tradition of what I have read about Jimbo's philosophy.
        • I can see that you're upset about this, Dave. But you really lose me with "I don't know how many users are new on this talk page, but very few people on this talk page have read this policy." First, you can click on their user names and look at their contributions to see just how new they are ... or aren't. Second, if you go to the main AFD listings and see just how often these policies are cited and linked to (including WP:BITE, which you tried to link to above) by people who can quote the criteria listed on them off the tops of their heads.
        • If you weren't so new here, I would consider the insult to our intelligence implied by that argument to be a personal attack. But since you are, let me just say it more directly: You're a minnow trying to jump with the sharks and whales as far as your efforts to interpret Wikipedia deletion policy in your favor are concerned. During his legal career, my father once told me of a conversation with an appellate judge he was acquainted with. The judge had many years on the bench, and was often amused when neophyte lawyers would come before him trying to win their cases on some novel legal theory or interpretation. "I know the law," my father recalls him saying. "Stick to the facts of your case if you want to win." You would do well to consider this story and follow the same advice. Proving notability to our standards is about the only way I have ever seen anyone convince us to keep an article they're fond of (welll, once I translated an article from French and that worked, too). Trying to convince us to completely jettison several years and thousands of deletion debates just to accomodate your ego is most definitely the wrong way to do this.
        • This "it's just a flesh wound" attitude of yours has grown tiresome. Considering that this entire debate will be archived forever once it's over, do you really want a prospective employer or client to see you engaging in such pointless and self-destructive arguments when they Google on your name? Please think about this, for your own sake if no one else's. Daniel Case 18:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Jimbo also states that the primary motivation for the policy for 'original research' was to keep out people who publish theories on wikipedia that haven't been published. As you can see by my article, I'm not a physics crank, and I'm not posting theories which haven't been already published. The only other two strict policies which are outlined are neutrality & verifiability. It says on the WP:AUTO page that you can use your own website to verify personal information about one's self as long as it's not grossly self-promoting. They also mention notability, but the whole notability guideline is NOT a policy, so lacking notability doesn't automatically mean 'delete.' So, as far as I can see, the only thing I can do to help the article is to publish my personal information on my website and add a footnote to that link. Right?
      • As for Jimbo's idea about people being written about by other people if they are notable, I don't think this is always true. There are notable people who are not being written about, and SHOULD publish their autobiography. To me, that's called sharing. Sharing is a valued concept in my book. There's a fine line between sharing yourself and vanity, but being stingy with yourself, to me, is just as bad as being vain. In fact, those people who WON'T share themselves with the world by composing their encyclopedic article for everyone to read are just as vain as the ones who MUST. It is the balanced people who are not the vain ones. The people who aren't over zealous about NEEDING to be known and are also not too stingy to the point where they want to keep every single detail of their life to themselves. The very first words out of my mouth when I heard someone nominated my life story to be deleted was... well, you can scroll back up to the top of this talk page and read them. And, yes, I do mean it. Whoever has the power to delete my article, if they don't like it, I'm fine with that. All I was trying to do was to share my life because I thought sharing was a worthy value to have. Believe me, it wasn't a vain attempt for me to share, and I would never want to be part of a group who does not want me as a member.
      • So, if you don't want me in your book, I will take that as a hint that you don't appreciate what I have to offer. However, I still would say it's a value-judgment. Like Jimbo says, what matters are factual-judgments such as neutrality & verifiability. As far as I can see, the article is written in a neutral tone, and I can make the personal information verifiable by publishing it on my website (per WP:AUTO)... and, lastly, the original research policy was designed to keep out crank theorists, and everyone can see I didn't publish any theories in the article, so no one has to worry to much about that. If you insist I run down the name, date, & author of the newspaper which publishes my name as the winner of the Gold Medal, I will. Of course, I know no one in their right mind would spend time to check this reference, anyway, so I could just approximate from memory and no one would know the difference, right? It was a local newspaper, and it was published in July 1990... probably the Journal Inquirer or Hartford Courant. But, this really is a non-issue because isn't it common knowledge where one would find a list of the winners of a state olympics? I think an 8th grader could figure that one out, don't you think? I don't think it's necessary to cite your sources when an 8th grader would know where to find that information, anyway. Now, if I was writing highly technical information or assertions... yes, I would need to show people where they are published. I think it's ok to use a LITTLE common sense as opposed to being blinded by a hard & fast policy. Dave925 11:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • So, in a nutshell, when one of Jimbo Wales' statements agrees with your beliefs he's right, and when he diverges from your beliefs he's wrong? You still haven't exaplained why this article doesn't fall foul of WP:AUTO, or WP:VAIN, by the way. Vizjim 13:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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