User:Joshdboz/proposal
When a person is associated with only one event, such as for a particular relatively unimportant crime or for standing for governmental election, consideration needs to be given to the need to create a standalone article on the person. If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography may be unwarranted.
Coverage in Reliable sources may at times be extensive and may expand upon the person's background, but information on the person should generally be included in the article on the event itself, unless the information is so large that this would make the article unwieldy or sources have written primarily about the person, and only secondarily about the event. In that case, the discussion of the person should be broken out from the event article in summary style.
WP:Notability A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.
Proposed rewrite
When a person is associated with only one event, such as for a particular relatively unimportant crime or for standing for governmental election, consideration needs to be given to the need to create a standalone article on the person. If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography may be unwarranted.
Coverage in Reliable sources may at times be extensive and may expand upon the person's background, but information on the person should generally be included in the article on the event itself, unless the person receives specific and significant coverage in reliable sources indendent of the him/her.
In that case, the discussion of the person should be broken out from the event article in summary style.
People notable only for one event[edit]
When a person is associated with only one event, such as for a particular relatively unimportant crime or for standing for governmental election, consideration needs to be given to the need to create a standalone article on the person. If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography may be unwarranted.
Coverage in Reliable sources may at times be extensive and may expand upon the person's background, but information on the person should generally be included in the article on the event itself, unless the information is so large that this would make the article unwieldy or sources have written primarily about the person, and only secondarily about the event. In that case, the discussion of the person should be broken out from the event article in summary style.
Articles about people notable only for one event[edit]
Wikipedia is not a newspaper. The bare fact that someone has been in the news does not in itself imply that they should be the subject of an encyclopedia entry. Where a person is mentioned by name in a Wikipedia article about a larger subject, but remains of essentially low profile themselves, we should generally avoid having an article on them.
If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted. Marginal biographies on people with no independent notability can give undue weight to the events in the context of the individual, create redundancy and additional maintenance overhead, and cause problems for our neutral point of view policy. In such cases, a redirect or merge are usually the better options. Cover the event, not the person.
Suggested merge from WP:BLP1E to here[edit]
I have been racking my brains trying to find a good reason why WP:BLP1E was originally included in WP:BLP instead of here, and I've reached the conclusion that it was put there simply because it was thought of at the same time. WP:BLP is a content policy, where as BLP1E is an inclusion guideline, so it doesn't really belong inside BLP in any case. I also cannot find a good reason why BLP1E should only apply to living people. BLP1E makes a lot of sense, but it seems to me that it should be applied to all biographies, not just those of living people. I therefore propose that BLP1E be merged into BIO as a section called "Articles about people notable only for one event", and with a shortcut titled WP:BIO1E. —gorgan_almighty 13:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
- I wasn't sure when I saw the tag, because WP:BLP is policy so has more weight than a guideline. However, I see your point that it is about what qualifies to be included, and that it could be expanded to included all people, not just living. Makes sense. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 13:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
- Agreed in principle. The notion that articles of people who enjoy flash-in-a-pan celebrity or interest from a current news story shouldn't have their own articles is a notability point, not in most cases an avoidance of insulting the living. However, BLP is in part a compendium of the "best of" policies and guidelines from elsewhere, with the added stamp of approval of making it a policy. It's worthwhile making the point forcefully in BLP, a bulwark that prevents the creation of a lot of useless articles. Both here and in BLP we have to be careful not to ban them outright; some people attain lasting notability from a single event, e.g. Sirhan Sirhan. Wikidemo 14:44, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
- I agree that the wording needs to be looked at. Currently there is this sentence: "If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted," which implies that articles on people like Sirhan Sirhan are unwelcome. On the current version of Bio we have "Widespread and sustained coverage in the media such as the BBC, The Times or other newspapers of record." (though there is some dispute about this wording and "Widespread and in depth coverage for a sufficient time in the media such as the BBC, The New York Times or other newspapers of record." has been proposed.) The previous (undisputed) version of Bio had "The person has demonstrable wide name recognition". In all cases the Bio criteria is less than the BLP1E. Bringing in BLP1E to cover both living and dead would, in the current wording, make people who are notable for only one event - Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, Robert Peary, Mark David Chapman, Nick Leeson, etc - questionable. There is no actual criteria in BLP1E - it appears mainly a frowning about the idea without being helpful as to when a person can or can't be included. If a person is notable and has the appropriate sources, that the notability has come from multiple or singular events probably isn't that relevant. I think the guidance would need to be more specific and more helpful. Something like WP:PRODUCT, where the advice would be to deal with the person(s) within the event, such as Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McCann#Family, unless (or until) the material becomes too bulky, in which case it can be broken out in summary style. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 18:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think BLP1E is already quite specific and well-written, the idea of dealing with the person(s) within the event being implied, and obvious enough to not need implicitly stating. But if you think the wording needs fixing, then that's true no matter where BLP1E resides. As for the individuals you mention: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are notable because of their celebrity status (there are many reliable sources that cover their life history outside of the context of the event). Robert Peary as a person is more notable than the alleged event, especially since the accuracy of the alleged event is doubtful. Mark David Chapman is questionably notable because there are many reliable sources that cover his life history outside of the context of the event. Nick Leeson is only notable because we don't seem to have an article about the event itself (the event being dealt with within the biography). Of course if you want to scrape around looking for borderline BLP1E articles, you can do that with articles on living people as well as dead people. So it's hardly a good reason to say that we mustn't apply it to dead people. —gorgan_almighty 08:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Too much too fast[edit]
I think that we are trying to do too much too fast. We tried to tackle a standardization of the general criterion across all of the notability pages a few months back and the whole thing just blew up. Mainly my fault for trying to do too much at once. I am afraid that bringing in BLP issues will exponentially complicate, since that by itself has been a bit of a thorny issue. Please take some baby steps while we try to bring all notability guidelines regarding people together. Let that happen and stabilize, please! --Kevin Murray 22:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
- The standardization seems to be fairly complete now, so can we revive this proposal again? Nothing has changed in terms of the need for this proposal, and if we revive it now we wouldn't exactly be doing "too much too fast" any more. —gorgan_almighty 13:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)