4 ms·

It sounds like you have somewhat of a misunderstanding about what kind of content Wikipedia aims to include. It does not aim to include every fact, only those w

It sounds like you have somewhat of a misunderstanding about what kind of content Wikipedia aims to include. It does not aim to include every fact, only those which are “notable” - that is inevitably somewhat subjective, but the idea is it doesn’t want an article on every single government and military employee - only the particularly notable ones, who are generally going to be limited to elected officials (and even then generally only national and state/provincial, with local elected officials generally only being article-worthy for major metropolises), agency heads, generals, etc. Unless these relatives of yours hold one of those very senior positions, or has some kind of media profile/etc independently of their government/military job, they probably are not noteworthy enough to mention-even if they are relatives of someone noteworthy, Wikipedia isn’t trying to be a genealogy, so genealogical information is generally only included if the ancestor/descendant is independently notable, and otherwise is generally only limited to a generation or two (which may be why your father’s generation makes the cut but not your own.) Furthermore, the demand for documentation is important, because how do they know you are not just making stuff up? (You’d think people would never contribute blatantly invented information, but people actually have done it-some people get some kind of twisted pleasure out of it, in other cases people have done it out of mental illness.) Reliable secondary sources (so not birth certificates or military IDs, which are primary sources) also help in distinguishing what information is “encyclopaedic” from what isn’t-if reliable secondary sources aren’t interested in a topic, Wikipedia will not be either.

sandworm101 5y ago
Wikipedia has a list. The list is out of date. I was adding to it to bring it up to date. There was never any suggestion that these people shouldn't be there. There was never any mention of removing material from the original article. As for notability, every US senator, General or head of even the most minor agency seems to have a wikipedia page these days, along with all their wives/husbands and kids. I don't see those pages being deleted when they leave office.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tptacek 5y ago
  Every one of those pages has citations to reliable secondary sources (if they don't, you can get them deleted by referring them to AfD). If you can provide sources for the person you want to write about, a source that includes some argument for their notability, your article will survive too. It's frustrating, some of the pages that manage to survive on WP by dint of flimsy sources that have written about them. I spent a bunch of months trying to push back on spam pages in my own field on WP and ultimately gave up. But there's a reason it's like this: it's an all-volunteer project, and they have to draw a line somewhere, and it has to be a line that's easy for (very) part-time volunteers to quickly and cheaply adjudicate. WP:RS is exactly such a line.
- endless1234 5y ago
  > Wikipedia has a list. The list is out of date. I was adding to it to bring it up to date. If your source for these updates was basically "I'm family, trust me bro", isn't this a case of WP's verifiability for once working well?
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Also, there's some extra rules around people that are still alive, not sure if it's politeness, not wanting to get sued or used for harassment but probably worth bearing in mind if you're frustrated that they won't let you add random family members.
ghaff 5y ago
The challenge with notability is that everyone, or at least a lot of people (and things), are notable within some community. "Celebrities"? Sure. How about senior executives of F500 companies, high school quarterbacks who are written about in local newspapers, journalists who publish regularly, tenured professors at "major" universities, authors, the most trivial political figure, etc. A lot of people/things have some level of public visibility if you get to a sufficiently specific group--whether geographical or in terms of popular/professional interest. The system kinda sorta works but it's very inconsistent.

sandworm101 5y ago

Wikipedia has a list. The list is out of date. I was adding to it to bring it up to date. There was never any suggestion that these people shouldn't be there. There was never any mention of removing material from the original article. As for notability, every US senator, General or head of even the most minor agency seems to have a wikipedia page these days, along with all their wives/husbands and kids. I don't see those pages being deleted when they leave office.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 5y ago
Every one of those pages has citations to reliable secondary sources (if they don't, you can get them deleted by referring them to AfD). If you can provide sources for the person you want to write about, a source that includes some argument for their notability, your article will survive too. It's frustrating, some of the pages that manage to survive on WP by dint of flimsy sources that have written about them. I spent a bunch of months trying to push back on spam pages in my own field on WP and ultimately gave up. But there's a reason it's like this: it's an all-volunteer project, and they have to draw a line somewhere, and it has to be a line that's easy for (very) part-time volunteers to quickly and cheaply adjudicate. WP:RS is exactly such a line.
endless1234 5y ago
> Wikipedia has a list. The list is out of date. I was adding to it to bring it up to date. If your source for these updates was basically "I'm family, trust me bro", isn't this a case of WP's verifiability for once working well?
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Also, there's some extra rules around people that are still alive, not sure if it's politeness, not wanting to get sued or used for harassment but probably worth bearing in mind if you're frustrated that they won't let you add random family members.

ghaff 5y ago

The challenge with notability is that everyone, or at least a lot of people (and things), are notable within some community. "Celebrities"? Sure. How about senior executives of F500 companies, high school quarterbacks who are written about in local newspapers, journalists who publish regularly, tenured professors at "major" universities, authors, the most trivial political figure, etc. A lot of people/things have some level of public visibility if you get to a sufficiently specific group--whether geographical or in terms of popular/professional interest. The system kinda sorta works but it's very inconsistent.