Wikipedia:I wouldn't know him from a hole in the ground
This is an essay on the biographies of living persons policy and notability guideline. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: Biographies must be on subjects that are notable. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. |
Wikipedia has guidelines on
This is not a judgment on the quality of the individual themself. They may be a worthy, indeed estimable person, a pillar of the community, respected and admired by all who know them. But think of it this way: every town has a mayor. Tens of thousands of towns in each of hundreds of countries, with new mayors every few years, many hundreds of thousands of hard-working, sincere, committed individuals – and only one of them is Clint Eastwood. Typical holders of provincial and state elected office are deemed notable, but what about those running for office? Or those running for their party's nomination for office? Politics, like horse racing, cannot function without the also-rans – who sometimes come from nowhere in the last furlong to confound the bookies – we discuss them, we may admire them, we might even vote for them, but in the end we can't write encyclopaedia articles about them because there is not sufficient information from neutral secondary sources to allow us to do so. A lack of encyclopaedic notability is no discredit to a subject. And many of those who work quietly and tirelessly for the community are perfectly happy not to be placed in the spotlight.
So if you want to write about someone, especially someone who is still alive, it is best to ensure that you establish the significance of your subject with
There is, of course, a difference between a subject who is not
An example
Consider the case of Eric Moussambani. Let's imagine for a moment that you have come across a redlink and decided to fill it in. So you could write this:
- Eric Moussambani is a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea.
Verifiable, factual, neutral, but fails to make any claim of notability. Of course someone should pick this up and fix it, but where is the hook? The motivation? In short, how is this notable? Now how about if you wrote:
- Eric "The Eel" Moussambani is a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who achieved worldwide fame after finishing in the slowest time ever recorded in the Men's 100m Freestyle finals, at the 2000 Summer Olympics. Moussambani had never seen a 50m pool before the competition.
Wow! This more clearly explains why this man is notable. Can anyone remember who got the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals? Maybe, maybe not. But the public won't forget Eric the Eel in a hurry, and that makes him notable.
So there you have it: it's great to create articles, it's fantastic to write everything you know on a subject and then have others add what they know until you have a really great article – but if the limit of what you know is that "Joe Bloggs is the city dog catcher in Mudhole Flats, Idaho" consider posting at
Note
- ^ Presumably a contraction of the older and now obscure "I wouldn't know him from Adam's off ox", the "off ox" being the animal further away from the driver in a brace of oxen (in this case, Adam, already a person far removed from the speaker) and thus the epitome of obscurity and alienation from the speaker. If you listen to the dive bar scene in the "alternate reality" sequence of It's a Wonderful Life you'll hear Martini the bartender say this.