Brendan Burke's Wikipedia entry marked for deletion - Latest News Roundup
Monday, February 8, 2010

Brendan Burke's Wikipedia entry marked for deletion

Controversy is brewing on Wikipedia over a suggestion to delete Brendan Burke's entry: some say he isn't "notable" enough to warrant his own page. (And we thought just about anybody could get their own entry!)

Brendan, the gay son of Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke, died following a car accident on Friday. Brendan received international media attention in 2009 after ESPN wrote about his coming out story.

But some argue that Brendan doesn't deserve his own Wikipedia page, based on the website's "notability policy."

 

On Feb 7, Brendan Burke's Wikipeda page was marked for deletion. As of Monday afternoon, it's still being debated.

Wikipedia user FisherQueen left this comment on the discussion page: "Brendan's chief accomplishments appear to be (a) being related to a notable person; (b) coming out as gay, and (c) dying young. I have no doubt that he was a good person, well loved by his friends and family, but Wikipedia is not a memorial, and I'm not convinced that his accomplishments meet Wikipedia's notability criteria."

Some have suggested that Brendan's article should be merged with his father Brian's entry. "[Brendan's entry] runs afoul of all sorts of guidelines: notability isn't inherited, Wikipedia isn't a newspaper," writes Wikipedia user Hairhorn.

Others have defended Brendan's notability. One anonymous commentator had this to say: "Wow, let's just make the life of a man well-known in the homosexual community disappear. This is so typical - we don't exist because you do not want us to exist."

Justacat66 says: "His orientation is the key to his importance. He's a rare gay athlete who had the courage to come out publicly in a super-"masculine" sport viewed as being homophobic and as having homophobic fans - even more notably because he is the son of a superstar in that sport, so he faced even greater pressures. He has been lauded as a role model in the gay community and for young (and not so young) gay athletes everywhere."


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Comments

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 7:00 AM

I've stopped taking Wikipedia seriously since my firsthand experience with the computer-lab Hitlers deputized to run it. There is no uniformity of decision-making, and (unlike this lucky case) there is often no discussion at all prior to a deletion. I've lost days of editing work this way, and it's why I no longer contribute anything beyond spelling corrections to Wikipedia. Sadly, no reasonable alternative yet exists, but as long as Wikipedia is managed by these clowns, it's inevitable they will be defeated by a better concept.

Randy ca


Tuesday, February 9, 2010 4:35 PM

I had the exact same experience as Randy. Worked extremely hard on a Wikipedia entry about a Dallas winery. Because some douche bag didn't think it deserved its notability page, and because I questioned his interpretation of the "notability requirement", my page was fast-tracked for deletion.

Wikipedia is a joke and should not be considered user-generated information when it's so unfairly controlled by so few.

Jorge us



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