Talk:Brainhell

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Although a newspaper obituary is on file that confirms the biographical information and Brainhell's prominence in the online and ALS communities, the references in this article are all that can be included without connecting Brainhell to his real life identity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barrylank (talk • contribs) 15:05, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the information. It would certainly not be appropriate to reveal unpublished personal details about a recently deceased person on Wikipedia, but any Wikipedia article should use published sources of information. The notability policy for articles about people requires third-party reliable published sources. Meanwhile, personal knowledge of editors is not generally accepted as a source because it can't be verified by other readers or editors. The consequence of all this is that the article is likely to be deleted if most of its content has no third-party references.
 * I've added a reference to the San Francisco Chronicle interview. Do you have details of where the obituary was published? EALacey (talk) 15:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree completely with the above. While it was only common courtesy to keep Brainhell's secret while he was alive, his obituary - featuring his real name right in the title - was published in a major US newspaper.  If this article meets the notability criterion, then it should be fully referenced.  If it's fully referenced, then his name is revealed in the references, so there's no need to be coy about revealing it in the article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.132.178.106 (talk) 22:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

We still need to be coy, I think. Brainhell talked a lot about his family on the web site. That means considerable information about a couple of kids, which someone could now put together with a name. That may be why his obituary did not actually mention the name of his web site Brainhell. And the web site, though it eventually published his picture, did not mention him by name, even at the end. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barrylank (talk • contribs) 17:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * If we aren't allowed to cite the obituary as a source, that leaves us with only the blog itself and the brief Chronicle interview. That's probably not enough to satisfy the notability guideline. If it would violate the family's privacy to reveal this person's real name, is it the right time yet for an encyclopedia article to be written about him at all? EALacey (talk) 17:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that the article doesn't meet the notability criteria as is. As for the family, if they were still concerned about their privacy after the blogger's death, why would they cooperate with the obit writer?  It's unlikely they'd "out" a family under these circumstances. DragonflyDC (talk) 02:39, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I've replaced the references to Brian Hill's real name and the citation of the SF Chronicle obituary. I actually feel very strongly about this. I agree with EALacey's comment above, that if "we aren't allowed to cite the obituary as a source [...] [then the article is] probably not enough to satisfy the notability guideline." But under exactly which Wikipedia guideline are we not "allowed" to cite an article published in one of the major newspapers of the United States of America? The very idea that such a citation could be disallowed (by whom exactly?) seems nonsensical to me. Wikipedia is not Brainhell's personal blog and though the etiquette on that blog clearly forbade "outing" him while he was alive, I do not believe that this rule has any force on Wikipedia. I believe that Hill and his blog are notable enough to merit a Wikipedia article (else I wouldn't bother editing, but just nominate the article for deletion), but among the strongest evidence for that notability is the very fact that he received a fairly lengthy obituary in the SF Chronicle -- under his real name. We can't have it both ways; if the subject is notable then the article must include the citation, and if it includes the citation then, as 64.132.178.106 says, there is no need to be "coy" and expunge Hill's name from the article text. In the absence of the citation I feel there is little evidence within the article of its notability. 24.46.69.155 (talk) 19:40, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

If Wikipedia wants to "out" someone, it certainly has the right to do so. Wikipedia also has the integrity to state all the facts accurately. An earlier edit inadvertently gave the incorrect impression that the SF Chronicle obituary had previously identified Hill as brainhell. 24.252.118.190 (talk) 02:57, 22 January 2009 (UTC)