User:Herostratus/Biographies of dead persons

Articles about dead people
Articles about dead people are strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. Because, after all, what can you say about about a dead person?


 * [Name of dead person] is a corpse buried in plot 337-A of the Holy Mother Of God cemetary at 4430 River Street in Racine, Wisconsin. [Name of dead person] died on October 17 1968. Since he's been dead for almost forty years, what's left of him may be assumed to have long since completed the decomposition process and to consist of of whatever bones he had with him when he died. His plot is somewhat overgrown and could use a good weeding.

All of these articles are going to look pretty much the same after awhile.

Furthermore, littering the Wikipedia with a lot of articles about dead people only takes up room that could be used for expanded critical analysis of every freaken SpongeBob Squarepants episode ever made.

Articles about dead people
Before writing an article about a dead person, ask yourself:
 * Am I sure that every single Pókemon character has been covered in excruciating detail?
 * Comic book characters. Surely somewhere there is a D-list comic book that has not had every sub-minor character covered.
 * What about your friend's band. Is there an article on your friend's band? Well why not? (If you don't have a friend who has a band, consider asking yourself: Am I too old to be editing Wikipedia?)

If, however, you feel that you must write about a dead person, at least pick someone that people have heard of, for chrissakes. The last thing we want is another article on some 3rd-Century Roman poet or some French king from like 500 years ago.

Articles about dead people
So you've decided to go ahead and write an article about a dead person anyway. Well, the first thing to remember is that dead people can't sue. So basically you can write whatever you want. Go to town.

The second thing to remember is, you can't hurt their feelings - they're dead. The last thing they're going to worry about is what it says about them on Wikipedia, which they never heard of anyway, and even if they had, so what.

The third thing to remember is, dead people don't have email or cell phones. So even supposing that they did care about their article, and that they could sue, how are they going to do anything about it? They can bang on the inside of their coffins all they want, for all the good it'll do them.

Articles about dead people
Take the article Raphael as an example. Now, not only is Raphael dead, but he's been dead so long that nobody even remembers him, except for a bunch of boring no-lifers and Mr. Weems in Art History (who probabably knew him personally, ha ha, joke). But did the person who wrote the article consider that? No, it's written as if Raphael was looking over his shoulder, for crying out loud:


 * Raphael or Raffaello (April 6, 1483 – April 6, 1520), born in Urbino, was a master painter and architect of the Florentine school in the Italian High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and softness of his paintings.

Believe me, the article goes on and on and on about this painting and that painting and blah blah blah. It's not you don't get enough of that stuff in school, right? So let's try the WP:BDP approach:


 * Raphael or The Paintinator (born like a hundred years ago or something - dead, duh) drew pictures. They didn't move or anything. They just sat there. Snooty people hung them on walls and were all like Ohhh I'm so cool. The people in the pictures didn't even have eyes the size of bowling balls, I guess they never even heard of manga back in the dark ages. He didn't even draw robots or anything cool, just a bunch of people sitting around or angels or whatever. What a loser.

See? You get a much better sense of the subject of the article, mainly that he was some boring creep who only nerds could care about. The thing to remember about dead people is: their time is over, your time is now, so might as well have some fun.

Articles about undead people
Articles about undead people are a different matter. Whether an animated corpse with a proclivity for lurching through city streets, arms extended and calling for "braiiiiiiiins!" has standing to sue in Florida courts has not yet been decided. So be cautious. Also, he might have friends. You don't want their clutching hands to be coming up through the floorboards of your isolated rural cabin some night.