Talk:Lucas Watzenrode

Ok -- WHAT THE HECK is this doing here? This has got to be one of the best -- an article about someone famous's non-famous grandfather. Will it ever end? JHK

If I weren't half-asleep, I'd delete the thing. I'll think about this when I return (probably Tuesday) if nobody has dealt with it before then. Vicki Rosenzweig

My vote is to delete -- asking for others, waiting till Tuesday, April 2.JHK

Well, "Wiki is not paper" and it is unlikely to cause a ambiguity problem...but is it useful knowledge? --rmhermen

rmh, the ONLY reason the 'wiki is not paper' excuse would work is if we wanted to become a mirror site for the Latter Day Saints genealogies of everyone who ever existed, which seems to be HJ's intent. I know the Frank Tipler Physics of Immortality argument that we'll eventually all be backed up on disk, but there's no reason wikipedia has to contain an entry for every named individual documented to have lived in the region of Elblag. This is the otherwise utterly unimportant ancestor of an important astronomer, and that's it. MichaelTinkler

I don't see any reason for it to be saved either but would it be useful for someone say looking for the political connections of Copernicus? --rmhermen

I vote to keep Copernicus's grandfather, unless server space becomes an issue. It's really mental clutter that I'm worried about. Now, my own grandfather or great-grandfather might not be important -- compared to Copernicus (see Copernican Revolution, an article which if it doesn't exist, should) -- but the immediate ancestry of famous people is often of interest. It sheds light on the character or circumstances of the famous person. User:Ed Poor

Yes, Ed - we call that a "supporting paragraph" inside the entry. Notice that the current entry gives the man's street address (Seglergasse). Why? Because HJ happened to find that in a source? Does that make it important? No, it does not. Nupedia proposed the format of a short entry and a long entry, in which case this kind of material would NOT appear in the short entry, but might (and I stress might, Ed) belong in the long entry. MichaelTinkler

Still, as long as it does provide true information, according to Wikipedia is not a paper policy it can be kept. This is exactly what i've read: that if you want to put entry about your own small town, you can, because there is no limitation on paper... szopen

I suppose it depends on whether you care about general integrity -- wikipedia isn't paper, but it is supposed to be an excyclopedia. As such, any town, as a political and geographical entity, would have a place. That isn't true in the case of people, though. Generally, one has to have contributed something for a place in an encyclopedia -- otherwise, one can go to a vanity press job like Who's Who. In this case, we're talking about someone whose main contribution to the human experience is one of sperm. IMO, if he can't be shown to have been more than a sperm donor, he doesn't exist.

Why do I think this? Because I am a perfeshnul ejimacator -- one of the chief problems in education today is an inability for students to think critically and weigh comparative importance of things. If articles don't help to reflect these differences, then there is a very good chance that Watzenrode will be given an equal status in the reader's eye as his grandson, the VERY important Copernicus. The fact that this article was written by someone who also does not understand comparative importance is the ONLY reason the article is here at all -- remember, please, that the same person felt that the time Aeneas Silvius spent as an Imperial clerk was more important than the fact that the man became POPE!!JHK

---

Removed all discussion of Lucas Watzenrode the Younger, Bp. of Ermland, because it was cribbed, badly re-written and, most importantly, did not belong in an article on Lucas Watzenrode the Elder.JHK

---

I agree with JHK - I vote to delete. Famous people's relatives who have no significance other than relationship do not warrant a page of their own. I also agree with MichaelTinkler's comment above - if the information didn't warrant a mention or even a link in the Nicolaus Copernicus page, then it doesn't deserve a page of its own. Sure we are interested in his background, in what contributed to forming his character, but the date of his father's marriage and the names of all his rellies? This is really too trivial!!! Graham Chapman

---

Hey, having just read all of the controversy about this article, I'm dying to read it! Only it's gone away... :(

Wiki is not paper! No, really, it isn't! Ah, come on, I'd be interested in reading about this chap, and that seems to me a good enough reason to have an article on him. :) -- Oliver P. 19:15 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)