And the article for John Wilkes Booth describes him as an "American stage actor" even though that's not what he's known for. If you keep reading the article, however, it's almost completely about what he is known for (a statement true for both cases). That's just standard wikipedia formatting.

"Standard wikipedia formatting" being burying the lead is not a compelling defense. It's damn near misleading.

I find "an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln" to be a ridiculous introduction; it should read "an American assassin who killed President Abraham Lincoln" -- the man's profession is completely irrelevant; he is notable for this one act.

It isn't even consistently applied: Ted Kaczynski is listed as a domestic terrorist, Sirhan Sirhan is "a Palestinian Christian militant," but then Charles Guiteau is a "writer and lawyer."

Ted Kaczynski hasn't been anything other than a domestic terrorist since 1969 when he dropped out of academia at the ripe old age of 27. Sirhan Sirhan didn't have a profession, as far as I can tell he was working at a health food store when he assasinated RFK, and has spent the past 53 years incarcerated for it.

Charles Guiteau had a long career prior to assassinating Garfield, as did Booth before assassinating Lincoln. While both committed assassinations, there was no point in time where you could have hired either to assassinate someone for you, it wasn't either of their professions.

My whole point here is that their professions are not noteworthy, relevant, or interesting, but Wikipedian bureaucracy causes them to be mentioned, and I think it's dumb.

> I find "an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln" to be a ridiculous introduction; it should read "an American assassin who killed President Abraham Lincoln"

One sentence fragment conveys that Lincoln was assassinated, the assassin's nationality, and the assassin's profession in 67 characters. The other conveys that Lincoln was assassinated and the assassin's nationality in 58 characters.

You like the wrong sentence. It's stylistically kooky, too: you need to point out that an assassin killed someone? That doesn't feel a little redundant to you?

> the man's profession is completely irrelevant

Hardly. But mostly it's strange that you'd want wikipedia to make that determination for you. It's not necessary.

> "Standard wikipedia formatting" being burying the lead is not a compelling defense.

Burying the lede would involve putting the information you're burying somewhere other than the middle of the first sentence of the first paragraph.

Maybe you missed the part where I wrote about their notability rules. Boothe was notable because of an assassination. At no point was his stage career even worth mentioning.

Booth assassinated Lincoln in the theater while Lincoln was attending Booth's play and the fact everyone there knew he was an actor contributed directly to his escape from the scene. Just because you are uninterested in context does not make it irrelevant.

I think, if you looked a bit closer, you'd find that Wikipedia is more opinionated about certain topics than others. On Wikipedia, Ted Kaczynski is a domestic terrorist first, and a mathematician second, but Bill Ayers is an education theorist first, and a domestic terrorist second. I don't really see any "standard" here. To my eyes, the bias is fairly consistent - somewhat left of American center plus a little bit of libertarian - not dissimilar to hacker news.

I mention Bill Ayers specifically because I asked a friend if they had heard of the Weather Underground recently and they said "sounds familiar, remind me?" And I said "Google Bill Ayers" and they paused and then said "the elementary education theorist?" And I said "lol, yeah, that's funny." That first sentence is what shows in Google results on mobile devices - it matters.

He was part of the weather underground years ago, he has spent decades as an education theorist since then. Education theorist is his current profession. Ted Kaczynski abandoned his mathematics career in 1969 when he was 27, and has spent the past 40 years either bombing people or serving time for doing so.

Similarly, Donald Trump is described as an American politician and the 45th president in his opening sentence, with discussion of his past in business and as a media personality reserved for later in the article. The standard wikipedia introduction is to list common aliases, nationality, and their current/last profession.

I will also note that on my mobile device if you google Bill Ayers, the first two sentences of his wikipedia article come up. The entire second sentence is about his involvement in the Weather Underground.

That seems to be a problem with Google as much as Wikipedia.