...

The database includes persons as well as fictional and legendary characters and non-human personages when they feature in creative content. 

Organizations (corporate bodies) are in scope for ISNI, but meeting names (conferences) are not.  Even though ISNI records may be found for some meeting names, new records for meetings should not be created pending discussions between ISNI and OCLC.

...

As opposed to traditional library authority work, ISNI does not require participants to follow a single standard. The group of contributors is very diverse and includes many non-library sources. Creating an ISNI is solely focused on identification. There is no "official" form of name.  Names do not need to be unique and are not based on usage. However, it is recommended to use a full form of the name (e.g., forename instead of just an initial, but of course, persons known by their initials, such as T.S. Eliot and D.H. Lawrence, should be recorded with and without initials). A new ISNI record will be matched by an algorithm against the existing database to avoid duplicates, and a fuller form of name is helpful in this process.

All variants of a name that identify a publicidentity are recorded in the same record. While within the system each ISNI contributor codes one name in the "name" (field 700) and all others as "variant names" (field 400), no “preferred” name is indicated in the public view.  All names are shown there in alphabetical order.

How much information should be included?

...