New subject: Overuse of horizontal rules

17 Jan 2006

It is increasingly common that non-notable people write to me after they
find their own name in Wikipedia via a google search.  They are finding,
of course, their own AFD entry.

In these entries there are very very very VERY VERY VERY often comments
which suggest a suspicion that the entry was vanity.

"Non-notable scientist vanity.  Has very few publications. If he ever
publishes anything he should submit the page again then." -- paraphrase
of example problematic comment

Now imagine that you are very innocently minding your own business and
then you discover that this is the top ranked link in google for your
name.  How would you feel?

I can tell you how most people feel.  They feel sad and annoyed enough
to write letters to me about it.  And justifiably so.  And then I have
to figure out what to do with it.

What I recommend is the following procedure:

1. A general meme that it is extremely discourteous without absolute
positive proof to speculate that the author of some non-notable
biography is the subject himself or herself.  Yes, it is often true, but
there is zero gain to us from assuming this rather than assuming the
opposite.  We really don't care who wrote it: we care if it is worthy
for inclusion or not.

2. At the close of all VfD debates, the discussion is deleted.  If there
is a need to have a stub page left there to guide people to the fact
that there was a prior debate, then create that stub fresh, with the
history gone.  In the event it is needed, the history can always be
resurrected by some admin.

Is there anything wrong with this concept?

AFD courtesy problem