Keith Old wrote:
On 7/14/06, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org>
wrote:
The simplest answer to why is that there are a lot of people who want
to know about him. Also, there is a lot of misinformation going
around.
Where is the evidence that a lot of people want to know about him?
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22
For some comparisons:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22linus+torvalds%22
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22ghyslain+raza%22
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22jimmy+wales%22%2C%2…
As it happens, we do have a fairly reasonable entry on Peppers in [[List
of Internet phenomena]]; it says:
"Brian Peppers — An Ohio sex offender with a facial malformity whose
photo in the Ohio eSORN (Electronic Sex Offender Registration and
Notification) database became widespread. Snopes has since confirmed the
photograph to be real [8]"
I think much of the perpetual debate surrounding the issue could be
alleviated simply by replacing the "this page is deleted" notice
currently at [[Brian Peppers]] with a redirect to [[List of Internet
phenomena]]. That way, we wouldn't be telling every single person who
googles for the name that "HEY, LOOK, WIKIPEDIA USED TO HAVE AN ARTICLE
ABOUT THIS GUY BUT IT WAS DELETED BECAUSE JIMBO SAID SO! SEE!"
Of course, the other alternative would be to fix MediaWiki so that we
can _actually_ protect a deleted page, rather than having to fake it
with a template saying, in effect, "This page is intentionally blank."
This would be a desirable feature in general, and I hope to see it
implemented some day in any case, whether by me or by someone else.
It's not even particularly complicated, it just happens to require some
significant changes to the database schema.
(I'm cc'ing this directly to Jimbo, since I'd like to hear his personal
opinion on this. Of course, I could just be bold and make the page a
redirect myself, but in my experience this is one of the situations
where such a change, if done unilaterally, would be likely to be quickly
reverted with the summary "no, Jimbo decreed this" regardless of its
actual merit or lack thereof.)
--
Ilmari Karonen
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Ilmari,
Thanks for alerting me to the List of Internet Phenomena.
I will be removing Brian Peppers name from that list as well. My personal
view is that he is not nearly significant enough to be on that list and we
should not further attack him by adding him to the list.
I have no doubt that it will be reverted and I won't enter into an edit
war over it. My view is that the decision was taken by Jimbo to remove
mention of Brian Peppers for at least a year. My assumption is that this
included reference to him in other articles.
Regards
Keith Old
Keith Old