Guy Chapman wrote:
People insist on the article, clamour for the picture,
and revert edits
which emphasise Peppers' status as a big-time loser in the lottery of life -
possibly because I can't write these edits in a way whihc adequately coneals
my absolute contempt for those who exploit Peppers' picture ad an object of
derision.
I think it would be a very bad precedent to start deleting (or avoiding
creating) articles on people who are semi-famous against their wishes,
or even exclusively as the result of mean-spirited internet denizens.
The most well-known of such unfortunate victims of internet derision is
the [[en:Star Wars kid]], who even went so far as to sue the people who
leaked the now-famous but previously private video onto the internet. I
don't think that means we ought to delete his article, though.
Mr. Peppers appears to be less well known than the Star Wars kid, of
course, but having a Snopes entry seems to rise to the level of being
semi-notable IMO.
We *do* have to be careful not to allow Wikipedia to be used as a place
to start new fads, or propagate very weak/minor ones, but I'm wary of
taking an ideological stance that we will refuse henceforth to write
articles on people who would prefer to be less known than they are.
-Mark