But we aren't, and I suspect more than one person was incredibly confused. Think of all the pages that link to VfD, and how many newbies stumble across it; all the policies that mention it.
I don't know about that.
I suspect that very FEW newbies stumble across it. I am trying to remember how long I was editing Wikipedia before I ran into VfD or even knew that pages got deleted. I believe it was several months.
I mean, it really takes a lot of... something... to create an encyclopedia page about yourself in the first place. And it takes a lot more of that to do it when it says right above the editing box that you shouldn't.
The self-promoters, the original researches, and the POV warriors "stumble" across VfD. Good-faith contributors with even a faint idea of what an "encyclopedia" can retain their innocence for quite a while.
-- Jean is going to be bicycling 83 miles in the Pan Mass Challenge in August, raising money for cancer research. Her profile is at http:// www.pmc.org/mypmc/profiles.asp?Section=story&eGiftID=JS0417