Anthony wrote:
On 6/14/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Slim Virgin could put it better, but here I think she's spot on. The main motivation for retaining the article for all this time seems to me to have been spite.
I don't think its so much spite as a reluctance to admit that, when it comes to the matter of whether or not this article should be kept, Brandt was right. There's also a feeling among some that giving in on this matter would send a message that legal threats (and other behaviors) are a valid way to get what you want.
I also think there are a lot of people who think this article should be kept for reasons which have nothing at all to do with the fact that Brandt is the subject. Wikipedia has an article on Angela, despite the fact that she has requested its removal, despite the fact that the article has at times contained libel and privacy violations, and despite the fact that Angela is not a particularly famous person (personally I'd say Brandt is slightly *more* famous, judging from the Google Trends results, though Angela gets 3 Google News results compared to Brandt's 2).
So no, spite it seems is not a determining factor in whether or not this article was kept. In fact, using Angela as an example perhaps an overreaction to this fear was actually the reason it was deleted.
Anthony
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It seems to me, quite realistically, that while it is indeed true that many of those who argued to keep were acting out of spite ("We'll show him!"), that many of those who argued to delete were doing so to "spite the spiteful", as it were-to specifically repudiate such behavior by disagreeing with those who behaved that way. There was, quite unfortunately, very little discussion of the -article- on either side.
If this should teach us anything, it should be that careful consideration rather than flippant dismissal of others' viewpoints should always occur, and that to ignore this tends to cause tremendous amounts of drama, polarization, and ill will. Unfortunately, I can't say I have a great deal of hope that this lesson will actually be learned by the time the next contentious topic comes up. But I do hope so.