"Guy Chapman" guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote in message news:001a01c63285$a62e01f0$030010ac@internal.sungard.corp...
This is the latest in the on-again, off-again history of Brian Peppers on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Brian_Peppers_%... Peppers is a fad on YTMND and Fark, for reasons which are obvious from this link: http://pepperstruth.ytmnd.com/ No, even that's not the problem, the *real* problem is that a lot of people are determined that we should have an article on him, but the sources for the fact that he is disabled, lives in a nursing home, poses no threat to the community and appears only to be on the offenders' register as a result of an inappropriate contact with a nurse/carer, is from a source which is less reliable than Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/peppers.asp). Should I just forget it? Or ar we (either me or those who want the article restored) missing some vital point of policy?
So why are those facts not the mainstay of the article?
The YTMND feature seems to quote some reasonably sources, which can surely be checked.
So check them, use them to lock down the article to solidly-referenced facts, and repel all boarders who want to add anything extra without proper references. Using the photograph in some form seems to be unavoidable, since that is one of the main reasons for which he has become known: even Snopes displays it.
Simply attempting to have no article on a subject which has caused so much bother is against the principle of having a free encyclopedia. People will want to come to Wikipedia to get the straight facts (bit of a Friday moment on a Thursday :-) and if we don't have anything they are likely to add it themselves, in the spirit of the place.
Having "jackbooted thugs" suddenly stomping all over them for creating an article "which everybody knows is stoopid" will not make good PR.
HTH HAND