On the Internet, one must be constantly aware that discussions that
"feel" as if they are taking place in a club-like atmosphere of a few
dozen people are, actually, completely open to the public. (The
Pentagon does not need to log my USENET posts in any Total Information
Awareness program; Google News, and Deja News before it have already
done that!).
In Votes for Deletion, conversations are sometimes conducted as if they
were taking place behind a contributor's back, with the sillier items
being openly sneered at and ridiculed. A lot of these remarks are
actually witty, e.g. "Delete this before his vanity develops an event
horizon" or "Delete. Delete fast. Delete ruthlessly. (this has nothing
to do with the [actual content], but I can't stand it when people use
'principal' when they mean 'principle')"
Unlike a closed-door executive session, these frank discussions are not
only taking place in public, but the contributor has been
all-but-invited to them by the placement of the VfD notice. Moreover,
the contributor may not arrive until a number of remarks have
accumulated or may not choose to announce his presence immediately.
In the case of the "event horizon" remark, there was actually a nice
symmetry, because the subject of the article had a weblog, _linked from
the article,_ in which _he_ was making rude remarks about the people
who were trying to get his article deleted.
Although the edit submission page warns that contributions be "edited
mercilessly," I do not believe that it is clear to a newcomer that the
seemingly wide-open opportunity to add a page is coupled with the
possibility that the page will be deleted. (This has recently been
addressed by a paragraph on "notability" on the
Wikipedia:Tutorial_(Keep_in_mind) page). I am sure that there are many
people who semi-innocently think that an encyclopedia page with a
friend's bio is a pleasant and amusing gift—rather like having
the International Star Registry name a star for them, only it's free.
And I am sure there are many pushy self-promoters actively looking for
fresh walls on which to paste their posters who do not see any "Post No
Bills" notice. Trickiest of all, as with USENET, I sometimes see
submissions that give me the impression being of well-meaning efforts
from people whose social and/or communications skills are marginal.
In reality, discussions on VfD _need_ to be frank and often critical,
and having a page undergo the VfD process must be enormously
ego-bruising, and there is probably not a lot that can be done to
soften the process.
But, particularly in VfD, discussants should maintain an awareness that
the contributors whose items are being discussed are quite likely to be
newbies, and are quite likely to be _present_.
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net alternate:
dpbsmith(a)alum.mit.edu
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
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