Pedro Sanchez wrote:
I just blanked, and deleted
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_people_responsible_for_a_death
We had names of many famous people, stating they were responsible for
someone else dying.
** Not a single reference **
I was told that I should have AFD it instead
The potential for libel was huge, afd was likely to come as no
consensus or delete.
Wikimedia can't take the risk of being sued for the sake of process.
So I deleted the entry to hide history, and drop a note stating should
anybody readd content it must be with references.
Probably many people will complain and ask for my head, just telling
you people why I did it.
That sounds terribly unilateral. AFD would have been more prudent.
Altering the title would have been more sensible, given that some were
apparently only accused, and never convicted.
I don't know how long the list was but being a "list" it should be
enough if there are sources on the listed pages themselves. Nobody puts
sources on the index or Table of Contents of a book, because the sources
would already be at more appropriate places.
The "huge" potential for libel is a product of your imagination. I'm
not saying that there is none at all, but it is certainly much less than
what you imagine. In any event, other ways of fixing the article would
also have eliminated that problem. I don't know when the page was
started but its talk page has been there four months; there was no urgency.
The chronic bad blood in the deletion process is precisely because of
people who take drastic and sudden unilateral action when they could
have taken the time to think of softer ways of dealing with a problem.
It would be a peaceful gesture if you restored the page, and initiated
alternative solutions.
Ec