Steve Summit wrote:
Charles wrote:
Didn't see anyone mention this article from yesterday, http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1882027,00.html title, "I'm on Wikipedia, get me out of here", by [[Seth Finkelstein".
I was struck by Seth's account of how he "strongly argued the case against myself" at AFD. I suspect that a biographical article's subject tends to carry significant but paradoxical undue weight at AFD, in two contradictory directions. Subjects who argue that they are notable and that their articles should be kept are obviously vain self-promoters, so their articles should obviously be deleted. But subjects who argue that their articles should be deleted are obviously trying to hide something (or, at least, to unjustly influence the free flow of information), so their articles should obviously be kept.
Strangely, this really is how it usually happens in my experience, mainly because the other two cases don't require the person in question to argue. Genuinely famous people who want an article don't have to create or argue for it themselves, because they're genuinely famous, so someone else will do it. Genuinely unknown people will have their article summarily deleted without any intervention on their part. (A few edge cases do buck this trend.)
-Mark