Kirill Lokshin wrote: Because he's a notable figure, and we should have articles on notable subjects. Just because he's noisy about it doesn't mean we should treat it differently, and his noise level has made him the poster boy for folks who want to have subjects dictate content. If it weren't him, it would be someone else. If you don't want to be noteworthy, don't do things that attract attention to yourself. -Jeff -- Name: Jeff Raymond E-mail: jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com IM: badlydrawnjeff Quote: "I was always a fan of Lisa Loeb, particularly because you kind of get the impression she sang every song either about or to her cats. They seem to be the driving force in most of her creative process." - Chuck Klosterman

On 4/20/07, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin(a)gmail.com> wrote: Thank you for this injection of common sense. We should block Brandt, delete his bio, and wash our hands of the whole affair. I suggested this to Jimbo in October 2005, although we agreed at the time to delete the bio and not block Brandt. The block came later, from others, because of his behavior. The bio was duly deleted, and it would likely have stayed that way had Brandt not posted an open letter to Jimbo (before deletion, I believe). This got some bloggers interested in it, and one of them, User:Philwiki, recreated the article. Tony Sidaway said earlier that Jimbo's decision to unblock could be seen as pragmatic, but it's the opposite, because it keeps Brandt around our necks. The pragmatic option is to get rid of the only legitimate reason Brandt has to be interested in Wikipedia. Delete the bio and have done with it. Sarah

Posted on behalf of Musical Linguist, at her request: I very strongly support the deletion of Brandt's biography. I have absolutely no love for him, and considered the administrator that he drove away last May to be perhaps the very nicest administrator we ever had. But I have always supported deleting articles that were causing distress to the subjects, and that were not on topics so notable that we'd look silly, as an encylopaedia, if we didn't have them. In that, I concur with Grace Note, who has made a similar point. We should delete the article regardless of our feelings about Brandt, simply because it's the decent thing to do. It's not as if he's someone we *have* to have an article about — like President Bush or Tony Blair. I accept that Jimbo has the right to make decisions even if we don't like them. But I think in this case, he has completely failed to give due regard to the feelings of people whose privacy has been severely violated by Brandt, and who have suffered real life consequences as a result. The community has not agreed to delete Brandt's biography, and the community has not agreed to unblock him. So why is Jimbo invoking his privileges to unblock rather than to delete? Brandt doesn't want to edit Wikipedia if his biography is gone; he just wants to have the biography deleted. The argument for deleting it is that it's the decent thing to do, and it might stop the stalking. An argument against deleting it is that he's notable enough to *permit* inclusion. He is not notable enough to *require* inclusion. We would not lose credibility as an encylopaedia if the article were gone. Another argument against deleting it is that some people will complain that process wasn't followed. There is no argument for unblocking him that would not apply equally or more to deleting his biography. He wants it deleted; it might stop the stalking. So are the arguments *against* deleting more compelling than the arguments against unblocking? An argument against unblocking is that he has shown absolutely no remorse for the harm he has caused, and that the unblocking shows a colossal lack of respect for his victims. It's nothing short of creepy for people who have watched him posting their supposed photos, his speculation about their identity, where they live, where they work, who their work superiors are, how he's contacting their supposed ex-boyfriends, etc. to edit Wikipedia alongside him, both being considered as Wikipedians in good standing. It's inconsiderate and insensitive to expect them to. And it's outrageous that Brandt was unblocked without even a courtesty notification to his main victims. I don't have a reputation for being touchy, but I would feel profoundly disrespected if someone who knew about my case unblocked my stalker, and if the first I heard of it was when Tony Sidaway posted about it on the Commnuity Noticeboard. People are arguing that Brandt hasn't done anything bad on Wikipedia since he was unblocked, so there has been no disadvantage. There is a *huge* disadvantage in allowing a situation where so much ill will is generated, where victims feel undermined, where the feelings of excellent contributors who have worked tirelessly to improve the encyclopaedia are set aside like that, and where their stalker is not even told that his off-wiki harassment of them must cease. Now, one could argue that there would be a justification for reluctantly permitting a situation in which Brandt's victims feel undermined, in the hope of bringing an end to the harassment they have suffered, if there is no other option that would achieve that end, and that would not cause so much ill feeling. But the article could have been deleted without the same amount of ill feeling, and with the same result — perhaps with a better result, since it's what Brandt actually *wants*. Jimbo put as one of his reasons for unblocking that it had been "more than a year" since he was blocked. It is indeed more than a year since he was blocked, but it is *not* more than a year since he has been engaged in posting private information about our editors to public websites. It's more than a year since *my* stalker was blocked, but the phoncalls to my workplace, the threats to my family, the e-mails about parts of my body, the maps of my city with my workbuilding highlighted, the words "now that we have you surrounded, we start slowly tightening the ring" are all much more recent. And Brandt was still posting stuff about one of our administrator's supposed identity at another website within hours of being unblocked. But for those who sincerely think Brandt is too notable for deletion of the article to be an option, I have my last point. I would have said all along, and I'm sure I *have* said, "Keep him banned; he can e-mail his concerns about the article to the Foundation." And I would have assumed that I was being fair. Brandt claims in his open letter (now on Talk:Daniel Brandt) that he has been sending e-mails and faxes for eighteen months, that he sent a fax to Jimbo, a fax to Brad, and a fax to Danny, and that he did not receive a reply to any. Is it true that he was informing the Foundation of his concerns with his biography, and that his messages were ignored? If so, and if deleting his biography was not an option, why was unblocking him considered, rather than having someone from the Foundation respond to his communications, and help him to have inaccuracies removed from his biography? Ann Musical Linguist 18:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC) (from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Kirill_Lokshin&curi…)