On 21-Apr-07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:

There isn't going to be a firm line, but a good rule of thumb would be that the greater the role of Wikipedia in increasing the subject's notability, the more we should incline toward deleting the article on request.

There's much to be said for that. Ideally, Wikipedia should be like the [[Watcher (comics)]] in the Marvel universe, observing and chronicling what goes on in the real world but not intervening in it; it's not our job to make somebody more or less notable, but merely to report on their notability as it exists independently of us. However, if any of you are Marvel Comics fans, you know that [[Uatu]] the Watcher has violated this principle on many occasions, intervening in the development of the universe despite his oath not to. Merely providing some of his gathered information to others who are partisans in various battles amounts to intervening just as much as going into the fray himself. A principle of staying apart from the "real world" and not intervening to affect its development is something that only works as an abstract principle, not in practice; in reality, saying or doing anything at all has the potential to affect how things come out even if you're trying hard to stay apart from things. The experimenter's actions influence the behavior of the subjects he's trying to study.

So, given that we are a part of the world, and are big and influential enough that despite it being contrary to our principles to assist in making somebody notable it has sometimes happened nevertheless, the problem then is whether we are subsequently bound by our principles to accurately reflect the notability of somebody who has become notable primarily because of past actions of ours that perhaps broke our principles. It can be a tough dilemma.