On 26/06/07, Nick Jenkins nickpj@gmail.com wrote:
It more than just annoying - it's actually mildly sadistic. When I get those bot notifications, the message I interpret is basically this: "Something that you care about may be deleted soon, following a convoluted discussion held at some obscure location (and of course, I'm certainly not going to tell you that location - because where would be the fun in that?), involving a group of unnamed people (I _could_ tell you their names, but it's just more fun to make you think ill of everyone), for reasons which may or may not have been disclosed (I _could_ tell you the reason, but it's more fun to think of the Wikipedia as one big game of totally random Russian-roulette for deleting data, don't you think?) ... and no matter what happens, you will not be notified of the outcome (I _could_ give you closure, but perpetuating fear, doubt, and uncertainty is _so_ much more entertaining). Any failure to act on your behalf will be taken as full acceptance of this deletion. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter! -- signed, the Sadistic Deletion Notification Bot."
Betacommand runs most of these. He's not actually a dick :-) But he's not a great writer. Try to work out a more useful wording with him.
- d.