Fred-
May I suggest you are all being too hard on folks. Here's a suggested rule of thumb: If someone generates 100 or more google hits and their autobiography is reasonably brief then let it go, especially if they are a regular wikipedia contributor. I think you are needlessly hassling folks.
Problem is verifiability, and highly idiosyncratic/POV stuff. These policies are really non-negotiable, and because self-written biographies are, from my experience, highly likely to be in violation, it's a good idea to recommend against starting them in the first place. But I see no problem with people contributing to their biographies -- we should extend a modicum of trust, but remove irrelevant stuff ("learned swimming at age 3") and ask for documentation on key facts.
I do agree that people have been somewhat unreasonably hassled. I blame that on a certain contingent of Wikipedians who seem to be OK with every article as long as it is written in correct English. This makes it difficult to agree on clear policies, which in turn leads to aggressive, prolonged disputes.
To be fair, there is another contingent that has very high standards as to what kind of material should be included, which are often in conflict with a totally open project like ours. IMHO it would be good for Jimbo to make some of the criteria for inclusion more definitive. We should always look at "worst case" scenarios. Do we want a million auto-generated articles from public records, for example?
Regards,
Erik