[WikiEN-l] Advice needed

[Phil Boswell]

"Guy Chapman" <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote in 
message news:001a01c63285$a62e01f0$030010ac at internal.sungard.corp...
> This is the latest in the on-again, off-again history of Brian Peppers on
> Wikipedia:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Brian_Peppers_%286th_nomination%29
> Peppers is a fad on YTMND and Fark, for reasons which are obvious from 
> this
> link:
> http://pepperstruth.ytmnd.com/
> No, even that's not the problem, the *real* problem is that a lot of 
> people
> are determined that we should have an article on him, but the sources for
> the fact that he is disabled, lives in a nursing home, poses no threat to
> the community and appears only to be on the offenders' register as a 
> result
> of an inappropriate contact with a nurse/carer, is from a source which is
> less reliable than Snopes 
> (http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/peppers.asp).
> Should I just forget it?  Or ar we (either me or those who want the 
> article
> restored) missing some vital point of policy?

So why are those facts not the mainstay of the article?

The YTMND feature seems to quote some reasonably sources, which can surely 
be checked.

So check them, use them to lock down the article to solidly-referenced 
facts, and repel all boarders who want to add anything extra without proper 
references. Using the photograph in some form seems to be unavoidable, since 
that is one of the main reasons for which he has become known: even Snopes 
displays it.

Simply attempting to have no article on a subject which has caused so much 
bother is against the principle of having a free encyclopedia. People will 
want to come to Wikipedia to get the straight facts (bit of a Friday moment 
on a Thursday :-) and if we don't have anything they are likely to add it 
themselves, in the spirit of the place.

Having "jackbooted thugs" suddenly stomping all over them for creating an 
article "which everybody knows is stoopid" will not make good PR.

HTH HAND
-- 
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]