Jimmy Wales wrote:
If you read something negative about someone, and there is no source, then either find a _legitimate_ source (and make sure that WE do not make the negative claim, but rather than we merely report neutrally on what the claim is), or just remove it... and insist that anyone who wants to put it back, do so with a legitimate source!
Yeah, I agree with all that, I just don't see this as related to semi-notability or legitimately addressed by deletion. All these same problems arise with extremely notable people as well, especially controversial ones. With very notable people obviously we aren't going to delete the article because, say, [[George W. Bush]] keeps getting vandalized. I don't think we should do so in less-notable cases either---an article should only be deleted if there really is no reason to have an article on the topic, not because it's a vandalism magnet. Other measures, like semi-protection, having some people put it on their watchlists, or even temporary outright protection, are better ways to combat vandalism IMO. Perhaps we even need new anti-vandalism measures, but deleting articles entirely is sort of a silly way of keeping them from being vandalized.
-Mark