Andrew Lih wrote:
On 7/13/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
Jimmy, I think this is a case where your famous divine intervention might be helpful to establish a general principle, so I'd appreciate your input.
We have Angela (Beesley) on AfD now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Angela_Beesley_...
Two comments:
- Imagine the field day the press and Wikipedia pundits will have --
seasoned Wikipedians get special treatment on the "NPOV" encyclopedia. Apparently, neutral only applies to the rabble. Is there really no cabal?
- Why isn't semi-protection, or even full protection, adequate? The
first line in the AfD is, "I'm sick of this article being trolled. It's full of lies and nonsense." Why not just lock it down. As others have mentioned, Angela is co-founder of Wikia, has been a high profile international evangelist for Wikipedia and historically, still notable as serving on the first Wikimedia board.
As someone penning a book about Wikipedia and its history, including the creation of Wikimedia Foundation, you can imagine my feelings on this.
Please don't take this to mean bio subjects should be left out to hang in the wind. But this would set a bad precedent in terms of consistency. And Wikipedia would get criticism for it, and deservedly so.
While I have deep personal sympathy for Angela's plight, being in the same basic plight myself, I have to agree with Andrew. I take no position on whether Angela is notable or not, but I will say that whatever we decide here should be consistent with whatever we decide on similar topics.
For a long time past the time when I was notable enough to have a bio, we did not have one, because I thought it was important that the project not be subject to attack from a mocking article in the mainstream press about us being self-absorbed. But we are so much now, that the meanstream press seems to need no actual REASON to mock us, they just mock us as they please anyway. :)
--Jimbo