[WikiEN-l] defused timebomb

[Ray Saintonge]

Pedro Sanchez wrote:

>I just blanked, and deleted
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_people_responsible_for_a_death
>
>We had names of many famous people, stating they were responsible for
>someone else dying.
>** Not a single reference **
>
>I was told that I should have AFD it instead
>
>The potential for libel was huge, afd was likely to come as no
>consensus or delete.
>Wikimedia can't take the risk of being sued for the sake of process.
>
>So I deleted the entry to hide history, and drop a note stating should
>anybody readd content it must be with references.
>
>Probably many people will complain and ask for my head, just telling
>you people why I did it.
>
That sounds terribly unilateral.  AFD would have been more prudent.  
Altering the title would have been more sensible, given that some were 
apparently only accused, and never convicted.

I don't know how long the list was but being a "list" it should be 
enough if there are sources on the listed pages themselves.  Nobody puts 
sources on the index or Table of Contents of a book, because the sources 
would already be at more appropriate places.

The "huge" potential for libel is a product of your imagination.  I'm 
not saying that there is none at all, but it is certainly much less than 
what you imagine.  In any event, other ways of fixing the article would 
also have eliminated that problem.  I don't know when the page was 
started but its talk page has been there four months; there was no urgency.

The chronic bad blood in the deletion process is precisely because of 
people who take drastic and sudden unilateral action when they could 
have taken the time to think of softer ways of dealing with a problem.

It would be a peaceful gesture if you restored the page, and initiated 
alternative solutions.

Ec