[WikiEN-l] Featured editors?

[Alec Conroy]

On 11/13/07, Durova <nadezhda.durova at gmail.com> wrote:
> The  only exception I recognize in that realm is WP:BLP: within reason,
> Wikipedia  should accommodate courtesy deletion requests from the subjects of these
> articles.

That's a really interesting point-- one that I'm sure has probably
been debated.  For my part, I'd argue that the subject of an article
is probably one of the least qualified people to properly assess their
own notability (or lack thereof).  The subject could, in my eyes,
legitimately request their notability be reviewed by neutral editors,
but I don't really see how their opinion itself  could really have
much weight.

> That was the principle I used to get rid of Daniel Brandt's biography.  Of
> course, if your argument is persuasive enough, you may change my mind and I
> could open a discussion to have it unsalted.


If somebody's notable, I'd encourage NOT deleting their article, even
if they request deletion.  If somebody's not notable, I'd encourage
deleting their article, even if they request undeletion.  I have no
idea which category Brandt falls into though.

The other thing I'd say, in the abstract, would be that I'd hope
whoever did the deletion of a controversial figure would be someone
fairly removed from the situation.  With somebody with strongly
anti-Wikipedia views, there may not be any editor who's completely
unbiased--  but obviously, some editors are less biased than others.

I say that only the abstract though--  I don't know the details of
Brandt's biography deletion,  and i have no reason to doubt it was
handled well.

Alec