[WikiEN-l] an ED article (was Featured Editors?)

[joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu]

Quoting Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>:

> On 2007.11.15 16:43:27 +0000, Guy Chapman aka JzG 
> <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> scribbled 0 lines:
>> On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:30:27 +0000, "James Farrar"
>> <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> Having an article because they hate us is no better than not having
>> >> one because they hate us.
>> >
>> >[[Daniel Brandt]], for instance...
>> >
>> >(OK, technically we don't have an article on him not because he hates
>> >us, /per se/, but because after 14 AFDs reasonable people got bored
>> >with the circus and threw in the towel.)
>>
>> Got good, non-trivial biographical sources about Brandt?  I know
>> where to find deletion review.
>>
>> Brandt's article was deleted for lack of sources.
>>
>> Guy (JzG)
>> --
>
> Just for those who weren't around for the Brandt articles: what Guy 
> is saying here is arrant nonsense. The Brandt article had dozens of 
> good sources stretching back decades. It was deleted out of a 
> combination of WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:NEVILLECHAMBERLAIN.

To clarify - what actually happened was after repeated AfDs (13 of them) and
Brandt repeated harassment, the current clause in BLP that allows for deletion
for marginally notable people was added. A 14th AfD occurred. This AfD was
closed with a "complex merge" attempting to preserve as much of the articles
material as possible while respecting a possible privacy right for Brandt.

Now my editorializing: It is clear that if Brandt were not Brandt it 
would have
been almost certainly kept. As far as I can tell, there have been exactly two
cases where the community has been willing to delete an article of a willing
public figure; Daniel Brandt, and Seth Finkelstein. In both cases, there was
not a clear consensus in the AfD, both had a DRV and the response in the DRVs
in both cases was more or less "we're sick of this. enough". However, 
there was
not a lack of sources.

Now, as an aside can we please discuss this rationally without insulting each
other and making Hitler comparisons?