[WikiEN-l] English Wikipedia and the poison of procedural literalism

[Fred Bauder]

Bottom line:

"Therefore Delete, without prejudice to recreation if a significantly
improved source demonstrating clear notability should appear later."

So if someone wants to do the work, it is simply a matter of crafting a
decent article.

I don't actually agree with the closing, as Minos P. Dautrieve's comment
should have been given stronger weight, but the obvious remedy is to
flesh out the article, not just argue.

Fred

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Lar#Gary_Lynch_deletion
>
> List readers can decide for themselves whether the summary below is
> accurate. Some people aren't cut out for a collaborative editing project
> -
> and I'm not referring to Lar.
>
> Nathan
>
> On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 11:12 PM, Enchantress of Florence
> <enchantf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> You'd be surprised on just how close to an accurate prediction this
>> was. The article about one of the most prominent lawyers in the USA,
>> who led the civil prosecutions of Boesky and Milken, was deleted after
>> next to no discussion, over the objections of my husband (who pointed
>> out hundreds of news citations verifing both the notability of the
>> individual and the accuracy of the article (nearly ne hundred from the
>> New York Times alone).
>>
>> The administrator who closed the discussion shortly after my husband
>> posted responded by not only dismissing his points (even though no one
>> else actually made a substantive argument), but launched into a
>> gratuitous personal attack on him as deceptive, and falsely
>> characterized the references he provided; then, after my husband gave
>> a restrained (if rather annoyed) response, refused to provide any
>> substantive response, and castigated him for incivility and personal
>> attacks for, among other things. "impugning" the administrator's
>> "reasoning." Then one of the admin's began posting rather rude
>> messages on his talk page.
>>
>> And that about sums thing up for Wikipedian discussion these days.
>> It's uncivil and insulting to point out that someone has made a flawed
>> argument.  It's uncivil and a personal attack to point out that an
>> administrator has made obvious factual errors.
>>
>> I doubt you'll see my husband editing any more. He'd amused himself by
>> actually cleaning the garbage out of various biographies of living
>> people, bu got little out of it but harassment, three increasingly
>> nasty rounds of it.
>>
>> But so it goes. I told him when he began devoting time to Wikipedia
>> that he'd soon enough have the experience made unpleasant by a
>> thin-skinned, poorly informed, opinionated soul who viewed expertise
>> and competence with hostility, and he was.  So it goes.
>>
>>
>>
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