User:Kl4m/A message for those scorned by Articles for Deletion

Here's the deal, folks. Your article got brought up on AfD for a reason. The reason it's there, well, that's for AfD and the consensus-building mechanism to judge. But most likely I'm writing this to people who have their articles on the chopping block for one of three reasons: either it's vanity (or appears to be that way), it's original research, or it's just flat out nonnotable, i.e. there aren't enough people who have heard of it that would look it up in Wikipedia. Well, the main message is that it's not personal.

What it comes down to is that what you're trying to accomplish goes against one of the most important points about Wikipedia -- it's not a promotional venue. You may have the grand unified theory of quantum gravity and be right in every respect, but we don't want to see it until it's been peer-reviewed by the scientific community. You may think your podcast/website/blog is the greatest thing since the invention of sliced Arpanet, but you have to realize that you exist within a greater context wherein much of what you are noted for is out of your hands. It's like nicknames -- a nickname is given to you, you don't choose it. Similarly, like Vince McMahon learned with the XFL, the issue is not how much you promote it, but how seriously it's taken. In this context, Slashdot, Fark, Yahoo, Google are taken very seriously indeed. My little corner of Geocities, not so much.

Cruise through AfD sometime and see what I mean. There's guaranteed every day to be at least a dozen garage band articles on the block because people think that being famous the next street over means you're notable. And every once in a while you'll get someone who harangues most voters on a debate because their pet article is up for deletion; all they succeed in doing is annoying people and maybe getting censured by the admins for harassment and abuse of process. And there are entire categories of articles that people have extended debates about the value of; you will find people with passionate feelings on both sides of many an issue, but ultimately consensus is built or the admins err on the side of keeping what's under dispute.

Wikipedia is a meritocracy, but one with a very low barrier to entry; all you have to do is be a good contributor and a civil debater. That means assuming good faith and not taking things personally when your contributions are changed or deleted. Those who try to bend the system ride a fine line; many of them are good contributors despite being problematic. Those who try to break the system -- vandals, POV pushers, people on a vanity crusade -- are shown a great deal more mercy than they deserve most of the time (as it should be), but eventually get shown the door. Haikupoet 04:18, 21 January 2006 (UTC)