I accept your apology IgnatiusofLondon.On 11 March 2024, I created Where is Kate?, an article on the speculation surrounding the health and public absence of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and the Mother's Day photograph that followed. The article was fully sourced using only reliable sources listed at WP:RSP.
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My decision to create Where is Kate? ...... was never intended to feed the media interest in the story, encroach on the princess' privacy, or amplify gossip, but only to reflect the extensive and sustained coverage of the topic........It seemed a disservice to readers that the widespread speculation, lurid as it was, received no mention at all on Wikipedia when it had been leading newspaper headlines.
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As one editor has said, I have a lot to answer for. My edits were in good faith, and I hope my explanations provide some context for understanding my actions.......this was the first major BLP article to which I have contributed.
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The controversy over Where is Kate? may have exposed some holes in the nets of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines that should be knitted to prevent a repeat of the past two weeks.
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I am sorry to everyone to whom I have caused distress. I should never have created the article. I'm sorry. IgnatiusofLondon 01:15, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
Addendum: Contrary to off-wiki comments made about me, I am not ...... I'm just inexperienced. IgnatiusofLondon 12:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Draft vote for 3rd AfD
Delete: This has been a torturous and difficult journey, but I understand now why the article should be deleted.
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...not even a quotable part of WP:BLP produces any immediately-obvious rationales for deletion. Instead, in my view, the article merely but brazenly violates the spirit of WP:NOTNEWS and WP:BLP, particularly WP:BLPGOSSIP:
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It was broad handwaving over WP:BLP that led me to write the article in the first place, dissatisfied by editors' premature and dismissive closures of requests at Talk:Catherine, Princess of Wales for more coverage of the widespread speculation. If editors had better articulated the BLP concerns from the outset at that talk page, I would not have been moved to create the article. Now I understand better.... this article cuts against the spirit of the policy, not any quotable text that is particularly fitting to this article's case.
The painful last few days should provide an impetus for editors to reflect on whether Wikipedia's policies and guidelines need to be updated to cater for these kinds of articles, and the spirit of these policies and guidelines be better codified to avoid editors creating and maintaining articles that reflect media crazes [on living persons], even if they are generating significant coverage in reliable secondary sources.
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Some editors have remarked off-wiki that the article has the signature of a coatrack article, exemplified by the widespread dissatisfaction of the current article title and the lack of consensus for an alternative name. I think this is a symptom of the underlying problem – that the article is about a media craze. Finally, the speculation can be, and should be, adequately summarised in a few sentences in Catherine, Princess of Wales; I think a Merge is unnecessary as the sources are readily findable. Given the BLP violations, I think an eventual Redirect is fine, so long as the page history of the present article is deleted, which is why I am supporting Delete. IgnatiusofLondon 12:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Supplementary comment: I was the article's creator, major contributor, and first AfD nominator. .... I acknowledge that I should never have created the article, and I am sorry for the distress I have caused and, in the eyes of many editors, for bringing Wikipedia into disrepute, not only by the content of the article, but by the chaos created ......I hope my apology provides some explanation of what drove me to create and edit the article in the first place, and some reassurance that my editing activity has been in good faith. I'm sorry. IgnatiusofLondon 12:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Statistics: Posted by Kraken — Thu Mar 28, 2024 11:00 am
Statistics: Posted by Konveyor Belt — Thu Mar 28, 2024 9:05 am
Statistics: Posted by Midsize Jake — Wed Mar 27, 2024 5:27 am
The original post actually had it as "64 characters," which might still be too long in some cases.As for the posting-length question(s), once I upgrade to the latest phpBB version, it should be technically possible to modify the board software a bit to impose an smaller byte-limit on an individual member, but of course I don't like modifying the board software except as a last resort. (Currently it's a global setting, set to 64,000 characters.) Whereas, locking a thread only takes a couple of mouse-clicks, so... you see the dilemma!
Statistics: Posted by Midsize Jake — Wed Mar 27, 2024 5:13 am