Lucky Benson: That's one way of getting a BLP article deleted

[rnu]

Lucky Benson is a visual editor for the New York Times as well as a "creative strategist" and filmmaker. They are non-binary and have changed their first name to reflect this. Their Wikipedia article (archive) uses their old name in the title (in the article itself it was changed in 2022). So they asked at the teahouse how to get the deadname updated to their new name. Now the article is at AfD.

[Kraken]

The recent name change is irrelevant. If the article is kept in the end, the title can be corrected then. Cullen328 (talk) 04:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]Delete this article fails all the notability

It blows my mind how people can be so cruel and yet consider themselves to be the embodiment of Wikipedia. They literally know the person is aware of the article and is watching. They know they reacted to her request for a name change by putting her up for deletion. Yet here they are, with one final act of indignity. A giant fuck you if you think we're going to spend half a second renaming this article for the seven days it will take to prove you are a compete nobody anyway.

[Starship Enterprise]

The villain here is the person that made an article about a complete nobody and caused this

[Randy from Boise]

The recent name change is irrelevant. If the article is kept in the end, the title can be corrected then. Cullen328 (talk) 04:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]Delete this article fails all the notability

It blows my mind how people can be so cruel and yet consider themselves to be the embodiment of Wikipedia. They literally know the person is aware of the article and is watching. They know they reacted to her request for a name change by putting her up for deletion. Yet here they are, with one final act of indignity. A giant fuck you if you think we're going to spend half a second renaming this article for the seven days it will take to prove you are a compete nobody anyway.

There are a lot of deletionist Vogons out there....

Probably a GNG fail, for what it's worth.

t

[Starship Enterprise]

The recent name change is irrelevant. If the article is kept in the end, the title can be corrected then. Cullen328 (talk) 04:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]Delete this article fails all the notability

It blows my mind how people can be so cruel and yet consider themselves to be the embodiment of Wikipedia. They literally know the person is aware of the article and is watching. They know they reacted to her request for a name change by putting her up for deletion. Yet here they are, with one final act of indignity. A giant fuck you if you think we're going to spend half a second renaming this article for the seven days it will take to prove you are a compete nobody anyway.

There are a lot of deletionist Vogons out there....

Probably a GNG fail, for what it's worth.

t

Are the deletionists in the room with us right now

[Giraffe Stapler]

The villain here is the person that made an article about a complete nobody and caused this

Yes, Lillahundhud (T-C-L) should be ashamed, whoever they are. A monster.

[Kraken]

This has all the hallmarks of having been created as part of an editathon.

There were indeed some evil people around that time, filling people's heads with daft notions that the way Wikipedia works is you make an entry for someone you think should be on Wikipedia and at least can be shown with sources to actually exist and have done something, and then apparently being on Wikipedia is what makes them visible so they get written about in GNG worthy sources, which can can be fed back into the article to complete the virtuous circle.

I think a fair few column inches, edits, and dollars were raised for Wikipedia via this method, closing the gender gap for categories like women artists.

So in all likelihood, all that Cullen328 did was put the cherry on top of a thoroughly miserable experience for the person in question, since you'd have to assume that they became aware of the article some time in the last eight years and would naturally presume that Wikipedia wouldn't host biographies for people who didn't deserve them. As seems to be proven by them asking for it to be moved.

[AndyTheGrump]

The villainy is inherent in the system. It prioritises 'anyone can edit' over 'encyclopaedia', and then deals with the consequences through ritual humiliation. More often than not, it doesn't really matter who they get to humiliate, just as long as they can find someone to blame for the failure of the project to live up to their utopian expectations.

[Vigilant]

The villainy is inherent in the system. It prioritises 'anyone can edit' over 'encyclopaedia', and then deals with the consequences through ritual humiliation. More often than not, it doesn't really matter who they get to humiliate, just as long as they can find someone to blame for the failure of the project to live up to their utopian expectations.

The cruelty is the point.

[Randy from Boise]

The villainy is inherent in the system. It prioritises 'anyone can edit' over 'encyclopaedia', and then deals with the consequences through ritual humiliation. More often than not, it doesn't really matter who they get to humiliate, just as long as they can find someone to blame for the failure of the project to live up to their utopian expectations.

We need to start by challenging both of those premises: Wikipedia is not an "encyclopedia," it is an information database. And not "anyone can edit" but any competent person willing to adhere to a vast and ever-changing set of rules and norms.

The whole notion of edit-a-thons strikes me as stupid. Wikipedians are born, not made by gathering a bunch of college students into a room and feeding them pizza. It would be far more effective to headhunt for dedicated subject experts.

But, you know, millions of dollars and the need to spend them. So you get what you get.

t

[rnu]

[...]
And not "anyone can edit" but any competent person willing to adhere to a vast and ever-changing set of rules and norms.
[...]

And to submit to abusive admins.

[Mojito]

@Giraffe Stapler: maybe add "Lucky Benson" to the thread title? In case one of their friends is Googling the topic and would like to comment here.

Moderator's Note: Done. (Also, only us mods can change thread titles here, FWIW.)

[Starship Enterprise]

Wikipedia is not an "encyclopedia," it is an information database.

this is something you decided in your head and you're getting all frenzied because it doesn't match reality

[rnu]

The irony of course is that if they had asked for the article to be deleted people would fight them tooth and nail to keep it. (That's also the reason for the name of the thread.)

[AndyTheGrump]

The villainy is inherent in the system. It prioritises 'anyone can edit' over 'encyclopaedia', and then deals with the consequences through ritual humiliation. More often than not, it doesn't really matter who they get to humiliate, just as long as they can find someone to blame for the failure of the project to live up to their utopian expectations.

We need to start by challenging both of those premises: Wikipedia is not an "encyclopedia," it is an information database. And not "anyone can edit" but any competent person willing to adhere to a vast and ever-changing set of rules and norms.

The whole notion of edit-a-thons strikes me as stupid. Wikipedians are born, not made by gathering a bunch of college students into a room and feeding them pizza. It would be far more effective to headhunt for dedicated subject experts.

But, you know, millions of dollars and the need to spend them. So you get what you get.

t

Well yes, if you replace the term 'encyclopaedia' with the hopelessly-vague and all-encompassing 'information database', its easy to argue that Wikipedia fits the latter better. Personally, I like my database data structured, and doing that requires something more concrete than 'information' to build it around. Either that, or leave it unstructured, but as complete as possible, and then provide a means to search for specific 'information' textually. So, the internet, and Google....

[Giraffe Stapler]

Yes, Lillahundhud (T-C-L) should be ashamed, whoever they are. A monster.

Sorry if my earlier sarcasm wasn't clear. They created the article themselves. It's an autobiography.

This one New York Times Co piece may be enough to stop it being deleted:
Lucky Benson Named Visual Editor, Audience

Drop their NYT bylines in for good measure:
36 Hours At Joshua Tree
Clown Cardio Doesn’t Take Exercise Seriously

Also:
Lily Benson: Buttery Coldness
The End of Lund’s
Konsthall as We Know It

Done.

[Randy from Boise]

Wikipedia is not an "encyclopedia," it is an information database.

this is something you decided in your head and you're getting all frenzied because it doesn't match reality

So you think that thing is an encyclopedia?

M'kay.

t

[Ron Lybonly]

Sort of a 6,800,000 card loosely organized Hypercard (T-H-L) deck.

[AndyTheGrump]

Rather than arguing over what Wikipedia is, maybe we should try defining what it is for. If we can agree on the latter (big 'if' but we can try), maybe we can discuss how well it does it.

[Kraken]

Yes, Lillahundhud (T-C-L) should be ashamed, whoever they are. A monster.

Sorry if my earlier sarcasm wasn't clear. They created the article themselves. It's an autobiography.

Are you speculating, or do you know? Everything I see points to edit-a-Thon, i.e. it was created without their knowledge.

[Catfish Jim & spd]

Yes, Lillahundhud (T-C-L) should be ashamed, whoever they are. A monster.

Sorry if my earlier sarcasm wasn't clear. They created the article themselves. It's an autobiography.

Are you speculating, or do you know? Everything I see points to edit-a-Thon, i.e. it was created without their knowledge.

Looks entirely like an autobiog to me... "Lilla" is pretty close to "Lily" and it shouldn't be too surprising that "Hund hud" is Swedish (means dog skin). Account created entirely to produce this article and never used again. Florafaunaflorafauna is probably the same person.

[Kraken]

Wikipedia is not an "encyclopedia," it is an information database.

this is something you decided in your head and you're getting all frenzied because it doesn't match reality

So you think that thing is an encyclopedia?

M'kay.

t

"Information database" implies just as much care and attention to what is being entered and why (such as artist biographies) than "encyclopedia" does.

The problem is the lack of identified purpose (as already mentioned) and lack of supervision/commitment/care overall.

This is a perfect example. How many hours would it take to even figure out if the person who created this biography was even following the rules of the day? GNG is a guideline after all. You can't speedy delete anything with a credible claim of importance. BLP-PROD was either not written at the time or doesn't apply because it does technically have a source that proves this was not a hoax.

That leaves a very wide range of leeway for exactly this kind of creation. Which then just sits there, ignored. Not totally ignored though, it had one non-trivial edit to add a piece of information with a properly formatted reference that, while not independent, is not useless either. Who was that hero of information collation? This guy....

I am RaisinBagel97, I love yoga, reading and discussing whether Game of Thrones should have ended after season 6. I appreciate accurute content and always welcome constructive criticism :)

Made just over a hundred seemingly useful edits over the summer of 2019, recruited by the Wikipedia Adventure. A classic case of Wikipedia dysfunction. They managed to get this person interested enough to figure out citation formatting. And then nothing. They just lost interest.

It's almost tragic to see them doing simulated messaging, when in reality nobody ever spoke to them, and they either never felt confident enough to speak to anyone else or was maybe not even aware this was a feature of Wikipedia.

And so this artist biography sat there largely ignored, because Wikipedia really doesn't have enough editors and doesn't value the ones they do have, until the victim unwittingly alerts Wikipedia to its presence. At which point some absolute jackass of an Administrator comes along and says fuck you, you don't belong in our precious encyclopedia, and for daring to even ask for the article to be renamed, we're going to make you sit and watch your last seven days being wiki-famous under your dead name. Ha ha. Take that!

[MaryKarrel]

Benson has used the pseudonym "Lilla Hund".1 See also Lillahund (T-C-L).

[Kraken]

It's not exactly a smoking gun though is it. I can see how an editathon participant might choose an alias that is associated with the subject, not realizing this could be harmful to the subject later on.

And if it is the subject, it does rather suggest they weren't aware of the rules against creating your own biography (and we are back to the issue I mentioned, was it even against the rules in 2016?). If you were knowingly trying to violate a rule, you wouldn't choose a username that could be connected to you.

Then of course there's the outside chance this could be the wonderful gift that Wikipedia gave the world, the revenge editor. A rival artist creating a small stub to make it look like the subject is a vapid self promoter, and then forgetting about it when the crime was not discovered by NCIS Wiki and/or nobody else fell for it.

Who knows. What we do know is Cullen328 is an Administrator and he made a choice at a time when there can be no doubt, that choice looks like a cruel abuse of a position of power. And with this latest information, potentially did so out of a desire to get petty revenge on someone they think had abused Wikipedia to get eight years of free publicity (if simple bino-phobia doesn't cut it).

I'll never understood why anyone who has their own website and a need to get their name out there, would ever want the top result for their name to be a Wikipedia article, not their own website. Unless of course someone sold them the snake oil that being on Wikipedia means you're famous/important/relevant/"notable", or that the serving of Wikipedia derived knowledge through smart devices was in any way a good thing for society.

[ArmasRebane]

Yes, Lillahundhud (T-C-L) should be ashamed, whoever they are. A monster.

Sorry if my earlier sarcasm wasn't clear. They created the article themselves. It's an autobiography.

This one New York Times Co piece may be enough to stop it being deleted:
Lucky Benson Named Visual Editor, Audience

Drop their NYT bylines in for good measure:
36 Hours At Joshua Tree
Clown Cardio Doesn’t Take Exercise Seriously

Also:
Lily Benson: Buttery Coldness
The End of Lund’s
Konsthall as We Know It

Done.

Yeah I don't think this is a case of "Wikipedia has egregiously failed a BLP", not least of which because it was a piss-poor article that shouldn't exist anyhow, and in a week the name issue would be resolved either way.

The NYT bylines and press release aren't independent and thus not enough per the general notability guideline. Which is where I've seen a lot of writers and reporters get upset; they generally seem to have the attitude that a list of notable places they've gotten published should be enough to net them a bio, and then the rest can be filled out with primary sources (because there's no way to write a comprehensible article without relying on them, because they aren't really notable.)

And if it is the subject, it does rather suggest they weren't aware of the rules against creating your own biography (and we are back to the issue I mentioned, was it even against the rules in 2016?). If you were knowingly trying to violate a rule, you wouldn't choose a username that could be connected to you.

Then of course there's the outside chance this could be the wonderful gift that Wikipedia gave the world, the revenge editor. A rival artist creating a small stub to make it look like the subject is a vapid self promoter, and then forgetting about it when the crime was not discovered by NCIS Wiki and/or nobody else fell for it.

I don't buy the revenge editor angle, because it would be pretty transparent if they were trying to make them look bad. The Qwortys of the world aren't exactly subtle.

[The Garbage Scow]

Looks like a pretty blatant autobiography to me, especially with the similarly-named SPA who tried creating the same article in 2015.

Even if it's an autobio on a non-notable, no need to deadname the autobiographer. It's still a BLP.

[rnu]

Yes, Lillahundhud (T-C-L) should be ashamed, whoever they are. A monster.

Sorry if my earlier sarcasm wasn't clear. They created the article themselves. It's an autobiography.

Are you speculating, or do you know? Everything I see points to edit-a-Thon, i.e. it was created without their knowledge.

Looks entirely like an autobiog to me... "Lilla" is pretty close to "Lily" and it shouldn't be too surprising that "Hund hud" is Swedish (means dog skin). Account created entirely to produce this article and never used again. Florafaunaflorafauna is probably the same person.

And "lilla" is Swedish for "little".

[Randy from Boise]

Sort of a 6,800,000 card loosely organized Hypercard (T-H-L) deck.

I will accept that.

The quicker that people wipe the notion of a 55-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica out of their minds, the better. That's what drives the deletion monster.

t

[Starship Enterprise]

Sort of a 6,800,000 card loosely organized Hypercard (T-H-L) deck.

I will accept that.

The quicker that people wipe the notion of a 55-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica out of their minds, the better. That's what drives the deletion monster.

t

I looked out the window and saw a plastic bag floating by. You should make an article about that plastic bag so you have something else to be angry about when they delete it

[rnu]

Sort of a 6,800,000 card loosely organized Hypercard (T-H-L) deck.

I will accept that.

The quicker that people wipe the notion of a 55-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica out of their minds, the better. That's what drives the deletion monster.

t

I looked out the window and saw a plastic bag floating by. You should make an article about that plastic bag so you have something else to be angry about when they delete it

You could probably find enough "reliable sources" to make an article on the plastic bag scene from American Beauty (1999 film) (T-H-L). (Do not consider this a request for or endorsement of such an article. I am washing my hands of this.)

[Starship Enterprise]

Sort of a 6,800,000 card loosely organized Hypercard (T-H-L) deck.

I will accept that.

The quicker that people wipe the notion of a 55-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica out of their minds, the better. That's what drives the deletion monster.

t

I looked out the window and saw a plastic bag floating by. You should make an article about that plastic bag so you have something else to be angry about when they delete it

You could probably find enough "reliable sources" to make an article on the plastic bag scene from American Beauty (1999 film) (T-H-L). (Do not consider this a request for or endorsement of such an article. I am washing my hands of this.)

Category:Film scenes (T-H-L)

[rnu]

As expected, the article has been deleted.

[Ming]

Sort of a 6,800,000 card loosely organized Hypercard (T-H-L) deck.

I will accept that.

The quicker that people wipe the notion of a 55-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica out of their minds, the better. That's what drives the deletion monster.

t

I looked out the window and saw a plastic bag floating by. You should make an article about that plastic bag so you have something else to be angry about when they delete it

Trurl and Klapaucius would like to talk to you about this Demon of the Second Kind they've invented for generating limitless factual information.