User talk:Gray Matter

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[edit] Welcome!

Hello, Gray Matter, Welcome to Wikipedia!
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Happy editing!

If you look at what I've done to Brenda Barrie, you should get an idea about the way that Wikipedia coding works (it's not HTML), and the sort of style needed. Note also what's said above about "signing" your messages.

Have a good time editing here — every human emotion can be provoked, and most of them are... Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:55, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Undeletion request

You apparently left the following request at DRV:

Brenda Barrie and The Binding have been deleted for inconsequential reasons and I request both articles be returned to Wikipedia. The material contained in the deletion debate which contains at least as many words as either of the deleted articles) contain a number of petty reasons that show lack of understanding, both of the subject matter and more importantly, the purpose of Wikipedia itself.
As to the first point, one editor asserts that the article is self-promotion due to the fact that the author's website has links to the two articles, but of course that is perfectly natural. Any author with a dedicated website (and that includes nearly all authors today) have links to external sources and reviews for the convenience of readers, primarily to take advantage of additional links to related Wikipedia and external information. Another would undelete only if total sales of The Binding exceeded 5,000; though I understand sales are approaching 5,000, I see no rationale to making that number a bar to inclusion in Wikipedia.
More important than any quibbles about Ms. Barrie's relative importance in the firmament, however, is that this type of deletion flies in the face of the philosophical underpinnings of Wikipedia itself. I have spent years earlier in my career as a journalist and later publisher of newspapers and magazines, and the constant battle was to fit all the information that should have been delivered to the public into the very limited editorial space available. This same constraint has been the burden of every encyclopedist since the 16th Century until the virtually unlimited space availability of the Web made Wikipedia possible.
It is my strong contention that the purpose of editors in Wikipedia is to ensure the greatest possible accuracy over all the varied content of Wikipedia, and not to impose artificial limits on the range of its content. After all, suppose one were to be researching the important authors of Winnipeg or of Manitoba and were to come upon lists that include 19 names, all with Wikipedia articles except for Brenda Barrie, who was named Woman of the Year in Communications by the YWCA in Winnipeg at one point, wrote a novel based on three Winnipeg Jewish men all born to Holocaust survivors in DP (displaced persons) camps in Europe shortly after the war, and is now executive director of the major Reform congregation in Santa Monica, California? Others in that list include Carol Shields, Pulitzer Prize winner for her novel The Stone Diaries.
Wikipedia should over time begin to encompass the knowledge and intellectual capital of humanity. Who are these editors who imagine today what importance the future may place upon the first writer to explore in depth the anguish and guilt of middle-aged men of today struggling with the remnants of the Holocaust experience as it impacts their own lives and those of their wives and children; should they hide their Jewishness or embrace it, "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles" as Shakespeare put in Hamlet?
Perhaps the deleting editors do not have appropriate background to understand that The Binding is not merely a commercial enterprise, but explores a deeply moving, highly personal and strongly felt anxiety within the American and world Jewish communities. Certainly the dozens of audiences Brenda Barrie has addressed over the past two years would testify to the importance of her subject and her novel.
I respectfully request that both articles be undeleted, and that in common decency, Wikipedia editors inform me of any future decisions regarding any articles I have posted, just as they should always do for any author's contributions. 216.115.237.30 09:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
You'll want to copy the above text and follow the steps here to list these two articles for review, since you seem to want them in article space. The section you posted in is intended for people who just want a courtesy copy, but don't yet want them in the space for articles. See Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Deletion_review for the purpose of deletion review. The previous deletion discussion is here.--Chaser - T 22:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Brenda Barrie. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article or speedy-deleted it, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Gray Matter 06:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)