A Brief History
On at least four separate occasions electronic book burners known as “deletionists” tried to rid Wikipedia of its coverage of the internet phenomenon known as “creepypastas”. Deletionists are a group of bullies who focus their efforts on trying to remove anything and everything they merely do not like from Wikipedia. They typically, out of ignorance, refer to articles concerning topics they are unfamiliar with as “not notable”.
Digging Deeper: A Timeline
26 March 2008: Allen3 nominated the article titled “Creepypasta” for deletion from Wikipedia. After a brief discussion in which only five random user accounts voted to delete the article, Wizardman deleted the article on 3 April 2008.
1 July 2013: This time Mike Rosoft, an account with a bizarre history of being blocked, nominated the article for deletion again after its apparent recreation. He was, not surprisingly, seconded in his nomination by Allen3. Once again, in a short period of time a mere five accounts voted to delete the article. LFaraone deleted the article yet again on 9 July 2013.
16 December 2013: On this day, TheLongTone nominated the article for a popular creepypasta character titled “The Rake (cryptid)” for deletion. In this discussion, only one other person commented. Nevertheless, the article was merged and redirected by Mark Arsten on 24 December 2013.
19 May 2015: Over the course of the past several years, the phenomenon of creepypastas has grown considerably. They have been collected in books and adapted as films and even television series. Yet, someone once again tried to claim the topic was not worthy of inclusion in history’s most comprehensive encyclopedia. Fortunately, this time everyone else in the discussion, nine people to be exact, argued that the article should be kept and so at last a discussion concerning this notable subject closed as “Keep”!
14 September 2015: Just several months after the previous nomination for deletion, a fourth deletion discussion was opened for Wikipedia‘s article on “Creepypasta”. According to his user page, the nominator’s sole purpose for editing on Wikipedia appears to be to delete content. Fortunately, he failed on this occasion.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see:
Davis, Zachary Ryan and David Rosalio Esparza. Creepypasta: Black Edition. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="11471 https://www.historyandheadlines.com/?p=11471">16 Comments
Just because you don’t like something in history, doesn’t mean you can just erase it and forget about it forever!
It makes you wonder what the motivation behind being a deletionist is. Money? Pleasure? Covering up their tracks?
Although I think a lot of what is written is just legends, it should be kept.
There must be a motive for the deletion of this article I wonder what it is?
It might be that these ‘deletionists’ were motivated by fear. People fear what they do not understand or they deem to be unorthodox.
I’m not entirely sure how wikipedia manages its content, but the vote of five people seems like an extreme minority to be determining the content of the site. Is there an average number of people involved in these discussions or a majority that has to be reached?
head-canon: The deletionists are proxies erasing electronic links to information on the Slenderman
I can’t believe deletionists exist. I like the possible explanations that they are motivated by fear. There are very terrified people in the world.
I don’t know that I believe some of these creepypasta are real, but people should be able to form a opinion themselves.
history is history, does not matter what your beliefs are.
Creepypastas are creepypastas for a reason. They are made up for entertainment purposes and could potentially be based off of historical evidence
You cannot just “delete” the things you do not like about the internet. The internet is a place where people should be able to freely express themselves and keep the things that they create for others to see. There are obviously limits to this, but creepypastas are more or less harmless.
I don’t see why it was such a big deal to delete creepypastas. Let it go Deletionists!
From reading this I’m not seeing a reason for the Deletionists to argue about anything. All I can see is that they just want to control what should stay on the site.
I don’t get why the deletionists felt the need to keep persisting with this. Just let it go.
I had no idea what a deletionist was.Great article.