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.
Question for students (and subscribers): Do you have a favorite creepypasta? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see:
Davis, Zachary Ryan and David Rosalio Esparza. Creepypasta: Black Edition. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.
