Hello! I'm Rebecca Rebbing, an American woman. I like cats and other cute animals, and my favorite fruit is the raspberry. My interests include literature,[1] women's fastpitch softball, Roman Catholicism, law (appellate and habeas procedure in particular), photography, engineering, and fashion. My background includes both law and computer programming.
As a Wikipedian, I primarily edit biographies of American women. I delight in making articles neat and pretty—I enjoy a nicely-formatted reference list. Some of my cleanup efforts can be seen at Flannery O'Connor, Betty Hester, and Marcia Hofmann. I can take credit for one short article, Hannah Pittard, and one complete rewrite, Gemma Booth; I also credit myself with an "AfD save" for Heather Maloney.
My opinions about article inclusion
I believe that Wikipedia's policies and guidelines represent the mandate of the community and ought to be respected (and changed when they are no longer appropriate); they may be set aside in unusual and unanticipated circumstances, but mere disagreement with a rule is not a valid reason for disregarding it. This is the philosophy I apply when I participate at AFD, where my voting often contradicts my wishes.
My views on notability are based on the explanation given at Wikipedia:Notability § Why we have these requirements: Notability is not about a subject's merit, nor is it about satisfying arbitrary rules: it is about whether it is possible for a useful, balanced, verifiable article to be written.
Some other things
I should be reminded every day of Miss O'Connor's advice: "You can be so absolutely honest and so absolutely wrong at the same time that I think it is better to be a combination of cautious and polite."[2]
Notes
- ^ "Literature," I acknowledge, is a wide canopy. I could narrow it and say that I mostly read American and British literary fiction from the 19th century through present. Some examples: As a child, Mr. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials left a lasting impression on me. I love the Brontë sisters' works, particularly Miss Charlotte's Villette. I believe The Bell Jar is remarkable, even though I was furious with the author when I finished it. I read A Midsummer Night's Dream, and, while I can appreciate Shakespeare's mastery, the language and metaphors were too dense and obscure for me to enjoy it. I greatly admire Miss Flannery O'Connor's short stories, my favorites being Greenleaf and A View of the Woods.
- ^ Letter from Flannery O'Connor to "A." (April 21, 1956), in The Habit of Being 151, 152 (Sally Fitzgerald ed., Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1979) (capitalization altered).
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