What does everyone think of this massive deletion?

I don't know whether Fortune would have a viable case in court against the WMF, but I suspect the Foundation just didn't want to test it. What would Godwin say? Was it appropriate that an OTRS volunteer handled this issue?

I'm no expert on this, so I'm going to just watch for thoughtful comments from WR.

I'm waiting for the previous edit (which does have the list) to be oversighted.

Possibly viable case. There are quite a bit more creative choices involved in making this list than alphabetizing telephone subscribers. (I'm assuming Forbes doesn't just copy reported figures without subtracting one-time loses and so forth.) Fair use is weak here, where anyone could reproduce the list for profit, and claiming it as GFDL is dubious.

Moreover, it wasn't really an encyclopedia article, although I guess it could have been renamed "List of Fortune 1000 companies." Message to the guy who worked forever on this list implies that OTRS doesn't really think it's infringement (but they seem to propose conducting original research?)