Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:08, 31 January 2008

Misplaced Pages:IRC channels/wikipedia-en-admins (3rd nom)

This is the third nomination of this page. (see First nom, Second nom) The last was closed, to allow Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/IRC to run its course. One month on, the case is still rumbling along with little consensus or conclusion regarding IRC and WEA, other than that the IRC issue will be dealt with separately from the case, at an unknown date by the committee, and that in certain circumstances pages may be 'owned'. This MfD is brought to seek community consensus on a number of matters including deletion of the page itself. It is hoped that this debate, will both clarify matters relating to the page and inform Arbs deliberation regarding it, IRC in general and ownership of pages, in a case which appears to be stalled. I should perhaps note that I believe Arbcom and Jimbo's authority for policy matters should ultimately be derived from community consensus. We might wait for Arbcom's deliberations regarding IRC and WEA, for which they will seek community input; or we may, as I am attempting here, give them initial soundings, that can be fleshed out with a more lengthy RFC.

Arbcom appear to have asserted during the case, that some pages are 'owned' and are in some regards, exempt from the 'edit any page' ethos of wikipedia. Do we approve of pages that can be 'owned' in certain circumstances? What are those circumstances? Does it apply to WP:WEA? If so, does Arbcom now own the page or user:David Gerard? (David appears to believe Arbcom now have ownership.) How should such pages be identified?

There are clearly arguments for the page's retention and deletion. On the deletion side, this obscure page has become the focus of a lot of community drama, ill-feeling and edit-skirmishes. Do we continue to allow a devisive page described in the 2nd nomination as "long-winded irrelevant fluff"? Or, should we keep it and use it as the instruction and policy page for conduct and dispute resolution on the #admin channel? Should it be userfied? Perhaps moved to meta, merged back to WP:IRC, or kept permanently as it is?

One thing should be emphasised; the intention here, is to seek a consensus on the issues and not create a battleground for personalities to take chunks out of each other. What's done is done, Arbs will rule on behaviour - this MfD seeks to move the debate forward.

Joopercoopers (talk) 14:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse community discussion (ie. endorse the nomination) - I discussed this nomination with Jooperscoopers, and I agree that MfD is as good a venue as any for this discussion. I argued for closing down the 2nd nomination, but I now think that a discussion here may help clear the air, and remove focus from the personalities and behaviour (that is the job of ArbCom), and focus it back on IRC (an issue which needs community input at some stage). I will state my views on the page later. It is time to let fresh opinions be heard. Carcharoth (talk) 15:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Keep or Delete WP:WEA and other options

• Delete: According to evidence in the case, the page was not promoted to Misplaced Pages space without any discussion. It was just placed there. It seems to be a policy page for something that isn't Misplaced Pages, so that makes it like a manual page for a software program elsewhere. Wholly inappropriate, regardless of the "edit war" there. Utgard Loki (talk) 15:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  I am confused by the double negative in your statement. Can you clarify? Jehochman 15:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  Whoops. It was not promoted with discussion. It was promoted without. Amended. Utgard Loki (talk) 17:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Userify: Move the page into the user space of whoever owns the channel. If and when Misplaced Pages formally accepts responsibility for the channel, then the page can be moved back to project space. Jehochman 15:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete the page and the channel and the arbitration and forget the whole thing and move on. None of it is any use as far as I can see. DrKiernan (talk) 15:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Metafy or userfy pending arb com decision about the status of IRC channel. Note that WEA (the page, not the channel) has been the venue of clashes, not their cause; its fate is in fact a minor question but whatever helps defuse the situation should be done. Kosebamse (talk) 15:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete, Userfy, or Metafy It needs to be out of Misplaced Pages space unless it sanctioned by the community and subject to popular/consensus oversight like other pages and processes. Lawrence § t/e 16:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete - It's been nothing but a hamper on the community since it came into existance. Requesting access can be done some other way. SGT Tex (talk) 16:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Whatever The page is there to inform people about the channel, if it is deleted the channel will continue. Geez, it is just a page describing a way for admins to talk. This is making a problem where there is none, but the page being deleted will not really effect the IRC channel. _(1 == 2) 17:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  True, but that's no one's aim here. I don't imagine that DreamFabIconWrks will go out of business if we delete their advertising page from Misplaced Pages, but Misplaced Pages does not advertise. Utgard Loki (talk) 17:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete it. Users can request access on IRC, or on a subsection on the main IRC channel page. Majorly (talk) 17:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. No project-space page is worth the amount of drama this has caused. Its continued presence is clearly harmful to Misplaced Pages. *** Crotalus *** 17:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• At the very least, keep the page as a place to request access. John Reaves 16:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

That can be handled by a page with an appropriate name "/request access" or something. Similarly, complaints can be diverted to arbcom, or where-ever. No need to overload a page with lots of different functions. Carcharoth (talk) 16:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason not to let the current page be used were the result of this be to delete. As far as letting arbcom handle it: 1.) They have no control of IRC whatsoever and 2.) they're already bogged down. John Reaves 17:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• My impression is that the page is being used as a scapegoat for certain users' dislike of IRC or perceptions of its misuse. I remain unconvinced there are any problems with the page itself that extend beyond that. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Delete A disruptive vehicle for one person's views and perception of IRC, which is against the spirit of Misplaced Pages. Giano (talk) 18:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  I don't believe the page itself is disruptive. Certainly it has been the scene of disruption, but that's a different thing, as is the general argument that IRC is disruptive. Neither of those is particularly relevant to this MfD. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  Changing to strong delete for the good and wel being of the project. Who is Carl? Giano (talk) 19:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete There is no reason to have the WEA page. The basic IRC page (with instructions for finding it only) is more than enough. 18:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Merge the access request part and a basic description into WP:IRC, get rid of the rest. I don't see the point in completely getting rid of WP:WEA when we have WP:IRC as well. Mr.Z-man 18:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  That seems reasonable. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  Carl (or anyone) - if you think it would be beneficial to open up another section header here relating to a more general discussion of IRC in the light of Jimbo's fiat and how much control the community should assert, please do. --Joopercoopers (talk) 18:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  I don't - this is an MfD about a particular page on wikipedia. Using an MfD to try to change something about IRC is somewhat parallel to Colbert's crusade to save African elephants by editing articles to say their population has increased. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  Well, quoting Carch below "Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard (second nomination) and Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Esperanza are examples of large MfD discussions" - which effectively changed wikipedia consensus. I'm saying, lets have a discussion - I'm not inciting a 'reality fraud' (Colbert). --Joopercoopers (talk) 18:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete Non-access request parts. MBisanz 19:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Transwiki with soft redirect I suggest to meta. The page is useful but Misplaced Pages community is too divided along quasi-political lines to maintain it adequately. --Tony Sidaway 21:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  FGS, someone just delete it, or we will have Sidaway ranting about for ever, life is too short. Giano (talk) 21:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  It may surprise you to learn that I've seldom discussed the page. --Tony Sidaway 21:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  Really? Sudden attack of verbal constipation? Or was it just entirely to your liking? Giano (talk) 21:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  Beyond a general feeling that such a page has a general utility, I have no strong opinion on the matter. Its creation took me by surprise, frankly. --Tony Sidaway 21:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Merge access request section into WP:IRC; the rest can go. I note the existence of m:IRC channels which might provide a suitable home; it already has access request data for non-public channels like #wikimedia-admin. Mackensen (talk) 21:08, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  Note. In case anyone's interested, WikiDashboard provides edit analysis on a page-by-page basis. The top editor for WP:WEA is Giano II (talk · contribs), with 65 edits, followed by Geogre (talk · contribs) and David Gerard (talk · contribs), each with 37, and Ideogram (talk · contribs) with 34. I clock in with 12, probably back from when I processed access requests. I believe these totals include the talk page. Regrettably the data dates from mid-July. Mackensen (talk) 21:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  I grepped the history myself and, of those who have edited the page ten times or more, I got:

  14:Bishonen, 17:Geogre, 19:John Reaves, 21:Duk 32:Majorly 51:David Gerard 61:Giano II

  I don't know why there is a discrepancy between the wikidashboard figures from mid-July and these from 14:42, 30 January 2008 , unless some edits have been removed by oversight. In particular, I can find no trace of edits by User:Ideogram in the edit history. --Tony Sidaway 22:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  Ah, I see that you said the wikidashboard figures include the talk page. Mine do not. --Tony Sidaway 22:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Userify to David Gerard's User space. Even there, he won't strictly own it, but it will make clear the distinction between Wiki{p||m}edia-endorsed venues for discussion versus others, such as this, which the presumptive owner appears to intend to run as a private, albeit Misplaced Pages-influenced, club. Jouster  (whisper) 22:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Transwiki to Meta and leave a soft redirect. In theory, a page on that IRC channel can be useful, but it has proven to be nothing but a headache on Misplaced Pages. I've said from the beginning that it should be moved to Meta. Alternatively, just delete the thing and be done with it, and let's get on with working on the encyclopedia. --Coredesat 23:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Per mackensen. ~ Riana ⁂ 09:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: In light of this, I think a transwiki to Meta is a bad, bad idea, as it will effectively allow WP:OWN, according to the page's author. I.e. doing such a thing is to heighten the drama and declare a winner to the owner, as he, at least, seems to perceive all dissent to be at en.wikipedia, and yet the page is purported to be not a meta page but a page about "en.wikipedia.irc." Presumably, meta has its own IRC administrator's channel (I don't know). Utgard Loki (talk) 13:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete - I think Mackensen the right idea here, though I don't think a Requests section is even necessary, just provide a list of ops who can provide access at m:IRC channels as is already done for e.g. the checkuser channel. krimpet✽ 17:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Transwiki to meta - To keep it out of the reach from the WP-mob. _→AzaToth 19:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Ah, yes, that ugly mob. We can't trust them. If we don't lash them well and control them properly, they might write articles or rewrite David Gerard's vanity page. Much better to put it where he won't be challenged, and he can write about how it "was created" by Danny to serve BLP issues and at the personal pleading of Jimbo. It can there say that the channel "is used" for wonderfully illuminating discussion by the administrative community (and no mention of others), and that it is entirely living and dying by the divine smile of James Forester. Suits me. So long as Wikipedians don't get tricked any more, David can tell himself whatever he likes. Geogre (talk) 21:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete a factual line on WP:IRC and WP:ADMIN noting that a channel is independently run on freenode for the benefit of admins (and pointing people to a meta or userpage) will suffice. Having the page on en.wikipedia gives the false impression that the channel is, or ought to be, under the control of the en.wp community.--Doc 19:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Page ownership

• Community ultimately decides ownership - I agree with Jooperscoopers, here. The community ultimately makes these decisions. Some pages the community own, some pages the community delegate to committees, like arbcom, or individuals like Raul et al and the FAC/FAR processes. Whoever owns the pages needs to be responsive to community concerns. That hasn't been the case with WP:WEA, and the process by which the page was created and owned was not clear. Start from scratch. Carcharoth (talk) 15:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Community ultimately decides ownership and should aim at a decision whether WP:WEA is a vanity page, policy page, or whatever else. And again, its fate is of little relevance, the real problem is the consequences of behavior on IRC, and the question of authority over the IRC channel. Kosebamse (talk) 15:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Community ultimately decides ownership Absolutely. Everything here, from the simplest thing to the Board elections and the employees hired by the Foundation (Sue Gardner, Mike Godwin) to serve and work for the community are ultimately decided by the community either with on-Wiki process or board elections. It's preposterous for any page to be exempt from our core way of doing things. Lawrence § t/e 16:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Community ultimately decides ownership - Or "no pages are owned". That's why there is a "edit this page" tab at the top. I also echo Lawrence Cohen above. SGT Tex (talk) 16:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Community determines what is and what is not policy for Wikipedians, and therefore the community decides what may and may not be at Misplaced Pages name space. There is no private ownership of any Misplaced Pages page. If a party wishes to make a private page, then that is for user space (and then subject to MfD). Utgard Loki (talk) 17:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Community decides ownership per foundation issue #3. Ultimately, the community has the responsibility to determine the content of all pages, using the wiki process; sometimes we choose to delegate certain portions of this power to specific individuals or groups, like Arbcom or the Featured Article Director. *** Crotalus *** 17:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Community decides ownership and so far I believe the community has trended towards the "no pages are owned" policy without exception, since the creation of Misplaced Pages from what I can tell. MBisanz 19:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Community decides ownership per MBisanz above (and I'll take the opportunity to sound a note, although not a strident one, of disagreement with Crotalus). Jouster  (whisper) 22:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Foundation decides ownership ultimately the foundation owns the wikimedia servers and all the wikipedias. As a non profit foundation they have process they must follow and limitations in what they can and can't do and are mandated to do things like board elections where stakeholders (i.e. the community) elect them. But within that framework, they are ultimately the ones who decide what happens on any wikipedia. They have generally speaking, delegated most of their authority to the community and AFAIK have never conflicted with anything the community has decided by definte consensus. But there is an unwritten? rule IMHO that there are some areas we can never overide, everything on meta obviously and everything on here which should direct to meta e.g. the privacy policy, copyright rules etc. The arbitration committee is a community approved process. But it doesn't change the fact it's foundation directed and its decisions are considered binding. I see no evidence that the community feels we should overide the arbitration committee nor any evidence that the arbitration committee may necessarily decide they will overide any decision we reach (the arbitration committee usually follows community consensus if there is any). But if it does ever happen, the the arbitration committee is the ultimate authority until and unless the foundation decides they've overstepped the mark. The point is not that the the arbitration committee or foundation are likely to overide anything we do but that we should never forget that the foundation ultimately overides the community and the arbitration committee has the authority from the foundation to overide the community if there is ever an absolute need. In other words, I'm not saying that we can't make a decision here, all I'm saying is that if the arbitration committee feel it is necessary to overide us they do have that authority. N.B. In the very unlikely event we really do ever hit upon a constitutional crisis where the foundation decides one thing and the community decides another and the community feel the foundation are violating the framework of their non-profit organisation, then this will have to be decided by a court of law. But this is very, very unlikely to ever happen IMHO. Nil Einne (talk) 07:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Community-Foundation issues should always be considered in the light of the relevant US laws (or local laws for the chapters), the Foundation's board elections, and the possibility of forking that is ever-present due to Wikimedia projects freely licensing their core products under the GFDL. I agree though, that in reality the community will usually follow the lead of the Foundation (though not always), and that the Foundation aims to (or should aim to) listen to and respond to the core concerns of the community. Most of the time, the community and the Foundation work in harmony, with the more complex issues usually arising from the above legal, electoral and licensing points. The key point is that the community needs the Foundation to actually run things, and the Foundation needs the community to do the detailed organising, writing and building of the individual projects. Neither can do without listening to and working with the other. Carcharoth (talk) 09:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Discussion status and venue

• Move to a discussion page. If discussion is meant then a discussion page (perhaps structured, or modeled on RFC) is more useful than MFD probably. The only discussion at MFD of any issue is "do we delete the page, yes/no". None of the other issues stated, usually get touched. FT2  15:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

That's rather procedural - we can surely discuss wherever we choose - is here any worse than anywhere else? I see this as a toe in the water. --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard (second nomination) and Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Esperanza are examples of large MfD discussions. The idea is (or was) that MfDs get more attention. I'd support moving the debate at some point, but much like Categories for discussion, miscellaneous pages should really have somewhere to be discussed, rather than just have deletion considered. Marking something as "historical" is an oft proposed option at MfD. Carcharoth (talk) 15:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Postpone - given that the arbcom has indicated that they will take control of these issues, deleting the page is premature. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Hold discussion here - MfD is as good a venue as any for this discussion. Carcharoth (talk) 16:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Postpone per Phil _→AzaToth 17:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Hold discussion here The community doesn't need to technically delay this (again) in deference to Arbcom. If this page(s) doesn't survive this test, Arbcom can always make a controlled, sanctioned page later. Lawrence § t/e 17:39, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Discuss here and now: Why wouldn't we? If ArbCom is going to take control, then they can when they do. I don't see why we have to wait for Godot to arrive to determine community consensus. I know that I will die one day, but that doesn't mean I want to get buried now. Utgard Loki (talk) 18:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Discuss here, but postpone implementation pending an arbcom ruling making it moot. Nearly everything at Misplaced Pages is discussed on-wiki; indeed, even if you disagree with their decision, surely you find it as heartening as I do that Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Danny/Bureaucrat chat exists as a way to recall and reference the discussions surrounding that contentious RfA, and we are not forced to rely on third-hand IRC or IM logs when we look to (re-)evaluate that decision. Our ability to discuss on-wiki, and, coupled with it, insofar as legally possible and practical, a prohibition on discussing off-wiki, should be one of our core values as a project. We have one of the greatest collaborative tools ever invented, and it lends itself perfectly to ideals of truth, honesty, and openness. Not to use it—and, indeed, not to use it when confronted with an issue where our ire is raised precisely because of the lack of implementation of those ideals—would be counterintuitive, foolhardy, and destructive beyond measure. Jouster  (whisper) 22:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Table discussion pending outcome of active arbitration case. Durova 23:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Other issues

• After reading this page, the Talk pages and community-editable pages over at the RFAr, and some portions of the involved parties' Talk pages, I'm torn as to whether to declare we have too many administrators and policy wonks, or not nearly enough. Either way, I want to take an opportunity to endorse arbitrary GodKing fiat, even if it goes against my views of what should be done here. It'd be nice to move on (and to condense my Watchlist by an order of magnitude). Jouster  (whisper) 22:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Cute reference, fond memories of that cartoon. I sometimes wish for a little bit of fiat to end the craziness, but what if it goes the wrong way? (Whichever way is wrong...) 22:53, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

by definition, the way it goes is right. DGG (talk) 04:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. If you still think there is an absolutely "right" answer at this point, you haven't been paying enough attention to the levels of hyperbole, paranoia, trolling, assumption of bad faith, accusations of cronyism and cabalism, baiting, citing of logical fallacies, incivility, process and policy wonkery, and just plain asshole-ish-ness that have characterized the arguments of people on both sides of this case (and yes, I know that constitutes an attack, but it's not a personal attack, it's an attack on how they're editing, and I'm just telling it like it is for the betterment of the Project, anyway). I just want a fiat to end this process so we can all move on. How many bytes of debate has this whole situation generated, and how many are in an average featured article? I know my watchlist is so full of edits related to the RFAr that my editing of articles and level of vandal-fighting has slacked off, and I doubt I'm the only one (I still haven't had an opportunity to use this shiny new "rollback" button, dammit!). Ah, well. At least I can tell people I got yelled at by Jimbo now. Jouster  (whisper) 06:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

When Jimbo says something, its very rarely the end of the drama, it generally tends to get worse after that. Mr.Z-man 18:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think there is an answer that everyone will agree is right. That was sort of my point, I guess I wasn't clear. Its always the issue with governance by fiat - there is no right way, there is only the way. Thats why its generally better if we can figure stuff out alone, because when we ask Daddy to intervene everyone loses. 19:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)