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Revision as of 00:46, 16 January 2010

In order to remain listed at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 20:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 18:42, 25 December 2024 (UTC).

• Wuhwuzdat (talk · contribs · logs)

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Statement of the dispute

I believe that Wuhwuzdat (talk · contribs):

1. is unwilling to accept constructive criticism from other editors;
2. has been so abrupt in warning a new editor that wikipedia may lose potentially good contributions;
3. has over-rigidly applied the spam policy concerning external links, despite clear guidance at WP:ELYES that the links meet the standard for inclusion.

Desired outcome

That Wuhwuzdat (talk · contribs):

1. change his approach to constructive criticism and accept when a consensus is against him;
2. strike the warning on Amanda.nelson12's talk page, and preferably apologise;
3. revert his actions in removing the external links made by Amanda.nelson12.
4. discuss more with other users to gain consensus, rather than closing topics or blanking them to halt discussions
5. recognise that administrators are just normal users with extra buttons, thus are not the rulers of disputes

Description

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Wuhwuzdat (talk · contribs) gave a level 4 warning to to Amanda.nelson12 (talk · contribs) and also reverted numerous external links that Amanda.nelson12 had added to several biographies, citing 'linkspam' in the edit summary – samples: , , .

Amanda.nelson12 is a new user, who works for the American Institute of Physics, at the Niels Bohr Library and Archive, where she has been part of a project to "digitize and put online over 500 oral history transcripts with prominent physicists and astronomers of the 20th century". Her stated purpose on wikipedia is "to spread this knowledge to the wikipedia community by posting links to these oral histories on the pages for the physicists being interviewed".

Users attempted to discuss whether this was the correct warning to give, with suggestions that a "Only warning" was too harsh as the contributions were in good faith, Wuhwuzdat however declared that he would not consider changing this unless an administrator told him to: , and promptly closed the discussion, not talking further, telling the user to get admin status and then come back:

Unfortunately, it seems that the user in question has been put off Misplaced Pages, stating that they and their archive organisation are unlikely to want to contribute further: . This incident may potentially have damaged Misplaced Pages's image.

In the longer term, Wuhwuzdat has also acted in potentially bitey ways when patrolling new pages, and handling CSD, Prod and AfD, assuming bad faith of new contributors, and thus potentially scaring off good contributors, or new contributors who would be constructive if time were taken to help them learn policies. This goes against Misplaced Pages's ethos of "Anyone can edit". A previous discussion at Wikiquette Alerts was held on this: , but stalled as Wuhwuzdat was unwilling to hold long-term discussions, calling the process a "Kangaroo Court" and a waste of time:

He is also seemingly unwilling to be informed of mis-tagging speedy deletions, specifically this incident: . He has been reminded to avoid biting newbies both in the past, as shown in the WQA thread, and recently such as here: .

Evidence of disputed behavior

1. Inappropriate warning:
2. Sample of reverts: , ,
3. Dismissal of criticism:
4. Refusal to discuss except with an administrator:
5. Previous WQA closed as stuck:

Applicable policies and guidelines

{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}

1. WP:ELYES#3
2. WP:BITE
3. WP:CON
4. WP:SPAM
5. WP:AGF

Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute

Having received the warning, Amanda.nelson12 posted for help in what to do at the Help Desk . Subsequent replies from four users showed a general agreement that the links were useful and that the warning was "bitey" – diff of last comment: .

I was concerned that Wuhwuzdat was removing useful content because of an over-narrow interpretation of the guideline WP:SPAM, and was risking the loss of a potentially valuable contributor by threatening a block. I posted to his talk page, outlining where I felt he was mistaken (per WP:ELYES#3 and WP:BITE) and requesting that, as at least two other editors had disagreed with his actions, he should strike the warning and re-instate the links he removed. .

Previous Wikiquette Alert, and a sub-discussion about general talk page conduct, was made here in November:

Evidence of failing to resolve the dispute

This request was summarily and impolitely dismissed by Wuhwuzdat, since he believes that only administrators should be able to question his actions.

A previous Wikiquette Alert was closed as stuck: , advice from uninvolved users such as: seems to have not been heeded.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

1. --RexxS (talk) 22:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
2. --Taelus (talk) 22:45, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary

1. This concerns me, WuhWuDat seems to have driven away a useful collaboration. Fences&Windows 23:53, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Response

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.

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Users who endorse this summary:

Outside view

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View by Themfromspace

I'm suprized to see this here, because I endorse Wuhwuzdat's actions of issuing a warning and reverting the edits, although next time a scenario like this happens I would recommend bringing the situation up for discussion first at a discussion board such as at the external links noticeboard.

I do not believe that any of the external links placed meet WP:EL, and I also believe that there is a consensus in favor of removing mass-posted links, for the very reason that they are mass-posted. When I encountered Amanda.nelson12's edits I gave her a warning that we do not encourage mass-linking, per multiple guidelines, such as WP:LINKSPAM and WP:ELNO (points 1 and 4 apply). I instructed the user to write the relevant content into the article and cite the links as references, since they pass WP:RS. I also warned that the links were likely to be removed by another editor if the spamming behaviour continued. Amanda.nelson12 did not stop the linking edits and, as predicted, another editor reverted them as being spammed.

I do not think that this RfC will accomplish much, because the actions are already in the past and (in my opinion) there isn't much to apologize for. Instead we should move forward by checking each link that was placed and examining it against WP:EL to see if it adds an encyclopedic resource to the article which cannot be conveyed through editing the article's text. Only in each individual case, after it has been determined that it is acceptable, should the link be placed back in the article it was removed from.

There is a bit of confusion over the meaning of "anyone can edit", and that is at the heart of this matter. Anyone is welcome to edit Misplaced Pages, but "Anyone can edit" does not give a licence to break our spam and EL guidelines, as was clearly done here, nor should infringing edits remain in our articles just because the editor who made them is new. Rather, as per WP:BITE, editors should kindly be shown what is wrong with their edits, why they were removed, and what they can do to improve them. This whole situation is indeed unfortunate and Amanda.nelson12 should be encouraged to return to editing and build up the content of the affected articles with the resource she has provided, in a manner that is consistent with our guidelines.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. ThemFromSpace 00:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Outside view by

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