Misplaced Pages

Latest revision as of 04:54, 26 September 2005

Please see link to this article's talk page for further material relevant to this discussion and decision

Actually JC, the "dispute" on this one is largely a unilateral creation of your own activity. You have been asked many times by both myself and others on the discussion page of this article at Talk:Jim Robinson to argue your case for the merging you seek. Rather than responding, your activity thus far has centered around your personal disputes with another wikipedia editor and unnecessarily combative rants about how you believe that editor to have wronged you in some way. As may be also seen from that discussion, not only have you resisted those requests to make your case, preferring instead to pursue your combative personal disputes with other editors, you have also largely ignored and neglected the views of other participants in that discussion who have made a case AGAINST your unilaterally exercised decision to merge the two articles. As of the last count, participants in that discussion who opposed your merging outnumbered those who supported it. Rangerdude 04:49, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Comment. Rangerdude, dammit, will you please stop trying to make the discussion center around me and the oh-so-evil unilateral merge I did when I tried to be bold rather than the merits of the article? I brough the dispute here because you couldn't help repeatedly attacking me on the talk page, hoping that perhaps you might see that this is the VfD page, and discussion here should be about whether articles should be deleted/merged/kept.

Thankyou. To the rest of you, my apologies for the outburst. --Jonathan Christensen 04:56, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

JC - Whether you admit it or not, both of your merges were indeed unilateral and the second was made AFTER the first was reverted and you were asked by several people to justify your desire to change it. Furthermore, your "bold" action came barely even half an hour after the article's creation, meaning most people did not even have the time to see it before you went about changing it. I gave you several opportunities to make your case as did others. You refused them all. Pointing that fact out is not "attacking" you, JC, even though it is criticizing you for failing to work with others on a proposed change and failing to even acknowledge the fact that most of the people who weighed in on the talk page were against your position. You are also wrong that the VfD page should include discussions about whether articles should be merged. Misplaced Pages's VfD policy EXPLICITLY says that VfD's are NOT the way to handle merge requests. This has also been pointed out to you both here and on the talk page of the Jim Robinson article, but just like you ignored everybody else's request that you justify your two unilateral mergings, you've also chosen to ignore the fact that you posted a VfD tag in conflict with wikipedia policy over what you seek to do. You complain that the discussion has turned to you now, but did you have any reason to expect that it wouldn't? The discussion turned to you because you are the only one editing the Jim Robinson page who refuses to participate in it as a collaborative consensus-based effort and basically ignores everybody else there. Instead you just plow ahead with whatever you damn well please even when standing objections have been raised against your actions. You need to learn to work with other people, JC. That is my point. Rangerdude 05:24, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So please, chime in. For the time being, I vote merge: the information is good, but most of it belongs on the other page. --Jonathan Christensen 06:52, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As User:Rangerdude is all huffed that my use of VfD in this case is inappropriate because I voted merge, I hereby officially change my vote to delete. Careful what you wish for, my fine friend. --Jonathan Christensen 04:56, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That being the case, then you need to delete this article, reformulate a completely NEW VfD request in compliance with the Misplaced Pages VfD Guide, and post it with the new tag and your vote. Changing the question on the ballot midway through the discussion necessarily corrupts the results. I anticipate and hope you will politely comply with this in short order. Otherwise others will have to do it for you. Rangerdude 05:29, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• • There's no need for this bureaucratic instruction creep. Amendments happen all the time. Radiant_* 13:42, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

• This request is a VfD Abuse

In reviewing the wikipedia VfD policy, I am of the belief that this entire exercise is an abuse of VfD. As I understand it,, the Misplaced Pages VfD Guide clearly states:

Before nominating an article please check the deletion policy to see what things are not reasons for deletion, consider whether you are actually wanting the article to be merged, expanded, or cleaned up rather than deleted, and use the appropriate mechanism instead of VFD

Furthermore, this request conflicts with the Misplaced Pages:Deletion_policy, which SPECIFICALLY lists proposed merging among its table of problems that DO NOT require a deletion and should not be resolved via VfD. In light of this and pending no other good reason to continue this process, the VfD tag placed on this article needs to be removed in compliance with the VfD process. The merge that JC apparently seeks, but which the majority of editors on that discussion page to date have opposed, should be debated there. Rangerdude 04:40, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• • No personal attacks is also policy. I'd suggest you read it before accusing people of abuse. Radiant_* 13:42, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)
    • Talk:Jim Robinson. I'd suggest you read it and see how JC initiated the personal attacks while simultaneously engaging in unilateral edits against the wishes of the majority before passing that allegation onto others. Rangerdude 15:03, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'll be glad to change my vote to delete, then. Problem solved! --Jonathan Christensen 04:56, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Then restart the VfD process, this time following Misplaced Pages's procedures Rangerdude 15:03, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• • Katefan0 - at least three separate people have attempted to get the individual who desires a merger to even discuss the matter without devolving into him taking personal shots at some other editor on the Free Republic article. They include myself, User:Wakeforest, and User:Casito. A fourth, User:ObsidianOrder also stated his concurrence with keeping a separate article. As I noted to you previously on the discussion page of this article, there has been no deficit in the "general populace" on that discussion page and in fact the only impasse seems to be generated by user:Jonathan Christensern, who inappropriately started this whole VfD thing because he wasn't getting his way over on the article itself. The way I see it, this entire exercise is neither in compliance with wikipedia policy for merges (which entails placing a separate and distinct merge tag in the event that one is desired - not a VfD, which is ONLY for articles to be deleted) nor necessary given that the article itself has attracted a full and thorough field of participating editors, among whom only ONE exercises anything that could even reasonably be described as an impasse, and that only because at least four other people have opposed his decision to unilaterally merge the two articles without any discussion, which he still BTW refuses to participate in. Rangerdude 20:11, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • That's your opinion and you're welcome to it, just as I am mine. I don't have much else to say so I'll just refer to my comments above. · Katefan0 20:56, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

• • • It's fine to have opinions, Katefan, but it doesn't justify a VfD request that's in violation of wikipedia procedures. If JC wants to make his proposed changes he needs to take them up on the talk page and, if necessary, put a merge tag on rather than VfD. IF upon following that process it is decided by consensus of the participants on the talk page that the two should be merged, it can then be done. If not, JC needs to respect the consensus to leave it as it is. That consensus was present on the talk page when he put up this VfD tag, with a solid majority there supporting the decision to make the articles separate. Not liking the outcome of an editing discussion is no basis to paste frivolous and improperly placed tags on an article. Rangerdude 22:08, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Factual accuracy

For anyone coming here from the factual accuracy tag, the "factual accuracy dispute," in case it is not entirely clear from the above bits and pieces taken out of the original discussion, centers around two points:

• User:Rangerdude claims it was inappropriate for me to start a VfD with a request to merge, and
• User:Rangerdude claims that since I changed my vote to delete to appease his above claim, I should now have to restart the entire VfD process.

Of course, those of us familiar with VfD (Rangerdude has never been on VfD before this dispute, at least not with this account) know that the second of these objections is completely unfounded--it is not uncommon for people, including the nominator, to change their votes. Further, as I have already addressed his first objection, there should be no problem. --Jonathan Christensen 07:20, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• You are arguing a straw man, JC. Changing one's vote at midstream is not uncommon, but that was not my objection. My objection was to the fact that you changed the issue that we are voting on after it had been pointed out that your original topic violates wikipedia policy. Rangerdude 15:56, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • JC is right. It's not uncommon for people to change votes on VfD after seeing discussion etc., including the nominator. It's not even that uncommon for someone to nominate a page for VfD and abstain from voting themselves until they have seen some discussion of the matter. · Katefan0 13:18, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
    • Fine by me if they want to abstain from voting or change their vote. But JC did not do that - he changed the topic that we were voting on and his original topic was in clear violation of wikipedia's VfD policy. Rangerdude 15:56, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • Nothing of the kind. The issue being voted on whenever something is brought to VfD is always the same. You can be forgiven for not knowing as much, since you aren't familiar with the process, but quoting from the top of WP:VFD: Votes for Deletion (VfD) is where Wikipedians decide what should be done with an article. Note that it does not say VfD is where Wikipedians decide whether they agree with the nominator on what should be done with an article or something similar. The matter being voted on is always the same, so it is impossible for me to have changed it. --Jonathan Christensen 16:06, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • You aren't in much of a position to lecture others about VfD policy, JC, given that you completely disregarded it WRT your two merges and initiating this entire VfD process. The fact that I have not participated in VfD's in the past in no way means that I have not read or observed them. In fact, you are misrepresenting the VfD process by neglecting its explicit injunctions against exactly what you are doing. WP:VD clearly states"Does the page really belong on VfD? Read the following two tables to find out what to do with a problem page." The table titled Problems that Don't Require Deletion clearly lists proposed merges there, and instead details an alternative procedure in which a "merge" tag is added, permitting the issue to be discussed on the discussion board and then decided per the conversations on that board. WP:GVFD similarly states "check the deletion policy to see what things are not reasons for deletion, consider whether you are actually wanting the article to be merged, expanded, or cleaned up rather than deleted, and use the appropriate mechanism instead of VFD" You did neither and you also resisted repeated requests to make your case on Talk:Jim Robinson, where the consensus was against your position. Rangerdude 17:53, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
          • First off, three people, one of them a sock puppet, against two is hardly a consensus (consensus, n. 1. An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole 2. General agreement or accord). I presume your fourth person is User:Casito, but to the best of my knowledge he never gave his opinion on whether it should be merged, so please stop including him in your count. --Jonathan Christensen 05:31, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
          • I take no position on the fate of the Jim Robinson article. This debate, however, has been somewhat of a three ring circus. -Casito⇝Talk 20:10, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Look, Misplaced Pages policies aren't a suicide pact. You two were never going to agree, and a "consensus" of four people (one of which has been disputed as possibly being a sockpuppet for you and who, regardless, has never bothered to actually engage in the discussion here) is hardly definitive. VfD is often used to decide disputes just like this one, including whether or not to merge two articles. · Katefan0 18:06, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

• • Misplaced Pages policies are not to be completely disregarded either, as JC has done. You are right that the two of us were never going to agree, but that stemmed from the fact that JC has insisted upon taking unilateral actions without giving due time for consideration and in spite of multiple outstanding requests that he discuss those actions first. People who refuse to even discuss the dispute are never going to agree on anything, and quite frankly I see absolutely no reason why the majority consensus should cater to a single trouble-maker who refuses to play by the rules. As to the "sockpuppet" charge, I assure you that whoever that other poster was, it was not me. And you can demand that some administrator or whatever it is check our IP addresses for all I care, because i'd never even encountered that poster or JC prior to JC's unilateral merge decision. In fact, that JC would first attempt to impugn me with an unsubstantiated link to whoever that other poster is (which he apparently did in his very first response to me, and which you now see fit to repeat) constitutes a personal attack of far greater magnitude than any criticism upon him in this dispute. If anything it's further proof that he simply cannot work with other people in building these articles and goes off throwing fits when he doesn't get his way...as in launching unilateral mergers and unilateral VfD requests despite a standing consensus on the discussion page against his position. Rangerdude 19:09, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I really did that, eh? Please show me where in my first respone to you I accused you of being Wakeforest's puppeteer. If (when) you can't, please shut up. Thanks. --Jonathan Christensen 05:31, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • Misplaced Pages's policies were NOT completely disregarded, no matter how much verbiage you dump into this page. And I'd also like to point out that JC's VfD was hardly "unilateral," considering that I was the one who suggested it in the first place. Also, JC, while I agree with you on almost all of the substance of this debate, it's not useful or very polite to say things like shut up. · Katefan0 11:55, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
        • You are right, of course, but after having Rangerdude accuse me of making false accusations and personal attacks when I didn't, accusing me of refusing the discuss the changes when it was infact I who first invited him to discuss them (see User Talk:Rangerdude), etc., I'm sick of his foolishness. My apologies. --Jonathan Christensen 16:18, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
          • I understand -- he has at times not been very polite to you either, of course. · Katefan0 16:26, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)