Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:07, 30 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 that should be emphasised, is the intention here, is to seek a consensus on the issues and not to 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)
• 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)
• 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)

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)

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 chose - 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)

Access issues

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)

Rather than generate a million different sections - I've asked john if he'll move his comments to the 'delete or keep' section. --Joopercoopers (talk) 16:08, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Other issues