Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:52, 24 February 2006

First principles and the root of the question

Some of the principles being added are the same ones added to many cases which is fine as far as it goes. To my way of thinking, this case turns on principles, and questions of principle, not all of which I have seen yet... Fundamentally (as with any case) the question is, are the actions in question good for the encyclopedia, good for the project? With vandalism or POV pushing in articlespace, th principles are usually quite clear cut, and the difficulty lies in determining whther the actions are class X and how much of X they are and who did X when. ( See also Wikipedia_talk:Proposed_policy_on_userboxes#A_symptom_of_some_bigger,_harder_issues )

I think this one is a lot harder because (unlike with articlespace where it's a foundational assumption) the fundamental principle of whether userspace must be a POV free zone (or not) isn't universally accepted. And if POV is allowed in userspace (as it should be, in my view but I suspect not in the view of all, I was hoping to see more discussion on that somewhere) how *much* POV? Where is the line? Most accept that WP is not a free speech zone so the line isn't where it would be drawn in those cases (the KKK's right to peaceably march in the US, etc does not apply here). It is by the metric of how much POV is allowable, and how urgent is the suppression of outrageous POV, that evaluation of whether completely out of process deletions, or deletions that may or may not fit CSD:T1, or repeated deletions, or deletions while TfD was ongoing, etc... should be carried out.

The argument that I believe Tony makes is that when he's deleting, it's for the good of the encyclopedia to get rid of that particular item as fast as possible, even if "consensus" might want to keep it, because consensus is wrong. Since none of these items are in articlespace, what's meant by good of the encyclopedia is "what impact it has on the editors and on their ability and desire to carry out the work of writing" and needs to be weighed in terms of what effect it has on the editors. We are all different people so the effect differs, of course, but there theoretically is a net effect (some are turned off, some are heartened, etc).

I'll be wanting to add some principles around all this but wanted to float this idea first and get others reactions. ++Lar: t/c 11:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I was maybe hasty in adding the principles which I hold to be applicable before reading this piece: maybe not as well, as I can certainly agree with Lar that one of the points in this case is the question of what is acceptable on a userpage. If we had agreement on that, we would not have so much administrative trouble! Physchim62 (talk) 18:20, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

If I or the other editors using T1 thought that consensus was for keeping contentious userboxes, we wouldn't delete them. The idea is expressed above that this is about whether people are permitted to express biased ideas in userspace. Again, this is wrong; the question is whether userspace can be used for viral dissemination of controversial ideas, particularly those not associated with the project (end the Iraq war, shoot pacifist, etc). One person saying "I think George Bush's reverts to the constitution should be reverted" is a pithy maxim summarizing his personal take on things. When a group of people adopt that same statement, without adding their own take on things, it becomes a slogan, and we should ask ourselves what good, and what harm, such slogans do to the project. To me it seems that reducing political discussion to slogans like this is just a step above communicating in grunts and yells as at a football match. It attracts people to Misplaced Pages for the wrong reasons, and encourages them to engage in the very antagonistic practises that eventually bring them to the notice of administrators. --Tony Sidaway 21:41, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a project with a community, not a community with a project

Quoting from

I really am of two minds about this whole RfAr. As a process wonk, I think process is a way to ensure fairness, and just as importantly, the preception of fairness. For that reason I am generally uncomfortable with out of process stuff, with repeated deletions, with speedys while a XfD is going on, with wheel warring, etc etc, etc. Process==fairness. So I tend to be uncomfortable with some of the stuff Tony is doing, as I think I've made clear before. But on the other hand we must not be slaves to process, and consensus is sometimes wrong. Maybe Tony is really a hero getting beat up unjustly. Process cannot get in the way of doing the work we are all volunteering to do here

WP by tradition is consensus driven but if there are forces distorting consensus, they must not be allowed to stop us from our work. Our work is to do an encyclopedia. Community is important to the work, but secondary. Decorating our cubicles (so to speak) makes us people, but is secondary to the work.

It is not black and white though. There are users here that do fit the "stumbled on" model who may well be pushing the limits just because they can, because it's fun to stir things up. I have seen that in other communities. I don't care about making them mad, except inasmuch as stirring them up causes disruptive discord (classic troll fighting principles). But there are OTHER users here who care deeply about the encyclopedia, and who have concerns, just as I do, about the methods Tony is using and about the justification for them. The ends do not justify the means. Those users must be convinced that what Tony is doing is right and proper, if indeed it is. I don't see that this RfAr, run to completion as is, will do that. If they are not so convinced, they will leave and we will lose valuable community members that we do not want to lose. I have seen that in other communities as well.

My take is this, it may be time for mandated clarity here. This project has an owner and a leader. I totally understand and sympathise with Jimbo's desire to not be heavy handed, to let things go and to not come out with directives except in extremis. But maybe it is extremis. Maybe a mandated policy is what is needed. Maybe nothing else will give the clarity to allow justification of out of process, anti (apparent) consensus actions that reasonable users will accept. I don't know. What do others think?

(as an aside, I think Jimbo's request has gotten pretty far among the thoughtful users. Most of us have subst'd, have put in explanations, have removed divisive things) ++Lar: t/c 16:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

You write: "The argument that I believe Tony makes is that when he's deleting, it's for the good of the encyclopedia to get rid of that particular item as fast as possible, even if "consensus" might want to keep it, because consensus is wrong."

Actually I have argued this but only in the subjunctive. I've never actually deleted anything against consensus as far as I'm aware, whether in article space or anywhere else.

Where the Catholic Alliance page was concerned, my position is that it had to be deleted, and I remarked that there was already an overwhelming consensus to delete, but even if 1000 people voted to keep it, it would still have had to be deleted. Some things are non-negotiable, and one of those is the neutral point of view.

Of course if we were scared of being misrepresented we would never utter a word, but I do think it's nice occasionally to set things straight. --Tony Sidaway 05:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Item A, clearly at least among the subset of admins who were pushing the delete/restore buttons you were deleting against consensus. Also, the "consensus" in any XfD debate is "willingness to see this item deleted at the end of the debate". This should be obvious from the fact that we only rarely close deletion discussions early, even when there is a huge margin to do so.

Item B, how does what you've said differ from what Lat's paraphrased you as?

brenneman 05:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The item in question was an obvious speedy. I've no idea what possessed the undeleting admins, but clearly they were in the wrong. It's quite normal to end a debate early when an item is especially damaging and there is a clear consenuss. Keeping it alive was only feeding those who were trying to organise a voting bloc (which, if you recall, was the whole purpose of the page in question). --Tony Sidaway 07:21, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Is this whole RfA about just that one box? I didn't think so, I thought it was broader in scope. But in any case... I think I'll repeat what I said on Aaron's page:

I guess what I fail to understand is why overriding process was a good thing in that case. I understand the argument that if process is about to give a flawed result, if consensus seems to have arrived at a finding that the sky is green, the good of the encyclopedia requires that the right thing be done. But that wasn't the case here. If process is about to give the right answer, and soon, letting it actually do so makes all of us process wonks feel that the system is fairer. (note carefully I speak not of rights, not of free speech. We have no right to free speech here, and in general no rights at all other than the board grants us, except not to participate, or to fork. I speak of perception of fairness). So why the rush? The argument needs to be made that there was a compelling urgent need to override a process that was about to give the correct result anyway. I do not think you've made that argument, in general. That you seem unwilling to make it, unwilling to admit that sometimes you do act rashly, or at least give the appearance of doing so, gets under the skin of some of us to the point that some of us say uncivil things to you, which is regrettable and should not be abided, but which does not dilute the validity of the point, it merely undermines the ability to make it effectively.

It may be an obvious speedy now if we posit WP:CSD#T1 is widely accepted (it isn't yet, is it? there seems to be some dissention), but was it an obvious speedy then?? I don't think so, and I think the process was going to get to the right result, and the state of emergency wasn't so high that waiting wasn't a viable strategy... I could be wrong of course but that's my view. Again, I acknowledge that subsequent events may yet prove you right, or Jimbo may decide to stop with the oracular pronouncements and introduce clarity. But I don't get why working a bit more inside process is so terrifically unworkable for you. It's not either or, either hang up your admin spurs or get free rein. There's a middle ground, which is to keep doing all the wonderful things you do for the encyclopedia but do them within a bit more framework, which will make many more people much more comfortable. Is that making any sense? ++Lar: t/c 20:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

No. To see what the dispute is about, go to my section on the Catholic Alliance in the evidence page. This was not a userbox matter at all, but a project set up with the avowed intention of supporting the creation and retention of articles that were skewed with an anti-abortion point of view. Of course such things should be killed on sight because of the potential for damage, but that isn't what happened on this occasion, for reasons that entirely escape me. --Tony Sidaway 21:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

But this RFA is about more than one box, or one project. In Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Tony_Sidaway#Involved_parties both sides seem to say that fairly clearly. You have deleted things that would shortly have been deleted under consensus more than just that one time, haven't you? I stand by what I say above, regardness of you wanting to narrow the scope to the ACW. I have great admiration for you and for your strength of purpose but I question if it is necessary to delete things out of process, not just one thing, but many things. ++Lar: t/c 22:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand any of what you're saying above. Which specific items, beside the Catholic Alliance of Misplaced Pages, "would shortly have been deleted under consensus"? I am aware of no such recent deletions. Looking at the evidence page, I see no such deletions. Looking at the "involved parties section I see no such deletions mentioned. All of my deletions of templates, for instance, were performed on the basis that they were completely unacceptable. No consensual decision-making was involved, although the deletions were reviewed. --Tony Sidaway 05:28, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I may be confused. Wouldn't be the first time. My impression (without trawling through your deletion log and comparing it to what things were listed where when) was that you were deleting things (user boxes) out of process, more than just this one project template. If that's not the case, I apologise but I then am confused as to what this RfAr is about. ++Lar: t/c 14:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Speedy is in/out of process?

(semiarbitrary section break)

Yes, they were out of process, in the sense that all speedy deletions are carried out without process, on the cognizance of the sysop concerned. Thee earlier ones had slightly more process than usual because, the attack template proposal being experimental, I submitted the deletions to WP:DRV for review. --Tony Sidaway 21:58, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, OK, but a speedy that clearly fits a CSD criteria isn't "really" out of process, whether put up for DRV or not. Thus, templates deleted prior to the existance of WP:CSD#T1 are more out of process than those after (assuming both fit T1), wouldn't you agree? That is, "process" is a sliding scale... starting at "Way over on the out of process side"

• "I deleted it because I felt like it" which shades towards
• "I deleted it because I think it's divisive" and then
• "I deleted it because I know we eventually are going to have criteria for this to be deleted under" and then
• "this fits the criteria so I deleted it" and then
• "This went up on AfD and consensus was close but tending for delete so as closer I made a judgement call" and then
• "This went up on AfD and it was a clear WP:SNOW so as closer I deleted"

we end up at "clearly very much in process"... Does that make sense? Do you agree there is such a continuum? (even if you may not agree about the exact ordering I gave) Can you see why process wonks like me may have a different comfort point than some others do? I certainly agree that process shouldn't stand in the way unnecessarily but process==perceived fairness and we're all volunteers here, things that disempower people will drive volunteers away. Were you speedy deleting templates prior to CSD:T1 existing to cover their deletion? ++Lar: t/c 22:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I was certainly deleting templates prior to existence of T1. In the absence of process, I set up a new process. --Tony Sidaway 00:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Can you please provide a link to where you made a proposed extension to CSD. - brenneman 00:56, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The diff has been on the evidence page for days. --Tony Sidaway 01:05, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? That's a big page, and I'm not seeing where you "set up a new process", so if you'll give me this diff?
brenneman 01:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

OK Tony, thanks for confirming that, so what did you think of my continuum? Does the notion make sense? Is it a valid notion/ordering? What did you think of the notion that some people might be uncomfortable with stuff at one end of it? That different people have different comfort levels? ++Lar: t/c 02:42, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I find your continuum facile and unhelpful, and in the current case, of questionable relevance. The items deleted should not be on Misplaced Pages. --Tony Sidaway 03:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Facile and unhelpful? I wonder if that view is widely shared. I think it clearly demonstrates that in/outness of process with respect to actions is not binary. Further I think it actually quite relevant because I'm starting to think your view of many things is binary, or at least more binary than mine. And that's a good bit of the issue here I think. You say in essence, (just below) either you're completely right or completely wrong, while I say you're not always all the way to one side or the other. ++Lar: t/c 04:38, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The recent removals of some of Tony's suggestions

I was requested to move them back on the page by Tony. I don't see a real reason to -- if the arbs want to use them, they're always available, and any minor stuff that might need correction can be easily fixed up by the arbs on the proposed decision page. Tony is still free to do a major rewrite of those proposals and resubmit them. But for now, I don't see why they should stay on the workshop. Johnleemk | Talk 13:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

That's fine. Aaron Brenneman was very naughty to remove them after being asked not to do so by an arbitrator, and I think his justifications make it sound like he is again assuming bad faith, falsely describing my proposed remedies as "melodramatoc gestures" , "histrionics" and "fillibustering" . But you're right. The arbitrators, if they had not seen the proposals before, certainly are now aware of their existence and about their removal. --Tony Sidaway 00:41, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

• I re-iterate: if editors in good standing come forward and say that they believe that these proposed remedies will draw even one support vote I will restore them myself.
• There are limits to assuming good faith, and this is well beyond them. Proposing it once we can explain away as attempts to be even-handed. Resisting it's removal starts to sound a bit odd, and demanding on at least three venues that it be restored is simply untenable.
• I suppose that, as we did with Mistress Selina Kyle, we can do the hand waving about "well, it could be in good faith but the outcome is the same so we'll move forawrd regardless." So, either this is a textbook WP:POINT and should be removed, or it a demonstration of grotesque misjudgement of the possible outcomes of this case and should be removed.
• The end result is the same. Not only are over 35% of all edits to the workshop page made my Tony, over 70% of the edits to the evidence page are by him. Strangly, he doesn't seem to be providing evidence to support the findings that he's trying to get replaced. So, while we're all faffing over these distractions, he's adding to the meat and potatoes.

brenneman 01:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The evidence I provide shows the facts of the case. If my actions were wrong, then the proposed remedies should be considered. There is no need to make naked, barefaced attacks on my good faith in this matter. I proposed that if I have disrupted Misplaced Pages I should be banned, for in reviewing my actions I would see nothing disruptive about what I did. I proposed that if I had made actions unworthy of a sysop, I should not be a sysop, for in reviewing them I see nothing wrong with what I did. The proposals therefore follow directly from a certain interpretation of the evidence. If my actions have harmed Misplaced Pages in any way, and I still cannot see that after careful review, then my judgement is chronically faulty and I cannot be a sysop and probably should not edit Misplaced Pages at all. --Tony Sidaway 03:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

A different approach

Ok Tony, let me try to come at this from another angle. Rather than looking at the content of these sections, let's examine the discussion around their inclusion.

• You inserted material into a wikipedia page.
• Discussion shows that, outside yourself, there is no support for that material's inclusion.
• That material is removed.
• You ask in several places for the material to be replaced.
• That request is declined explicitly once, and tacitly everywhere else.

This is, if I may be frank, how wikipedia is supposed to work. Any one person (barring Jimbo) does not get decide what goes or stays. This applies to everything from the text "seven times in three days" to a little GWB template up to a great big catholic project. Do you agree with the concept at least of consensus? That is one person wants something in and no one else does that it probably shouldn't go in?
brenneman 05:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

About 9 hours or so ago Ryan Delaney agreed to refactor the proposals back in , but hasn't done so yet. So I have. I've also refactored them a bit, in the spirit of Mindspillage's recent work. Please note:

• I'm not an arbritrator, or anything even close.
• I have no real experience refactoring this way.
• If I have misrepresented (or underrepresented) someones's words, I encourage them to fix them.

As to why I've replace them, I believe they're legitimate, good-faith proposals, and I'd rather seem them refactored on the main page then buried on a subpage. By returning them to the main page, please understand I'm not personally endorsing them in any way.

Also, I've managed to keep the size down below 110k, so I hope it's acceptable. InkSplotch 14:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Refactor

I think I spammed all the interested parties' talk pages with this already, but:

I have just done a massive refactoring of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway/Workshop, in order to

• remove personal attacks, irrelevant comments, and bickering
• make the page readable and usable for the arbcom, as at its previous size of 183KB, it was not.

As your words appear on that page, I'm letting you know so that you may review the changes. I have tried not to let any bias or POV I may have color my summaries; however, it's a wiki, so if you think I've misrepresented your words, please fix them.

And since this took much longer than I thought it would, I'm going to bed. Wearily yours, Mindspillage (spill yours?) 08:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Best Idea Ever. It's a pity this is probably not a job the AC could farm out to the clerks - David Gerard 09:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Well done. Whatever rest you're getting as I write this has been well earned. PurplePlatypus 09:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Well I WAS going to quip that as long as you left everything **I** said alone it was fine, it's all those OTHER foamers that needed trimming... but nah, you did great. Thanks! I took the liberty of putting the link to the POV counterexample back in. It doesn't make the page visibly any bigger, honest! ++Lar: t/c 11:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

No problems here. Page is much better. --Tony Sidaway 11:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. -Zero 12:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Excellent work. And in the same spirit that led me to try and archive AN/I (with disasterous results), I'm afraid I've join in the fun. Per the discussion above I've readded three proposed remedies that had been withdrawn to some disagreement. In the process, I tried to refactor them down the same way Mindspillage has done. Now, Minspillage is an Arbitrator and I'm not even an Admin, so if I've overstepped my bounds here, I apologize. It seems to me, though, that they were removed for being spurious and possibly bad-faith, and I think they're neither. I will not revert any other changes or removals on those points again.

Also, I stole Mindspillage's stock comment she used to notify people with and, erm, used it to notify people of my change. So I imagine I'll be getting some sort of feedback any moment now. InkSplotch 14:52, 24 February 2006 (UTC)