User talk:Aaron Brenneman/Scratch/Requests for comment/Tony Sidaway 4

Framework
Despite claims otherwise, I'm not locked into process. The current RfC system is not that good, and in a highly polarised area like this doesn't lend itself to discussion at all. Thus I've started somewhat differently, please comment! - brenneman (t) (c)  06:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * On a personal note, I'm trying very hard to take a break, but keep getting sucked in because I think that real damage is being done to Wikipedia. However, I'm hoping that I won't be around to shepherd this.  I've spammed a few people I respect asking them to contribute to this, but I'd also hope for some blow-ins, and would ask that everyone do five things:
 * Comment on the contributions, not the contributor.
 * I've been guilty of personalising many times in the heat of the moment, and it never helps. Ever.
 * Focus on solutions
 * Venting and rehashing old insults is a waste of time. This is supposed to be about stopping wasting time, and decreasing the level of tension.
 * Forget policy formation
 * For the most part, this is about finding social solutions. Let's be pragmatic: There is not going to be any enforcement from above.  Period.  Deal with it.  This doesn't exclude informal enforcement arrangements, of course...
 * Police each other
 * Don't be shy. If someone starts to go off track, tell them.  If they won't stop, remove their comments.  Be brutal about being nice and moving forward.
 * Take your time
 * We're all eventualists, I think. We all plan on being here next week, next month, and next year.  Far far better to take a fortnight or more to work on this than to go off half cocked.


 * Thanks,
 * brenneman (t) (c) 07:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I like Aaron's attempt at a more productive RfC format. And I think all his recommendations above are good. Paul August &#9742; 17:55, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Outside view
I found of great interest in this matter Jimbo's view on undeletion by any admin and this quote - David Gerard 13:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

And this one: WP:ANI#Wikipedia:_Requests_for_Lynching_.28section_break.29 - David Gerard 16:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Copy of Tony's response
Cutting the gordian knot I think the problem here is not so much lack of communication--I seem to do about 25 to 30 user talk page edits per day--as a prolonged period of pushing the envelope with administrator actions. Whilst my actions frequently get results (Tally Solutions Ltd 12k, 2d, SuperOffice 15k, 4d), they often do so in a way that some people find alarming, even distressing. And even if I ignored that effect, others would not. While the arbitration committee may seem to be happy with what I do, they wouldn't remain happy for long if in trying to do the right thing, I alienated other editors, which is definitely not the right thing.

So here's what I'll do:
 * Lay off DRV for a bit. I'm satisfied that there's site-wide consensus for edtiors being able to see and edit stuff that's under review, but that will come further down the road.  The prospect of people actually editing articles being discussed, while commonplace for AfD, is very alarming for DRV regulars and they need time to get used to it.
 * Stop deleting templates
 * Stop undeleting deleted articles.

Then we'll review that in a month's time to see how everybody feels. --Tony Sidaway 07:46, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * This seems more than reasonable. Compu  te  r  Jo  e 21:01, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of Tony's response

 * That's great, but I don't even care if you do contribute to DRV a lot. I'd rather you do if you're good at it. What I don't want to see is you repeatedly undoing other admin's actions and acting like policy only applies to everyone else and not you. Repeatedly undoing admin actions is abuse of priviledges and I feel it is also clearly disruption. It causes so much more angst and dissent that I think you should have long ago come to the same conclusion. Anyway, thanks for being reasonable. We're all here to build something important, so lets just eliminate behaviors that hold that back. - Taxman Talk 14:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I want to make it plain that I do not consider my actions to have been abusive in any way. But there's more to this than just doing the right thing. I'll pick out two that spring to mind:
 * Setting a bad example: someone with less discrimination might try to imitate me.
 * Breeding bad faith: short-circuiting sterile discussion in search of a wider consensus is fine, but if I'm continually doing it then there are inevitably some who feel disenfranchised and blame me.

So it's time to relax a bit and let the community, parts of which have been showing signs of stress, catch its breath. --Tony Sidaway 15:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * You've been a significant additive stressor. You've clearly been wheel warring, and the community clearly feels that is abusive. That you don't see your actions are a problem is a problem. - Taxman Talk 15:19, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * You appear disappointed - David Gerard 16:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Huh? Taxman seems disappointed about what? Paul August &#9742;


 * It isn't a problem for the community unless I continue the actions that caused the stress. I've already stated my opinion, elsewhere, on the indiscriminate application of the term "wheel war", and won't reiterate that here. --Tony Sidaway 15:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Tony could you (or someone) provide a link to your "wheel war opinion"? Thanks. Paul August &#9742; 18:11, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this is a very reasonable solution.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  16:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * On the other hand, we have, say Rimini Street, (8d, 3k) and (11d, 4k) in its second incarnation. Your re-nominations do get re-deleted often. I also wish you would engage more in policy discussion on the talk page of the relevant project if you feel that an area of Wikipedia is broken. Pilatus 17:22, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * That is simply incorrect. My resurrections nearly always succeed.  Rimini Street was a recreation, all new material.  And I'd say that this was a very rare exception; just about the same day I resurrected Seth Ravin, which had been deleted and failed DRV, and recast it about his company, FutureNow.  Essentially the same article but now undeletable. And there's s: Homa Sayar, Albert M. Wolters, Pejman Akbarzadeh, Monique deMoan, Warren Benbow and many more.


 * And I think you're barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to say I have not discussed the problems with AfD and DRV. If you have not read my edits and posts,this is not my fault. --Tony Sidaway 20:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's the "do first, explain later (maybe)" bit that causes the problem. Having articles visible during DRV, for example, is fundamentally a sound idea, but not all of us have the benefit of being in the "charmed circle" so we need to have guidelines, policies, procedures, agreement, or at least some kind of idea what the fuck is supposed to be going on.  It seems to me that you understand very clearly why your actions are alarming to some: not all admins have the tenure you do, and not all are half as inclusionist as you.  And undoing other admins' actions is also downright confusing, if nothing else.  You're welcome to revert anything I've ever done anywhere on WP just so long as you tell me why and give me a chance to either challenge or learn from it.  I'm quite happy that the default status for articles is undeleted and unprotected, and the default status for accounts is unblocked. Anyone who doesn't like that is probably on the wrong project. We all know we can ignore all rules, but not all the time... - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|25px|  ]] 17:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well I wasn't actually breaking any rules when I did this (though this seems to have come as a bit of a surprise to some people and perhaps I could have, with a bit of forethought, predicted a lack of knowledge of Wikipedia policy and practise on the part of some other administrators). I placed a notice about my decision on WP:DRV but this was removed, so I then attached the notice to a comment I had made in a DRV discussion.  Subsequent discussion there and on wikien-l seem to suggest that the decision to make articles visible to all is very  popular indeed.  A very small number of administrators disagreed.  Although the impression seems to have been formed that I was engaging in some mad orgy of undeletion warring, this isn't the case; indeed many of the undeletions were straightforward history undeletes of the kind that any administrator can do and for which no administrator should need to request permission.  Just because parties to a complaint believe that a person has acted abusively, doesn't mean that he has.


 * Another point that I'd like to make is that it was *I* who attempted to discuss deletions with those performing them. Here for instance I contacted User:Zoe on her talk page politely asking her why she had deleted an article that I had temporarily undeleted.  There was, alas, no response.  Zoe also deleted Colony5.  Gazeebow Unit was deleted by several administrators at various times, mostly by people who were well aware of the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Deletion review and presumably elsewhere. --Tony Sidaway 17:44, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm. I remember that you have been restoring article listed on WP:DRV for a fair while. Now the discussion on how this ought to be done (because most people weren't happy with an outright undeletion in main article space) was in fact started by Aaron. The next day, Rossami, whose touch in deletion-related debate we all admire expresses his dissatisfaction and the lack of discussion.  "I'm disturbed that it appears to have been snuck onto the page without any discussion." If you say you were engaging in discussion about the subject - truth is, you were not. Pilatus 18:26, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

You;ve got your facts wrong. I publicly announced my intention of interpreting all good faith DRV requests as de facto requests for temporary undeletion on WP:DRV. What Aaron did was remove the notice. Even Aaron at first simply made the objection that it was "redundant with Category:User undeletion" so he was obviously aware that administrators can, and sometimes do, undertake temporary undeletions.

I take strong exception to Rossami's accusation of bad faith. I placed the notice in a prominent position at the top of the page, in a normal edit. His accusation was uncalled-for and wholly false.

You also falsely state that I was not engaging in discussion. By the time of the Rossami edit you discuss, Aaron and I had been engaged in discussion for a while and the discussion on wikien-l was well under way, with very positive comments on this move. (Morven was particularly impressed.) Truth to tell, I was engaging in rather more discussion of this move than anybody else at that time. --Tony Sidaway 22:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * As has been pointed out before, not everyone subscribes to wikien-l. I was under the impression that stuff like this was intended to be discussed within Wikipedia, not in an external mailing list (or for that matter on IRC).  If wikien-l is now the place where policy and practice is decided, I will have to add yet another thing to my watch lists (which encompass a lot more than just Wikipedia). - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|25px|  ]] 22:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikien-l is a somewhat broader forum than WP:DRV, so I don't see any problem with discussing things there as well. No issues of policy were involved, it was just a personal decision.  For whatever reason, Deletion review tends to attract a small and unrepresentative subset of Wikipedians, which given its nature, is hardly surprising. --Tony Sidaway 22:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Since when are people on a mailing list less representative of wikipedians than those on the wiki? That is absurd. Also, you use the term de facto, correctly, above, to describe your assumption and subsequent action. We have all given neto a lot of flak lately about his lack of consensus. The term de facto implies lack of consensus. Which is, in fact, what we are discussing. Your unilateral actions. Perhaps if you could realize when you were making a de facto assumption that action based upon it should be floated before the community first, rather than after the fact.
 * That being said, I mostly agree that your proposed solution, above, is agreeable. I think, as has also been mentioned above, that you need to seriously reconsider your attitude towards the project (WP:OWN -- I wish there were a WP:Loose Cannon or WP:Maverick), as well as your lack of interest in consensus decision, which all of the administative community pages (including DRV, AfD, TfD, CfD, ...) attempt to achieve. Avriette 17:09, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm having difficulty parsing most of the sentences in the above, but I'll try to interpret and respond.

You say:
 * Since when are people on a mailing list less representative of wikipedians than those on the wiki?

This is not my argument.


 * We have all given neto a lot of flak lately about his lack of consensus.

I don't understand this sentence. Also, why did you conceal a reference to the name of User:Netoholic with the characters "neto"?


 * The term de facto implies lack of consensus

This is very baffling. Could you explain yourself more clearly?


 * Your unilateral actions

Needless to say, all actions taken on a wiki are unilateral. For instance, your own edit above was unilateral. Could you explain what it is about some other person's unilateral actions that you wish to single out?

I hope I've not given the impression of being intentionally dismissive here--I really don't want to dismiss anything you say, as long as I am capable of understanding it. It's just that, quite frankly, I don't. Is English your first language? --Tony Sidaway 03:46, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


 * How I see it, the focus of this "RfC" is a perceived failure to communicate. Note that that is different from an actual failure to communicate; if people say that there is a failure to communicate that is a fact that cannot be argued away.
 * Tony adds a note to WP:DRV saying he will consider listings there as a request for undeletion.
 * Aaron removes the notice and adds a note to the talk page.  I'd appreciate it if it could be discussed here before being replaced. Please note that "I've replaced it" doesn't constitute "discsussion".
 * Tony says on the talk page I'll replace it after removing the reference to myself.
 * Aaron points out that deletion policy is contentious.  it is no use to Wikipedia to have written practices that create dissent
 * Tony counters Please don't repeately remove informative notices under the pretext that they haven't been discussed
 * Rossami weights in. When was the first version added to the page and when was it's addition discussed?
 * Looking at the diffs, I understand why people feel there is a lack of comunication. A statement like "I'll replace it" does nothing to outline one's own viewpoint why and how WP:DRV ought to be reformed. It also isn't respectful to others who may have other ideas about the shape of deletion review. And looking at the diffs again, the statement that you were involved in discussion with Aaron before Rossami's statement is just untrue. A posturing match with veiled threats thrown in ("By the way, you've managed to misquote arbcom's admonition against you for editing a policy page. Do you still need a lesson in the difference?") isn't a discussion; in a discussion one would address the opponent's concerns. I'd also extend good faith to Rossami here, he may feel that arguments for either side are needed and none were provided yet. Pilatus 17:35, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Who gave you permission to post the above announcement of your opinion? If someone removed it and insisted that your discuss it with them first prior to posting it, would your attempts to modify the announcement to remove potential points of friction, and your attempts to find some way of engaging with this person, whose point of view you obviously could not begin to understand, and who moreover is quite bafflingly insistent that you discuss the making of a quite simple expression of your opinion, be taken as failure to communicate?


 * Yes, there was certainly a failure to communicate. There was an apparently determined attempt to prevent communication, but not on my part.


 * You use terms like "how WP:DRV ought to be reformed." And yet I had no idea in my mind of reforming DRV. I had simply changed my own behavior and acted accordingly, and wished, as a courtesy,to announce this fact. --Tony Sidaway 04:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


 * HO HO! What a strange thing to say, that in an attempt at conflict resolution someone might need the permission of the involved party to state what he feels the issue is.


 * You state there was a "determined attempt to prevent communication". I'm at a loss to see what that might be. Could you elaborate, if possible with diffs, please! Pilatus 05:47, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well yes, I think it would be strange to ask a person to justify a statement of his opinion. Did you not realise that Aaron twice removed my announcement of my opinion from WP:DRV?  --Tony Sidaway 05:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


 * To move the discussion forward: this is about the perceived failure of communication, not about policy or the editing of policy. It would certainly help if you think why people might say that communication with you has failed on certain occasions and then post the conclusions here. (Note: it is a verifiable fact that people think communication has failed - see e.g. "I'm disturbed that it appears to have been snuck onto the page without any discussion.") Pilatus 00:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You've made it very hard to reply to your message, Tony. By alternating indentation as you have, it is difficult to figure out where one statement ends and another begins. So let me try to address your points. Feel free to reindent or re-place this if you find a better way.


 * The "representative-ness" of wikien-l vs the wiki
 * This is your argument:
 * Wikien-l is a somewhat broader forum than WP:DRV, so I don't see any problem with discussing things there as well. No issues of policy were involved, it was just a personal decision. For whatever reason, Deletion review tends to attract a small and unrepresentative subset of Wikipedians, which given its nature, is hardly surprising. --Tony Sidaway 22:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The implication here is that DRV is not representative of the community and wikien-l is. This is because wikien-l is a clique, whether you acknowledge this or not. While "cabal" may not be appropriate, clique most certainly is.


 * Netoholic (this is a deliberate change of subject, and disruptive to discussion)
 * I don't understand this sentence. Also, why did you conceal a reference to the name of User:Netoholic with the characters "neto"?
 * "neto" is a colloquial pet name for one of the other users of Wikipedia. You do know there are other users contributing?


 * "de facto"
 * the term de facto implies lack of consensus
 * This is very baffling. Could you explain yourself more clearly?
 * De facto implies (I encourage you to read the definition of "imply") that, by default, without external verification, that the result of a question leads (always) to a certain answer. The opposite of "de facto" would be "verification" or "consensus". In fact, let's have a look at a definition:
 * Exercising power or serving a function without being legally or officially established: a de facto government; a de facto nuclear storage facility.
 * The important part here is "without being legally or officially established."


 * Unilateral and actions therein
 * Your unilateral actions
 * Needless to say, all actions taken on a wiki are unilateral. For instance, your own edit above was unilateral. Could you explain what it is about some other person's unilateral actions that you wish to single out?
 * This is a deliberate oversimplification of the word "unilateral." Let's go back to definitions, again:


 * Of, on, relating to, involving, or affecting only one side: “a unilateral advantage in defense” (New Republic).
 * 1) Performed or undertaken by only one side: unilateral disarmament.
 * 2) Obligating only one of two or more parties, nations, or persons, as a contract or an agreement.
 * 3) Emphasizing or recognizing only one side of a subject.
 * 4) Having only one side.
 * "unilateral" is the opposite of consensus.

This really disgusts me, Tony. I am actually rather skilled at language in general, and I am a native speaker of english (as if you didn't know that). You have, instead of addressing the points in the original message, derailed the conversation entirely by quibbling over semantics. It is disingenuous, and I will say that I have no reason to believe this was in good faith. I haven't taken apart any perceived ambiguities in your responses herein. I have addressed the points which I had issue with. Up until this point, I had felt that you were being very mature in addressing this pseudo-rfc. Now I definitely believe that you are simply playing coy and avoiding the conversation by derailing arguments. If you would own up, profess mea culpa, apologize or otherwise capitulate, I for one would not be anywhere near as angry with you. I don't understand why you fail to have any empathy with the people organizing this effort. You are not only saying you do not agree, but you are saying that you have no idea how they could possibly have thought such a thing. That's sociopathic (see also Conduct disorder) behavior. What is so hard here about simply agreeing to avoid contentious behavior? Avriette 17:23, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


 * One possible source of confusion in the above discussion between Tony and Avriette, is that although Avriette wrote: "Since when are people on a mailing list less representative of wikipedians than those on the wiki?" when, based on the comments above, what i suspect was meant was: "Since when are people on a mailing list more representative of wikipedians than those on the wiki?" Paul August &#9742; 18:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Speaking of mea culpa... Yes, that's precisely what I meant. Apologies. Avriette 18:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Avriette. I do think that wikien-l is more representative of wikipedia users as a whole--there are more of us, for a start. But even if it were not, I don't see why there should be a problem with my discussing something on as many relevant forums as possible. At the very least, my announcements on wikien-l may draw people to the DRV discussion who would not normally have seen it. An announcement on Village Pump might also be a good idea. --Tony Sidaway 00:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


 * On the idea that de facto has any connotations related to consensus, I don't think that's productive. I'm talking about my personal opinion here, and obviously I don't need to appeal to consensus in order to formulate a personal opinion; my opinion is my own property just as your opinion is yours. --Tony Sidaway 01:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Some notes on the mailing list
I've posted some rough-and-ready analysis of activity on the mailing list here. - brenneman (t) (c)  04:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Recent activity on Deletion Review
Presented without further comment: This statement made on 07:46, 1 February 2006


 * Restored 05:11, 5 February
 * A comment at DRV on 05:15, 5 February 2006


 * Restored 05:18, 5 February
 * A comment at DRV on 05:19, 5 February 2006


 * Yes, I have now resumed temporary undeletion, but only (for now) in cases where the articles clearly have a huge amount of support for undeletion. This will give other editors who may be used to a more conservative approach time and opportunity to get used to the idea that non-administrators can see the content of articles being discussed on DRV.  I think we've passed the point where such temporary undeletion is viewed as especially controversial. --Tony Sidaway 00:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Just so we're clear: having the content of an article available for review is nothing new, and is done almost as a matter of course: stubs have their contents copied into the discussion, longer articles are moved into subpages in user space. What's new is the idea that when anyone requests it, the article springs back to life fully fledged.  Please direct further discussion of this matter to Wikipedia talk:Deletion review as repeated and split discussiona are considered harmful. -  brenneman (t) (c)  01:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well I'm not talking about copying the contents of stubs, I'm talking about the full history of articles being undeleted in full, for the purpose of and duration of discussion.


 * I'm sympathetic to the idea of putting undeleted articles into some other place than article space--I wouldn't object to having a particular hierarchy for that (say Deletion review/Pending/ARTICLENAME).


 * I agree that the idea of normal editors being able to see and work on the article during an undeletion discussion is pretty new. I'll try to take this slowly.


 * I don't agree that there is a problem with "repeated and split discussions." If there is disagreement between the conclusions in different Wikipedia-related forums, then this in itself gives us useful information about whether there is consensus on a matter (in particular, that there is no consensus).  We should always seek to broaden debate on important subjects and this may sometimes require stimulating discussion by announcements in Village Pump, wikien-l, and the like.  I do agree that discussion should eventually coalesce, but this will probably happen of its own accord. No reason to suppress discussion. . --Tony Sidaway 02:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I think there is a problem with split discussions. Please continue discussion there. Avriette 04:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Still going on
I read in Tony's response that he said he would stop deleting templates. Well, he's still doing it. Canaen 18:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


 * He said he would stop for about a month. It's been 4 months. -GTBacchus(talk) 19:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Shortly after this RfC there was an arbitration case involving me, partly as a result of concerns about my template deletions. The arbitration committee found that such templates can be speedily deleted. --Tony Sidaway 23:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)