Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Requests/February 2007/RayTomes

Case Filed On: 01:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedian filing request:



Other Wikipedians this pertains to:



Wikipedia pages this pertains to:


 * Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_September_20

Questions:
Have you read the AMA FAQ?
 * Answer: No I don't think so.

'''How would you describe the nature of this dispute? (policy violation, content dispute, personal attack, other)'''
 * Answer: The page which is a vote for deletion ends with this comment "Closing note. Discounted sock-puppet votes. 5 total, 4 del, 1 keep. ∞Who?¿? 01:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)" when the actual vote count is quite clearly 8, with 3 delete and 5 keep. There is no statement about who the sock puppets are alleged to be. Quite clearly if all but one are sock puppets then I am being accused of doing all 5 votes to keep as I know for a fact that I made one of them. Therefore this is a personal attack (allegation of sock puppets, not for the first time). It is also a failure to follow procedure - vote for keep was wrongly actioned as delete. If it is not policy to list the specific votes that are discounted as sock puppets then it ought to be so. This manner of dealing with cycles related articles and categories is an ongoing pattern of abuse.

For example it is occurring again right now in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/9.6_year_cycle_of_lynx_abundance#.5B.5B9.6_year_cycle_of_lynx_abundance.5D.5D by User:Tim_Shuba who states "as part of long running cycle to promote original research" a quite obviously false statement to anyone who looks at the article.

'''What methods of Dispute Resolution have you tried so far? If you can, please provide wikilinks so that the Advocate looking over this case can see what you have done.'''
 * Answer: I cannot see how dispute resolution will work when one party is in an official position of judgement.

What do you expect to get from Advocacy?
 * Answer: Some help with dealing with the whole issue of abusive behaviour (lies, accusations, irrelevancies etc) in regard to a number of articles relating to cycles. I have written an entry in my blog http://ray.tomes.biz/b2/index.php/a/2007/02/02/is_wikipedia_broke_anti_cycles_behaviour which you may take as a more full statement. I think that there is a very serious problem in wikipedia when lesser known areas of study are repeatedly deleted or massacred because some ignorant people have not heard of them (and that is the main reason given for voting delete). Wikipedia is broke, what can be done to fix it?

Summary:
I can't find step 6.

In summary, cycles research is a perfectly respectable field practiced by and supported by a number of nobel prize winners. Accusations of numerology, pseudo-science and other such nonsense are repeatedly made and votes cast on that basis - by people who spend less than 1 minute looking at the material. There are groups organised to delete articles in categories simply because the subject matter is unknown to the semi-educated people in them. Allowing such groups equal voting rights to people who study in the field is foolish. To disallow votes from knowledgeable people because they recently joined wikipedia to vote on something they know a lot about is unwise. To discount votes as sock puppets when they certainly are not is mischevious. To not state clearly which votes are being discounted is a miscarriage of justice.

Followup:
When the case is finished, please take a minute to fill out the following survey:

Did you find the Advocacy process useful?
 * Answer:

Did your Advocate handle your case in an appropriate manner?
 * Answer:

On a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), how polite was your Advocate?
 * Answer:

On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel your Advocate was in solving the problem?
 * Answer:

On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel the Advocacy process is altogether?
 * Answer:

If there were one thing that you would like to see different in the Advocacy process, what would it be?
 * Answer:

If you were to deal with this dispute again, what would you do differently, if anything?
 * Answer:

AMA Information
Case Status: pending

Advocate Status:
 * Taking a look. SilkTork 14:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Interesting case - and Ray is a nice person. But I am withdrawing from AMA for the time being while I consider the implication of the recent debate: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates. SilkTork 19:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC)