Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-10-07 Tien Shinhan

Who are the involved parties?

 * Stricken as involved party. Has not participated directly in the discussions previously. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:18, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Stricken as involved party. Has not participated directly in the discussions previously. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Stricken as involved party. Has not participated directly in the discussions previously. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:18, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Stricken as involved party. Has not participated directly in the discussions previously. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Stricken as involved party. Has not participated directly in the discussions previously. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

What's going on?
Discussions regarding the mergers of some individual articles into a List of characters began on September 11th. and must of them were closed after only 4 or 5 days. Some discussions like Tien Shinhan or Cell were closed with no clear consensus but with a "Resolved" tag claiming that the result was to merge according to consensus. Collectonian merged the article and I (Lord Opeth) reverted his edits, as discussion continued and there was no consensus. I then proceeded to RfC. The article then was taken to AfD by Collectonian (see AfD discussion), although the merger discussions have not yet finished.
 * I would like to add that there was no notice on the talk page for the merge discussion, so while a number of us waited in good faith for Collectonian and his small posse to reply, they were off trying to circumvent the discussion with an AfD it took a few days to notice.JJJ999 (talk) 00:36, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: There is no rule that the merge "discussions" have to finish before an AfD, particularly when the discussions were derailed by user JJJ999's making vicious and unfounded personal attacks against those supporting the merge on the list talk page (and continuing to do so in both AfDs and, as you can see, up above). There were no inappropriate actions happening here at all. The discussion was taken to a more neutral and wide reaching area after the accusations that doing a merge discussion on the talk page was "submarine tactics" instead of in an AfD (by JJJ999's own words). You might also note that the only closings of the discussions being argued against are those that these two particular editors don't support. Nor is there any requirement to post a notice to the List of characters talk page about an AfD on another article. The appropriate notices were put on the article, in the project deletion list, and to the creator pages. With all the bad faith thrown around by these two editors, particularly JJJ999, it seems to me that neither will be satisfied with any discussion anywhere that does not end in a keep. The AfD is obviously headed towards merge, so now they are finding another way to attempt to invalidate the discussion rather than just accepting the consensus. (and really, this and the Cell case should be one, its the same issue). -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 00:47, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The AfD will finish with keep, just like all the other ones. People just need time to get sources and for the people you failed to notify off the merge to come give their input.  Also, I seem to recall 2 independent admins chastising you for inappropriate closures, so don't give me this "everything was done correctly" speel.JJJ999 (talk) 00:48, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge discussions aren't even necessary to merge an article; see Mayuri Kurotsuchi or Kidou. WP:BB allows Wikipedians to do whatever they like if they think it benefits the encyclopedia and/or follows guidelines; the catch is that people can revert it if they feel the need. In that case, however, it would be the reverters that are violating policy, not the other way around, since the one who reverts is supporting an article that violates a Wikipedia guideline. You're honestly lucky we're letting you vote on this at all; merge discussions are typically for articles that, for instance, have some real-world info, but it's disputed whether or not it's enough, etc. They're certainly not intended for articles that are simple fancruft with no WP:NOTABILITY. Have a nice day.  Sui get  su  00:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't see why I'm a party to this considering that I did not participate in the merge discussions (save from conversing with JJJ999 briefly on his talk page and on the talk page on an uninvolved administrator), and only participated in the AfD on Tien Shinhan after I noticed canvassing from JJJ999 to multiple editors. Following that, I participated in the AfD, where I have placed my opinion on the matter, and engaged in the discussion. As for the issue at hand, the merge discussion was effectively moot before JJJ999 entered into the equation. In response to his frequent claims of bad faith and the fact that isolated discussions on these talk pages (especially for fictional characters) tend to become heated and degenerate quickly into tendentious editing, the articles in question were brought to AfD, a community venue to determine whether these articles meet our notability guideline. It's not as if the people who wished to keep the article were disenfranchised; quite the contrary, they can participate in the AfD, which renders a significant result that supercedes local discussion, and they would do themselves a disservice by not participating. — sephiroth bcr  ( converse ) 03:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm no friend of DGGs, I've fought with him plenty, and Glasscobra too. Yet they both agreed with the merges having been incorrect, so I feel there is a question to discuss here.JJJ999 (talk) 04:58, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not the People's Republic of Wikia. Your friends' votes won't count if they can't provide any reason to keep it other than WP:ILIKEIT, which neither you nor they have proven able to do. 207.80.142.5 (talk) 13:09, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

What would you like to change about that?
I would like mediators to comment if the whole procedures (closing the mergers discussions without clear consensus but claiming consensus, and nominating AfD ignoring the previous discussions, which they initiated) are based on policies and guidelines.

Mediator notes
has adopted this case. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:06, 12 October 2008 (UTC) has closed this case due to lack of interest on the part of those participating. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:30, 2 November 2008 (UTC)