Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Don't call the kettle black (2nd nomination)

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was:  keep. I don't see a consensus to delete here. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 15:46, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Don't call the kettle black

 * – (View MfD) &#8203;

This page gives great advice for editors acting purely in self-interest. It does not improve the encyclopedia. While this essay rightfully advises editors to examine their own behavior, the net result of applying this essay is that two editors guilty of misconduct are not brought into the scrutinizing eye of the community. We *want* the pot to call the kettle black (report policy violating behavior), because the net result will be that misconduct on both sides is dealt with. This essay is essentially advocating in favor of co-conspiracy. "I won't report you, and you won't report me, so we can both continue to be disruptive". MarshallKe (talk) 19:00, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete not a very good essay even if it’s in good faith. Normally this wouldn’t be a serious issue, but when it explicitly says you should practice honor among WikiCriminals by not snitching on another equally or even more disruptive user it’s doing more harm than good. If anything it’d be better to encourage disruptive users snitching each other by giving them more lenient “sentences” as a reward. It’s also using a rather dated metaphor that sounds really bad in regards to its use of “blackness” to mean “badness”. Dronebogus (talk) 19:24, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete I agree that the message of the essay is dubious in advocating non-reporting of potentially disruptive behaviour. The metaphor is also offensive in my view, Atlantic306 (talk) 00:46, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Userfy at the most – whoa, whoa, whoa! This is a widely cited and historically important essay. Per this search generated by the script User:PrimeHunter/Source links.js, the base page alone is linked to 93 times and its shortcuts are linked to more often than that. The essay's creator was well-respected for his policy and guideline editing; his barnstars page shows a taste of this. I seem to recall he comes from the Netherlands, the home of Zwarte Piet, which has become more and more controversial since he became inactive here. The previous MFD (which I've linked above) suggested merging it with Don't shoot yourself in the foot, which I'm OK with; removing the essay from navigation templates that it's on such as Wikipedia essays would also be fine with me. But deletion is a step too far. Graham 87 09:49, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I am inclined to support marking historical with Template:Historical, or redirect to Don't shoot yourself in the foot rather than deletion. In the case of redirect, a note could be added explaining what the old adage means. MarshallKe (talk) 12:51, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree with MarshallKe. As I’ve said before, old doesn’t equal good. Dronebogus (talk) 20:37, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I think that the essay has been misunderstood in terms of thinking about the saying "don't call the kettle black" as a literal action (i.e. keep quiet about wrongdoing), when in fact it is meant to describe a certain mindset that disruptive users often employ, that the wrongdoings of another necessarily absolve themselves of their own. It's about the nature of hypocrisy, not about sweeping issues under the rug. Nowadays, I notice that we tend to refer to these situations using WP:BOOMERANG; we're much better at calling out this kind of behavior. But back in 2006, when Radiant! first wrote this, this kind of crap ran rampant (just take a look at the arbitration cases that year, for some context), and we needed some vocabulary as a community to identify this specific brand of disruption, which tried to turn WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF as bludgeons to use during disputes. If you must, userfy this, but I find the inability to look beyond the literal saying and not at the heart of the content and the context that birthed it baffling.  bibliomaniac 1  5  23:14, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep How dare you all try to get this deleted, when the points within are nothing if not valid and this essay has even been actively linked to. At the very least this needs to be userfied. The angle of the current MFD atmosphere to try and look for things to delete that run contrary to certain viewpoints seems somewhat iconoclastic to me.--WaltCip- (talk)  15:22, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
 * ”How dare you”? “Iconoclasm”? *So what, is this essay the gospel of Wikipedia now? Dronebogus (talk) 21:07, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Per Essays and the essay template in general - "Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints." Why exactly are we -- and you -- going out of our way to delete these? WaltCip- (talk)  21:24, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Well I’m not “going out of my way”, I just saw the discussion and agreed with it. Dronebogus (talk) 21:53, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I have described my reasons why I proposed deletion, and I think I described them and their basis in policy sufficiently. Your implication of some ulterior motive is WP:ABF-y. There is probably some cabal of editors editing on an ideological basis, but I am not a member of them. MarshallKe (talk) 14:53, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with WaltCip but the way they phrased it is kinda silly Washing Machine (alt) (talk) 16:29, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
 *  Weak Keep - Recognizing that concerns have been expressed as to why to delete this essay, but, first, it doesn't encourage incivility, so much as discourages an uncivil editor from complaining about the incivility of others, and, second, not everything in project space has strong support, and minority views are permitted. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:46, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * "Discourages an uncivil editor from complaining about the incivility of others" is precisely why this should be deleted. MarshallKe (talk) 14:53, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I can't seem to tell if you're calling for this essay to be deleted as contradictory to policy, or if you are instead trying to tell Wikipedians that they are not allowed to think along these lines, similar to all those political userboxes that got nominated for deletion (which you yourself defended keeping). One is objective and can be backed up with policy (which I haven't seen an attempt at yet), while the other is hugely subjective and not what WP:MFD is for. WaltCip- (talk)  15:12, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep - Reasonable essay concerning editor interactions. — Godsy (TALK CONT ) 00:22, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep - It's a reasonable essay, but it could be rewritten it and renamed to something like "Don't be a hypocrite" so the old metaphor isn't there. Washing Machine (alt) (talk) 14:19, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.