Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam/Islam and Controversy task force/Watchlist


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany 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 debate was no consensus. It seems fairly clear from my examination of the MfD history that there has been misbehavior on both sides. The point that public watchlists have a high potential for abuse is well taken, but future misbehavior stemming from the use of a watchlist can also be pursued through other chanels as well. I don't see a pressing policy concern on either side, and I think clarifying guidelines and policy regarding public watchlists might be an advisable task for the future. I did consider the precident-setting arguments by SlimVirgin concerning the past deletion of Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam:SIIEG. Although this is a cogent point, I think the substantial differences between the two pages and the interval that has elapsed weakens this argument substantially. IronGargoyle 22:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Islam/Islam and Controversy task force/Watchlist
This page reminds me of Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam:SIIEG, which was deleted in December 2005 for the same reason that I'm nominating this one. See its MfD here. My concern is that the page is being used to coordinate attacks on articles about Muslims and Islam. It was created two weeks ago by Matt57, who has caused considerable trouble on Islam articles. Some more information in this AN/I discussion. I've already had to protect one BLP today about a Muslim woman, Edina Lekovic, that was being poorly edited to contain criticism by Matt57 and other editors whose names show up in the Controversy task force watchlist; and Edina Lekovic was indeed added to that watchlist by Matt57 on June 27. I can see that this page could be used perfectly legitimately, but as things stand, I don't see much chance of that happening. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Note to closing administrator: this discussion has been irrevocably tainted by the very active involvement of a number of sockpuppets of several banned users, see Requests for checkuser/Case/Kirbytime, Requests for checkuser/Case/His excellency. See the history for details, e.g.Proabivouac 03:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep:
 * I'll just ask you one question: Since when was making watchlists against Wikipedia policy? I have my own here too: User:Matt57/watchlist. Please cite the policy which forbids making these watchlists.
 * These watchlists are great tools (the watchlist I based this list on: WikiProject_Pedophilia Watchlist ) and have enabled me to revert vandalism, OR and other inappropriate edits very quickly (,,,, <-- these are just for today).
 * That project SIIEG was not a watchlist page now was it? I cant see what it was all about so your reference didnt help at all.
 * About Edina, its not an 'attack'. The woman was the managing editor of a Muslim magazine which praised Bin Laden as a brother. I was hoping you would be more patriotic to the country you live in.
 * You're trying to use 2 irrelevant issues (my ANI and Edina's page) in trying to delete this watchlist. My recent ANI discussion has nothing to be do with this discussion. If you want to bring up my ANI, I'll link to your possible 3RR violation and where an editor accused you of making personal attacks today.
 * A watchlist is only a specialized version of Recent Changes that utilized the Special:Recentchangeslinked function. This is just a tool. A tool like any other tool, can be used and misused. This is up to the user. If the tool is to be blamed, we should get rid of the main "Recent changes" link on the left too.
 * Its clear that watchlists by themselves are not disallowed and are infact useful tools. If anyone supports deletion, my question to them is: At what point do these watchlists become illegitimate?
 * If these watchlists are deleted, I will raise significant discussion on project pages to ask for the policy which disallows creating watchlist pages for selected articles.--Matt57 (talk•contribs) 01:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete. POV magnet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cberlet (talk • contribs)
 * Keep -I don't see a problem with a watchlist. It isn't inherently disruptive. If it is being used to facilitate abusive editing, then just go after the editors themselves, not the list. Bladestorm 03:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Completely agree. If a certain editor is giving problems, go after them, not their tools. This is a bad faith nomination by SlimVirgin. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 03:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Uh... I wouldn't go so far as to call it "bad faith". Simply unnecessary. Bladestorm 03:46, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, its bad faith because me and other editors have had problems with her. She's called us "anti-Islamic" (personal attack), threatened us for Arb-Com and all that stuff, all because I was determined to keep out a non-notable person's opinion she was trying to put in a certain article. So in the light of our interactions, its definitely bad faith. A lot of people including administrators have complained about SlimVirgin. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 03:52, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

*Delete Matt, soliciting meatpuppets from a off-site forum is against Wikipedia policy and guidelines.--Flamgirlant 04:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC) - sockpuppet of User:Kirbytime, see Requests for checkuser/Case/Kirbytime.Proabivouac 03:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. SV makes a very convincing case.  In addition, as Chip said, this strikes me as a POV magnet.  Guettarda 04:04, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? Where did I solicit meatpuppets? Are you listening to sock puppets? Remember my point #8, everyone. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 04:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * "Vote" struck per WP:DENY. You need a better reason than parroting a personal attack made by a sockpuppet --Random832 05:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * What in the world are you talking about? You can't strike out my vote because you disagree with it. I saw several meatpuppets that voted keep in this article. It's obvious that they are meats of matt or someone who is in league with matt. WP:DENY is not policy, and it doesn't even apply here. Unless you are accusing me of trolling? My reason for deleting is the same as the nom's reason.--Flamgirlant 07:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * F, I have done nothing to attract these "meats". Infact I'm sure they were creations of someone else to attempt to discredit the keeps. That is obvious if you look at the history of this page. And I asked you for EVIDENCE for your statement that I solicited any meat puppets and you provided none and proceeded to remove my query from your talk page claiming that I was picking up a fight with you. I've been editing here for some time now. Do you think I dont know that creation and appearance of meat puppets actually harms the objective? Yes, the first meat puppet at the least was definitely created by somenone and it was not David York as Itaqallah suggested. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 07:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The evidence is that their first edit was this afd and they support your vote. Probably you have solicited help from the hate website faithfreedom.org in the private forums, as the meatpuppet, obviously unfamiliar with wiki policy, seems to explain. Again, soliciting votes from another site is in violation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines.--Flamgirlant 08:04, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Any remotely controversial topic or editor will attract trolls like bees to honey. And there's no reason to be so rude to Matt, when it's obviously just a troublemakers up to no good. --MichaelLinnear 08:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Michael, she's not new.
 * Flamgirlant, that was evidence for strawman sockpuppets. See the page history. Its clear to me who created the first meat puppet. I'm not that stupid enough to go ask for meat puppets. People here can see who's a meat puppet and then that backfires. I've been here for a while to know that. This was a coordinated meat puppet attack on the MfD to discredit and make it look as if it was me who prompted the meat puppeting. See Sock puppetry which says:
 * They are created by users with one point of view, but act as though they have an opposing point of view, to make that point of view look bad, or to act as an online agent provocateur.
 * So perhaps the people who are opposing me over here pretty strongly created these meat puppets and so their plan has double backfired. By saying I probably went to the FFI forum and asked for meat puppets means that you're not assuming good faith now, are you? And why did you remove my comments for this same query from your talk page two times ? --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 08:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * FFI has a history of being solicited for meatpuppets. Maybe I'm wrong, but the very fact that someone would meatpuppet this mfd is obvious that you have serious issues, matthew.--Flamgirlant 08:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think its now very clear to me that this was a straw sock puppet to discredit the Keeps and help the MfD along. If I had a checkuser privelage, I know I would be right in my guess about the creator of atleast the first sock puppet. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 08:36, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete Definite POV magnet. Not likely to conmply with NPOV either.--MONGO 06:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Alright wait a minute. At what point does a watchlist become illegitimate? Remember I can create as many watchlists for myself as I want, like this one --> User:Matt57/watchlist. There's no policy that forbids this. This is a TOOL. It can be used or misused. You cant blame the tool but you can blame the editor, which is is what one of the above user's said. This will only lead to people creating their own watchlists, which is actually better than having just one. Its a list of articles that I'm watching. Is there a problem with that? --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 07:45, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete POV magnet, not a net positive. --MichaelLinnear 08:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Please respond to my query to MONGO above. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 08:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep No valid reason for deletion. Arrow740 08:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Per nom / POV / Strong Delete This watchlist no useful or constructive purpose. Peace. Lsi john 16:36, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as an unconstructive and needless POV magnet - the watchlist is frequently misused to advertise content disputes on many, usually uncontroversial, Islam-related articles (such as Jannah, Kaaba, Black Stone, etc.) - and typically those Matt57 is personally involved in. the incidence the nominator cites is only one of many. also see this discussion.  ITAQALLAH   17:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep It is a simple list of articles for the task force. All task forces on WikiProject Islam have a watchlist. This list shouldn't be any different. It serves the exact same purpose as the Portal:Judaism/New article announcements and the WikiProject Jewish history/New article announcements lists. Should these be deleted as well? Nominination reason sounds like WP:IDONTLIKEIT.-- Sef rin gle Talk 19:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete - Potential meatpuppetry hubs shouldn't be allowed, even if they sometimes are. The Behnam 20:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Potential? If it is just potential, that doesn't mean it is-- Sef rin gle Talk 20:29, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Well I wouldn't take away "potential" just yet, but it is better not to risk it. I remember a user who had something like this (I also voted delete), and I still can't see the good purpose behind having a public watchlist with a few selected articles on it.  When it seems more likely that like-minded users are using this list to coordinate actions, as is the case here, it is best to just throw away the watchlist.  While I won't name names (you know who you are), I see the POV magnet status of this watchlist confirmed by the fact that the 'keep' votes are almost entirely from this particular group of like-minded users.  It amazes me that you'd even need it considering the public nature of user contrib pages, but anyway this list is fishy and ought to be deleted.  It may not resolve the  underlying problem in its entirety, but it will at least work against it.  The Behnam 22:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * What underlying problem? Please elaborate.-- Sef rin gle Talk 23:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Behnam, how is this a meat puppery hub? --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 22:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment: People, what about THIS? User:Matt57/watchlist - is this not allowed too? I was using this more anyway. These are just WATCHLISTS, for christ's sake. If this is deleted, then everyone will make their own watchlists which kind of, makes more sense. The only advantage in a shared watchlist was that people could contribute to it. i really dont mind. I was thinking everyone would make their own watchlists in any case, like I did. To suppose that a watchlist is being used to target Muslims and Islam is just paranoia. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 22:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you want that to be deleted as well? Why do you keep bringing it up? Is this WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS? Why do you have that anyway? You can just go to preferences and have it include more changes on your watchlist, no? The Behnam 22:49, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm bringing it up to highlight the absurdity of this MfD and that how this will result in everyone else creating their own watchlists. No, the private watchlist is not a Recent changes feature. It only shows the last edit. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 23:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe I don't know what you mean. I'm able to go to 'my preferences', select the Watchlist tab, and check "Expand watchlist to show all applicable changes." (with 250 as the number).  Upon doing this I see that my watchlist shows every change to the watchlisted pages within whatever amount of days I have shown.  Is this not the behavior you seek?  The Behnam 01:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'm seeing it now yes. That has an advantage too of hiding our own edits. I'll create some directions on WikiProject Islam on enabling our own watchlist. This wasnt something that I knew so I know other people might not know too. I'll still opt to keep this main watchlist. There's the WikiProject_Pedophilia Watchlist. I dont see any problem still in having this watchlist too. Its a public tool for watching over edits, and its as useful to me, as it is to anyone else, regardless of their POV. The difficulty in having our own watchlists is that each of us will now have to click on "watch" for each of the 100 or so articles we want to watch, whereas this is a publicly maintained and shared list, so its easy to handle. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 02:11, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Matt, the public watchlist in your userspace should be deleted too, because it's the same list which will be used for the same purpose. Public watchlists created for the purpose of encouraging POV editing and creating BLP problems are not in the interests of the project. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:46, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * These lists are not created for the purpose of POV editing. You can check my contribs. The only thing that helped me in these lists is reverting quickly edits of POV vandals, e.g. the article Kaaba - someone keeps removing the picture there. And these lists are there to let us know what everyone else is doing on these articles in one glance. Whats wrong in that? This is a tool provided by this software. You've made this initiative, you've effected driven everyone else to create their own watchlist, thats what you've done, so maybe its better if this goes. Its a watchlist - a list of articles that I am watching. Is there anything wrong with that? The BLP is a separate issue. Anyway, see my reply to Behnam about this. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 02:11, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep; Useful watchlist with no reason to delete. Concerns about future POV issues all sound a bit 1984, thoughtcrime to me. Document any abuse and produce evidence, Do not speculate.Prester John 00:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: evidence has been produced, see the nomination statement (as well as my !vote).  ITAQALLAH   19:52, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per reasons above. The watchlist has no useful purpose since every user has his/her own watchlist.Bless sins 23:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Usefulness is that it has been constructed relevant to project scope and saves interested users the labour of constructing their own versions. For every project to have its own watchlist would be ideal in addition to every person having ability to construct personal lists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ShivambuWarrior (talk • contribs) — ShivambuWarrior (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Delete per nominator and Itaqallah. --- A. L. M. 07:36, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, deleting it will not stop any POV-pushing that may or may not be occuring. It's useful, and plenty of people have them. 86.137.60.14 11:20, 4 July 2007 (UTC) — 86.137.60.14 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Delete per nom. → AA (talk • contribs) — 14:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, but, all [ shenanigans] aside, the list should be watched closely to prevent it being used for abuse. I think accountability for what articles users are watching might even be something to be encouraged, in the interest of transparency. --Random832 16:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Lots of groups have watchlists; this watch list shouldn't be treated any differently than the others. selfworm Talk ) 08:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: lots of groups do indeed have watchlists, containing articles on the basis of their topicality. this one, however, advertises content disputes (as admitted by the page starter), which is an inappropriate use of a watchlist.  ITAQALLAH   12:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * All speculation-- Sef rin gle Talk 00:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * So Keep the list just removing the elements that are clearly 'untopical' — Preceding unsigned comment added by ShivambuWarrior (talk • contribs) — ShivambuWarrior (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Comment, I haven't looked into this enough to 'vote' but the problem seems to be how some editors use the list, not the list itself. I think this is pretty much the same as the pedophilia watchlist, except here we fear that editors are using the list to push a POV whereas we don't for the pedophilia list.  I haven't been around to see any misconduct of editors, but that seems to be the premise of this MfD--editors abusing a possibly useful watchlist.  Wikipedia is pretty bad at dealing with problem editors and this strikes me as a work-around for that.  If we have problem editors maybe we should probably deal with that rather than deleting the watchlist.  As for ITAQALLAH's argument that "groups do indeed have watchlists, containing articles on the basis of their topicality. this one, however, advertises content disputes", that may be true... but, if the task force on Islam and controversy is legitimate then it should be allowed a watchlist. gren グレン 02:47, 6 July 2007 (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.