Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Herostratus 2/The Great Galoot Scare Of 2010

The only way to truly understand the comment is to read it, and I've added it to the talk page (hopefully) for the duration of the RfA to allow for that context. After which I will delete it. Prodego talk  05:03, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I would have done it myself if I thought I was allowed to, greatly in preference to having to try to abstract it. But I don't understand. If it's BLP vio, how can you post it? It's easy enough to trace this back to find the name of the person being referred to. My understanding is that the first person who sees it (and believes it's BLP vio) is not just allowed but required to delete it. And presumably sanction you in some way. But if it's not BLP vio, why are we even here? But who decides? But isn't the presumption in favor of protecting the LP? And several people said that it is BLP vio. So I should delete it myself. But, self-servingly -- since I wish people could read it -- I won't. I don't expect it will last long, though. Herostratus (talk) 06:21, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Ignore BLP the policy for a moment and consider what the intention of it is. Prodego  talk  07:06, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm a big supporter of WP:BLP. I understand that the Siegenthaler incident was a Very Bad Thing. I'm all about protecting the Wikipedia from harm and danger and bad publicity. Of course the Brian Peppers article was loathsome and should have been deleted out of hand, and I argued this at the time. I argued early that the Daniel Brandt article should be deleted -- why make headaches for ourselves?

But, you know, let's not get all crazy here.

So now here's an interesting situation. All the petitioners accused me of a WP:BLP violation. Not a pattern of violation, but violation in a particular case. So it seems that that is kind of a key issue here.

However, an admin has deleted all the relevant material. Because, you know, it's a BLP violation. Admins can view it, but you can't. The admin could have selectively deleted some material, but she didn't, so I don't really know what is BLP violation and what isn't. So I'll try to walk the line and describe the case using selected quotes. I'll try to be evenhanded, but I'm only human. If anyone suspects that I'm being self-serving -- which would be a reasonable thing to suspect -- maybe they can, I don't know, ask an admin to check on it or whatever, maybe un-delete any damning but allowable material I've omitted, or something.

Anyway, so what happened is, I found an article about a politician which who was non notable (in my opinion). Furthermore, it looked fishy - kind of like a weird campaign bio. Furthermore, the guy is a Family Values Republican, and you know what that means. So I took a real disklike to the article. And the article had recently survived an AfD, which made no sense at all. So I wrote an AfD on it. And I didn't want it to survive again. And so I used, well, colorful language. Impassioned language. I wrote: Obviously I can't say what word [redacted] is. But it's not like I called him a blackguard or somethinbg. It's a negative characterization. It's probably worse than "Ol' son-of-a-gun", but not as bad as "big galoot". So let's say it was "galoot". Since I didn't actually call him a "galoot", I think it'd be OK to use it here.
 * "Now that this [redacted]..."

Anyway, I think this was the main BLP violation. Some other things I wrote in the AfD were:
 * "...has been (once again) thoroughly repudiated by the voters..."
 * "...does not even come close to notability..."
 * "...this guy is just a typical accomplished guy..."

I don't think any of these are BLP violations, but I don't know. They could be. (If so, an admin should delete them and redact them from the page history, thanks, sorry.) I mean, I looked it up, and by the letter of the policy they are violations. I acknowledge that saying someone "does not even come close to notability" is defamatory but... well... that's not usually enforced, right? Or maybe it is? I also wrote Here I was talking about the article, not the subject of the article. Note the use of the word "its" rather than "his". I think this was clear. Otherwise I would have been advocating the execution of the subject of the article rather than the deletion of the article. That would be against policy, I think it's safe to assume.
 * "Please let's put this abomination out of its misery."

I then went on to point out that the article made the person look ridiculous and could possibly have been written by his opponents for this purpose. I used colorful language throughout.

Now, here's what I say about this: in fact the AfD was deleted, which is not a good way to get rid of an article.
 * This was a terribly-worded AfD. What was I thinking?
 * This was written in inflammatory language which was totally uncalled for.
 * I should not have referred to he person as a "galoot". I agreed with this at the time when someone called me on it.
 * I should not have called the article an "abomination" (even though it was). I'm sure that many editors worked hard on it and in good faith, and to characterize the results of their work in this way is hurtful and uncalled for, and probably a violation of WP:CIVIL. (Although on the othe hand editors who don't want their work characterized in this way should not write such articles.)
 * In addition, my entire purpose was defeated in that discussion of the article was diverted and

I probably violated seven policies and caused needless drama to boot.

However, none of this is BLP violation.

Can I get anyone to understand this? I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall.

It is beyond ridiculous to maintain that any of this has anything to do with why BLP was created.
 * Will the politician sue us because an editor referred to him as a galoot?
 * will the LA Times get the vapors and wax purple over a politician being called a galoot on a Wikipedia talk page?
 * Will a politician suffer proximate harm because a Wikipedia editor called him a galoot on a talk page? Will he suffer emotional distress if hears about it?

This is important, because BLP violations are treated differently than other policy violations. They can be reverted without discussion, they can be oversighted, they are treated much more harshly (that's why I'm here), and apparently they de facto cannot be challenged. Because when called on this I then wrote The Terrible Thing:


 * "I will grant that maybe I shouldn't have called [the person] a "galoot", although I have every right do so in this non-article space."

Well that did Not Go Over Well. Because, you see, it shows I don't understand BLP. It's not that I disagree with it being used as a hammer by people who don't like me personally, don't like that I AfD'd this article, don't like the way I write, or whatever. It can only be in ignorance that one could make such a statement.

Well, after that, things got out of hand, what with the call for my being blocked, assertions of bad faith, accusations that I am a catspaw for Wikipedia Review, and general bleating of "four legs good! BLP bad!" or whatever.

And I did get intemperate. I was... not happy that the AfD was getting out hand and the ghastly article looked to survive again. I said that the article was a WP:COI -- which maybe is not allowed, as it declares that the subject edited the article himself or caused others to do so, which I can't prove and which would be embarrassing (and has been, to several living persons). I expressed this in more colorful language than that, which I can't repeat here (I guess). I said some other intemperate things.

And finally I went completely insane and said that he "...proclaims himself in public as a [redacted] and a [redacted]..." Obviously I can't say what the [redacted]s were, but I bet you can guess if I note that the guy's campaign website starts out "The traditional family unit must be protected and supported if our culture is to remain intact" and continues in this vein. I also said the article "...highlight[s] [his] [redacted] vis-a-vis people with actual articles and document[s] [his] [redacted], [redacted], and complete [redacted] of the actual public policy issues facing California." None of the [redacted]s were kind.

That was very intemperate and obviously I shouldn't have done that and I'm sorry for that. I was goaded into it but that's no excuse. Certainly a trout slap was in order, at the very least. We don't want people writing like that on talk pages. It's inflammatory. But even then... the guy's a politician. He put up the web site. He ran for office. How much of an expectation that everyone will play nicey-nice with him can he reasonably have?

Anyway:"I will grant that maybe I shouldn't have called [the person] a "galoot", although I have every right do so in this non-article space."

I said it. I stand by it still. We need to be able to discuss issues among ourselves as editors without having to be total prigs.

If you don't like it, well, the voting is in progress.