Wikipedia:Requests for comment/ComCat

In order to remain listed at Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute, not different disputes. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 03:18, 4 August 2005 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is:, 29 July 2024 (UTC).


 * (ComCat | talk | contributions)

Statement of the dispute
User:ComCat

Description
This user appears to be abusing the VfD on numerous occasions, with repeated slews of numerous VfD requests, many of which are bogus. In the vast majority of these cases, the VfD was entered with the simple explanation of "NN, D", which presumably stands for "non-notable, delete". However, a review of the pages involved indicates that a large fraction of these pages involve clearly notable, encyopedically-appropriate topics, and the VfD appears to have been called for without doing even cursory research on notably (searching both the Wikipedia sapce and/or even Google). This creates an undue burden on editors and admins involved in the VfD process.

While many of ComCat's VfD's are appropriate, many of them aren't, and, in any case, deserve better descriptions than ""NN, D" -- Kaszeta 03:18, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Evidence of disputed behavior
A record of the signficant number of articles submited to the VfD process can be found at Special:Contributions/ComCat (a rough summary is approx 14 VfDs on July 19, and 9 VfD on August 3, 2005, and there are other similar bursts of VfDs previously)

Of the articles recommended for VfD, a large fraction appear to have been frivolously nominated, as per their VfD discussion. A non-inclusive sample is given below:
 * Hermann Bauer, Votes for deletion/Hermann Bauer
 * Carlos Lozada, Votes for deletion/Carlos Lozada
 * Larry Hoover, Votes for deletion/Larry Hoover
 * Hunters of the Dusk, Votes for deletion/Hunters of the Dusk
 * Drums of death, Votes for deletion/Drums of death
 * Trudi Le Caine, Order of Canada honoree: Votes for deletion/Trudi Le Caine

Applicable policies

 * Deletion_policy

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
Multiple attempts have been made at User_talk:ComCat to attempt to get the user to restrain his VfD editing, with no response
 * Kaszeta 03:18, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

 * Kaszeta 03:18, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Zscout370 (Sound Off) 03:20, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
 * ulayiti (talk)  17:09, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary
(sign with ~ )
 * Tony the Marine 04:31, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * Guettarda 04:33, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Meelar (talk) 13:45, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * Harmil 19:38, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk 21:43, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
 * Snowspinner 00:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Snottygobble | Talk 00:50, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Nicodemus75 02:01, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * TantalumTelluride 22:14, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * --Pypex 00:59, 4 November 2005 (UTC) AFD seems to be all he/she does. Doesn't even respond to RFC
 * Sjakkalle (Check!)  07:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * --rob 08:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Alphax &tau;&epsilon;&chi; 10:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 15:03, 4 November 2005 (UTC) - this is the kind of thing that makes solving the school problem impossible. Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 15:03, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Haon 23:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Grutness...  wha?  00:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * CalJW 01:49, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * howcheng  [ t &#149; c &#149; w &#149;  e  ] 19:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Dl yo ns 493  Ta lk   07:42, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Klonimus 08:42, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Gateman1997 18:37, 16 November 2005 (UTC) - now that we're working to solve the problem, this kind of blatant anti-consensus activity cannot go on.
 * Willmcw 19:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Turnstep 02:38, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Response
This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete.

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):

Outside view
This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute.

It is my opinion that this RfC is a slight jump of the gun. While some of the most recent nominations by User:ComCat appear to have been poorly researched, I would like to give the user the benefit of the doubt and assume good WP:FAITH. In the past, many of ComCat's VfDs were warranted, seeing that they resulted in deletion. There is nothing wrong with using shorthand in your reasoning for VfD nominations, so long as that reasoning is valid.

A similar situation recently occurred when User:Brookie went on a vocalist VfD-spree, nominating a number of musicians, most notably the entire cast of En Vogue. After talking things through with her she had realised the mistake she had made and agreed to pay closer attention to the "Things to consider" section of WP:VFD.

We're all human here, I think, so we've all made mistakes -- and I'm not thoroughly convinced that any abuse has taken place. Rather than an WP:RFAr, I would like to see someone extend the olive branch to ComCat offering mentorship and guidance to help him/her become a better researcher and contributor. Hall Monitor 18:54, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Hall Monitor 18:54, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Robert McClenon 21:26, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: I just think that the main goal of the RfC is just for him to slow down, see if other Wikipedians would suggest on how the user can slow down and see what they are doing. However, the person who set this up tried to do that, but did not get a response. I also talked to him, no response. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 19:05, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 1)  brenneman (t) (c)  02:05, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * And a "non-inclusive sample" is probably not representational. It would be easier to take the complaint seriously with a nearly complete sample, preferably compared with the hit rate of some other not-up-for-RfC frequent nominator.  brenneman (t) (c)  02:27, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Far too early for RFC. Dunc|&#9786; 17:14, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) I haven't seen evidence of ComCat responding to the issues; s/he might just be confused that they should follow up on these things. It's very possible ComCat has no idea that they're violating the rules. :) Janet13 21:22, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) JAranda'' | watz sup 01:06, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) Agreed. -- NS LE  ( Commu nicate! ) < Contribs > 09:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) Proto t c 11:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Another outside view
I do not see a case of abuse of the VfD procedure. I reviewed the VfDs in question. I would have voted Keep or Strong Keep on some of them. I do not have enough subject knowledge to form a judgment on whether others should be deleted. However, I do not see that submitting VfDs with which most Wikipedians disagree is abuse. Anyone who disagrees with the VfDs in question can vote against them.

One of the guidelines of Wikipedia is be bold. The editor in question was. Whether he was reckless is an open question. I would argue that he was not reckless, because what he did did not change anything, other than to cause people to vote.

Perhaps, rather than dumping on an editor who has been too eager to post VfDs, it would be a good idea to focus on how to fix the VfD process that is commonly considered to be broken.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Robert McClenon 21:26, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) -- Jacqui  ★ 06:04, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Outside view by Tony Sidaway
This is a very unusual editor. I cannot agree that this is a premature RfC; it's never too early to bring an editor to RfC if they're simply not responding to good faith attempts to contact them.

There are just over 150 article edits, but about three times as many in Wikipedia space, the vast majority of these being in deletion debates.

There are only three talk page edits, one of which was adding a vote to an old-style talk page deletion debate, another of which was an edit to a notice about a closed deletion debate.

The editor has made only six edits on its own user talk page, and one on User talk:Mntllydstrbd. Of the six edits on User talk:ComCat, four of them were experiments in signatures in response to some friendly advice from RickK. The fifth was a reply to User:AntonioMartin, who charged this editor with not doing research. The reply said: "lease don't make personal attacks. If you think the subject is notable enough for this encyclopedia then you can vote to keep it." The sixth was some discussion about the verifiability of some phrase. The edit on User talk:Mntllydstrbd was apparently a warning about that user's vandalism.

This editor has been going since 29 November last year!

I'm not sure what to make of this at all, but I wonder if it's possible that Comcat is somebody's role account.

I'm not that concerned about the AfDs. If they're inappropriate then no great harm will be done. Any obviously frivolous ones can be speedily kept by consensus if desired.

This seems to be a fairly harmless editor, overall. I'd only be concerned if I thought there was evidence that it's being run as a sock for the purpose of tipping AfD debates to one side or another. I don't see evidence of that here.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) --Tony Sidaway Talk 06:03, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) --Isotope23 19:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)  I agree with Tony.  This whole RfC is much ado about nothing in my opinion. Most of the AfD's cited above ended in what was probably the appropriate result.  Several of the articles actually improved via the process (Peter Graves for example who was drearily non-notable until the AfD caused someone to go out and research him a bit).  I don't advocate using AfD as a launchpad for improving articles by any means, the end result has been positive.  I agree "NN D" is bad form and doesn't do much to endear ComCat to other users, but really I don't see the harm in it.  The school argument is just a red herring by those who would prefer to see no school articles every go to AfD (but that is a discussion for a different time and place).  I'd prefer to see ComCat .do a bit of research before placing something on AfD, but that is just a suggestion on my part.  The only thing that is slightly disturbing is ComCat's lack of communication with anyone else concerning AfDs, RfC, etc.  But at the end of the day there is no harm being done by ComCat to the overall content and integrity of Wikipedia.  His worst crime appears to be that he pissed some people off, and while that is not very WP:CIVIL, it that were a bannable offense there would be alot more elbow room on Wikipedia.--Isotope23 19:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) While he may be weird, he is not causing harm. Some action may eventually need to be taken if s/he is truly disruptive, but this is not now. D e nni &#9775; 03:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) Given the poisionous atmosphere of RfAdmin, I would not at all be surprised if this was someone deletion only account, so as to isolate controversy from their main acct. Klonimus 08:46, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Given the poisionous atmosphere of RfAdmin, I would not at all be surprised if this was someone deletion only account, so as to isolate controversy from their main acct. Klonimus 08:46, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

View by Sjakkalle
By itself a few nominations of "NN D" or "NN D" votes are OK, barely, but it should not be the habitual way of nominating things. In most cases, simply asserting that something is "nn" or "not notable" won't hold if somebody argues for the notability. (For example, 5d-2k where the only argument for deletion is an "nn"-assertion while the keepers argue why the subject is notable could easily be a no consensus keep even with more than a two thirds majority for deletion). Furthermore, several of the articles nominated for deletion are the contributor's first edit, or at least a very early one. If they have put effort into adding an article, the person nominating it for deletion owes them some understandable explanation of why it should be deleted. We cannot expect a newbie to understand what "NN D" is supposed to mean.

I can point to one case where the "NN D" nomination was definitely inappropriate. Yellowikis was nominated for deletion by Radiant!, on September 2, at Articles for deletion/Yellowikis, the argument was that the wiki was very small and that the article was advertising, spam or at least not notable. The arguments for the deletion were well formed and reasoned, but it was nonetheless kept due to no consensus. Nothing unusual in that (apart from Kappa voting to "delete" and losing).

Less than a month after this AFD closed, ComCat nominated Yellowikis again, rehashing the same "NN D" argument which he has used countless times before, and making absolutely no effort to explain why the article should be deleted this time round when it was not deleted the last time around. Such an early renomination of an article should at least address some of the arguments presented to keep it. In fact, the Guide to deletion specifically says "If and when you do renominate, be careful to say why you think the reasons proffered for keeping the article are poor, and why you think the article must be deleted.".

The fact that ComCat has completely neglected to respond to this RFC, neglected to respond to all those who have brought the concern of such nominations makes me doubt the sincerity of his actions here.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Sjakkalle (Check!)  09:16, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 16:19, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) I have a nagging suspicion that this is a breaching experiment much like User:GRider's. &#8212;Charles P. (Mirv) 00:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) CalJW 01:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) howcheng   [ t &#149; c &#149; w &#149;  e  ] 19:20, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 6)  Dl yo ns 493   Ta lk   07:45, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 7) William Pietri 14:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC) I've been a little sad about the terseness, as I think can be taken for a newbie as hostility. But the AfD for McMartin preschool seems over the top to me; the article clearly explains why it is notable, and a cursory Google search would have verified this. Given ComCat's unwillingness to reply, I'm having a hard time assuming good faith. --William Pietri 14:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 8) Agreed, The McMartin article in particular highlights how disruptive this user has become.Gateman1997 20:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 9) &mdash; Haeleth Talk 21:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 10) Mgm|(talk) 23:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 11) Gazpacho 07:57, 17 November 2005 (UTC). In addition to the deletion policy, WP:POINT and Wikipedia is not a bureacracy also apply. The deletion process is intentionally biased towards keeping, so someone who wants an article deleted should give more than a trifling explanation.
 * 12) Perodicticus 11:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC) (Sorry, wasn't logged in first time.) McMartin preschool pushed me over the edge as well.
 * 13) I echo Mirv -- ComCat's modus operandi is so similar to GRider's that I must at least suspect that the end goal is also the same:  to disrupt AfD in the guise of participating in it.  The nomination of McMartin preschool shows that this user is disruptive -- whether through intent or intolerable carelessness. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:58, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

View by Hipocrite
Additionaly, nominating schools that are clearly going to be no-consensus, without engaging in any discussion in the AFD about solving the school problem is a violation of WP:POINT.


 * 1) Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 16:19, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) -- Jacqui ★ 06:04, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) Particularly obvious case: Articles_for_deletion/McMartin_preschool Turnstep 02:36, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

View by Gateman
I'd counter the view by Hipocrite and say that the AFD is NOT the place the school debate should be taking place as he suggests. That has gone on for months with no resolution. The debate on schools should be taking place where it originally did and was abandoned at WP:SCH. The AFD is by it's definition only supposed to have short supporting comments, not pages long debates as has been happening lately. I propose that ComCat has been following the AFD creation rules to the letter even if only putting "NN" is borderline in and of itself. He is under no obligation to debate people in said AFDs. AFDs are for votes, not debate.

In addition school articles are subject to the same guidelines as any article and if an editor feels there is justification for an AFD and has supporting evidence then they should not be restricted from opening an AFD regardless if it will eventually end up as "no consensus". Until guidelines are in place for schools through debate in WP:SCH there is no violation taking place by opening up legitamate AFDs on schools and to suggest otherwise is both a mildly threatening to users wishing to do so and counterproductive.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * Gateman1997 20:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I respond only to say that there is no personal threat intended. Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 22:34, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Accepted.Gateman1997 22:55, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * "AFDs are for votes, not debate." is wrong, wrong, wrong. The old "Votes for deletion" was renamed to "Articles for deletion" precisely because we wanted to emphasize that AFD is about discussion and not about voting. Of course, the vote count does matter when determining whether or not there is a consensus, but in especially in close cases, administrators who close AFDs are expected to exercise some discretion and not rely solely on the raw vote count. In a close case the arguments will and should matter. Routinely nominating things with just a "NN, D" without giving any explanation whatsoever and being completely unresponsive to people who ask him to reconsider this form of nomination is quite disruptive. Sjakkalle (Check!)  13:44, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
 * If what you say is true then VFD was a better option and should be brought back, because AFD has turned into the worst of humanity with WP:CIVIL thrown out and mud sliging becomeing the norm. And as for closers using any of the comments made... I haven't seen it. They simply count the votes and leave it at that. Your perception of what AFD was supposed to do to be different from VFD has not happened. All AFD is, is the old VFD with more hate in it.Gateman1997 20:27, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
 * "and has supporting evidence" tagging NN, D and then not engaging in any debate does not really constitute a body of evidence IMHO. If comcat is going to make what sometimes appear to be completely arbitrary VfD's then he / she is pretty much obliged to back them up with more than 5 characters. --Pypex 18:27, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll grant you it would be nice if he put "not notable" rather then "NN" but notability is a reasonable reason for deletion to commence. He's under no obligation to say more. People should just post their vote and leave it at that. Note that the major complaint here isn't really the method of his deletion nominations... it's that he's making them at all.Gateman1997 20:27, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Yet more proof that AfD is broken. I regret only not being wise enough, that when Ed Poor tried to fix it I did not rally to his flag. Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 22:06, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd just like to say that I really, really, really disagree with the assertion that "AFDs are for votes, not debate." If there is no justification for a vote, then the people closing the AfDs have no context with which to use their judgment. And when people justify their views, of course there are going to be debates. Debate is especially appropriate if a voter has forgotten an aspect of Wikipedia policy. In closing, I feel that statement summarizes a good part of what's wrong with AfD today. Jacqui  ★ 06:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

New View by Gateman
In light of the continuing discussion at WP:SCH and the fact that some editors are working in good faith to try and resolve the school debate once and for all I can no longer in good conscience assume ComCat is working in Good Faith. He is well aware of the efforts to hammer out consensus and that high schools, especially those with more then 3 independently verifiable sentences, are considered keep. As such his most recent highschool nominations are being made in bad faith. He is doing nothing but harming the process of consensus building and dividing the debate for no valid reason.Gateman1997 19:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Outside view by Dlyons493
It seems fairly clear that this user wishes to make a point about the Afd process and has succeeded in the main. However, the least that a new editor deserves in common politeness is a brief explanation of why the article they have lovingly created is under threat - we were all newbies once. So, my personal feeling is that Afd's such as NN, D and, even more so UE, D should be treated as malformed and deleted.

In hope rather than anticipation:
 * 1) comcat would you please explain your nominations and votes?
 * 2) Since there doesn't seem to be a deletion process for malformed Afd's, can we just totally ignore them instead?
 * 3) Can we close this RFC down as it's not going anywhere?

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) --Isotope23 03:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC) I don't agree with the reasoning that even brought this to RfC in the first place, but courtesy dictates that (particularly with new editors) a description of why the AfD is happening would be nice. If ComCat isn't going to at least respond to this RfC, there should be some form of sanction. That was the Nyquil talking...
 * 2) Just a question, Is he under any obligation to respond to this RFC? I can find nothing of the sort in the WP:RFC page? I think it may be time to request that hearing.Gateman1997 03:31, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 13:41, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Discussion
All signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to this page's discussion page.