Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Eyrian

In order to remain listed at Requests for comment/User conduct, 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 with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126;. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 17:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is:, 29 July 2024 (UTC).



Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute
The user/editor, Eyrian, is overwhelming the articles for deletion process to make a point without first going through preliminary steps to resolve the foundational issues. This is causing many unnecessary discussions and "votes" on WP:AFD.

Desired outcome
The desired outcomes are:
 * 1) To warn the user, Eyrian, not to use AFDs to make a point.
 * 2) To warn said user not to use AFDs before trying to resolve the problem through other means.
 * 3) To create a specific deterrence against that editor.
 * 4) To create a precedent of general deterrence for other editors.
 * 5) To prevent the use of sockpuppets and meatpuppets in AFDs.
 * 6) To get a centralized discussion going on what objective criteria should be used to winnow the wheat of useful trivia sections and pop-culture references from the chaff of the listcruft.
 * 7) To create a standardized policy, objective criteria, goal, essay, or rule about which Trivia sections can be kept, and which ought to be deleted.
 * 8) To create the same or similar regarding which X in Popular Culture articles should be deleted or not.
 * 9) To create a policy or essay about a new standard of usefulness: Whether such an section or article would assist the typical undergraduate college student's research for a course, by finding a tertiary source on The Internet at Wikipedia.
 * 10) To resolve this matter with as much Wikilove as possible, and without too much conflict.

Description

 * The editor has filed dozens of AFD's in the matter of days between 30 July and 1 August 2007.  All are about the same type of articles: those for X in Popular culture articles, and those articles with trivia sections, or see also sections containing a list of Wikilinks.
 * Said editor has not used the prelimary steps before starting AFDs on any some or all of these AFDs.
 * While following the letter of the law, with regards to policies, the editor is violating the spirit of the law.
 * These AFDs have encouraged or importuned other editors to "cut and paste" arguments, some of which are not really arguments in themselves.
 * While some of those articles are junk, and ought to be deleted, many such articles or sections are well sourced, or notable in themselves, verifable or can be improved easily by a cohort of Wikipedians.
 * While other editors may respectfully disagree with me, but this is the only way to resolve what is an important issue.

Evidence of disputed behavior
See various AFDs from 30 July 2007 onwards. (Proof forthcoming.)
 * July 30
 * July 31
 * August 1
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
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Applicable policies and guidelines
{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}
 * Do not use a policy or process to make a point
 * Assume good faith of other editors
 * Take reasonable steps to before listing an article for deletion
 * Please do not bite the newbies
 * How to discuss in AFD debates.
 * Wikipedia:Don't be an ostrich - an essay that suggests one should not request deletion of something just be cause it is unfamiliar.

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
(provide diffs and links) The evidence that I and other editors have tried to resolve the problem is here in these diffs:
 * []
 * []
 * [].
 * [] (new).

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}


 * Bearian 17:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * DGG (talk) 09:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC) I've tried to discuss this repeatedly with him & suggested several compromises.,  (no response since Aug 1), as have others,  and what Eyrian himself calls in his edit summary, a "somewhat hostile reply":   The aspecta that concerns me most is the batching  of up to a dozen a day, which does not allow for improving the articles, and the concerted effort with several other eds., notably User:Otto4711.

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. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.'' ''

I do not think I have violated WP:POINT. I think that every article I have nominated for deletion is unacceptable. I see nothing in WP:POINT that violates that behavior. I believe that existing Wikipedia policies do address this issue, and that by evaluating articles on their individual merits, the community can determine to what extend that applies. Given that I can find no violation in letter or spirit of WP:POINT, and the broad support the process I am using has received, compared with the paucity of WP:POINT allegations (which I expect will come up whenever someone does something large-scale, as I have), indicates to me that what I am doing is not particularly frowned upon.

I do not think any of the diffs above indicate a failure to resolve a dispute. In each case, I think I have made a courteous, civil response. Bearian's seems to be the only one that actually is trying to solve a dispute, and he didn't even make a reply to my first response. I hardly think that qualifies as "failing to solve" the dispute. As such, I feel this RfC is invalid.

Users who endorse this summary:
 * 1) Eyrian 18:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not think you are meant to endorse your own summary.  Mel sa  ran  (formerly Salaskаn) 21:31, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 1)  Mel  sa  ran  (formerly Salaskаn) 21:31, 4 August 2007 (UTC) I do think that deleting this articles is a waste, that they are informative and can be verified, that wiki is not paper, etc, but I do not believe that these nominations were performed in bad faith. The concern about these lists being indiscriminate or trivial is valid. Though it would have been better if he had nominated all articles in Category:Representations of people in popular culture at once instead of creating an individual debate for each article.
 * 2) I don't agree with most of the AfD noms, and was starting to get a little ticked that so many were nom'd separately rather than all at once or through a seperate policy debate aimed at taking down the entire cat. However, while the nom's concerns do carry some validity and, it is much more important here that they vary in substance from Afd to AfD. There may have been a common thread throughout them, but there was more than just one single point being hammered in by the noms. Still probably not the best way to do it, but I think Eyrian's actions were reasonable and defensible and were not a particularly straightforward example of a POINT violation. MrZaius  talk  21:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) This AfD nomination is riddled with, if I may be a bit blunt, paranoia over a cabal that is trying to 'destroy' certain articles. What we really have here is a couple of editors saying, "But I like them, I like!", and becoming upset because said articles that they like are being reviewed and quite often attaining the consensus for deletion.   All evidence points to the fact that Eyrian has been above and beyond civil in this situation, with various other editors holding screaming matches with him and accusing him of vast conspiracies to 'ruin' Wikipedia.  And now we have an accusation leveled at him for sockpuppetry and WP:POINT of all things?  The only thing 'pointy' is this RfC, and while I agree that we need to have a discussion on the policies mentioned, throwing accusations at a well-respected editor who is just trying to improve the project is ridiculous.  CaveatLectorTalk 04:15, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Definitely agree that, while the AfDs are in my view misconceived, Eyrian made them in good faith, and there is no suggestion of breach of policy or the need for any censure. Eyrian should feel free to nominate articles for deletion. ElectricRay 22:03, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 5) While nominating these articles en masse may have been counterproductive and lead to voter fatigue, it is not all unusual that similar-themed articles are nominated for deletion all at once (not long ago, a bunch of Singapore/Hong Kong hotels were nominated together, with mixed results). I'm going to assume that this RfC was made in an effort to get Eyrian's attention, but I cannot help pointing out that one of the desired outcomes, "to resolve this matter with as much Wikilove as possible, and without too much conflict" was ironic, especially that it conflicts with "to create a specific deterrence against that editor" and "To create a precedent of general deterrence for other editors," other desired outcomes that were listed higher and therefore assumed to be of higher priority. — Kurykh  19:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

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. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.''

{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:

Comment by Smerdis of Tlön
I have a longtime standing interest in articles on mythology and folklore, and am the creator of the (not as active as it should be) folklore portal. The underlying dispute involving the baleful words popular culture or cultural references in article titles has struck me as needing some kind of broad based resolution.

The underlying problem, as I see it, is that mythological, folklore, and historical subjects, being in the public domain and free from royalties, are well beloved by novelists, filmmakers, and the authors of text and computer games. Fans of these several entertaiments go to the articles on these concepts and make sure that notice is taken there of their favourites. These edits are actively disliked by others, and frequently forked into "popular culture" subarticles which are then routinely proposed for deletion. The claim is made that the information being added is "trivia" and "indiscriminate information", problematic and vague "guidelines" that, as applied, don't amount to much more than "I don't like it".

Eyrian seems to subscribe to a broad interpretation of these guidelines, as is his right; and to have taken on the purging of this content as a cause, as is his right. My perception is that his identification with the cause is so thorough that he took a comment I made in an AfD about "deletion by the popular-culture bot" to be a personal attack. (My actual concern is over the appearance of bloc voting without regard to the actual content of these several articles and lists. A number of editors seem to regularly chime in with blanket objections to all of these articles, objections to selective merger, and objections to preservation of the disputed material on talk pages.  But that is not really relevant here.)

What I'd like to see happen is:
 * 1) A moratorium on the proposal of these sorts of articles for deletion;
 * 2) The use of alternative means of dealing with this material other than forking to X in popular culture articles which are then proposed for deletion: this is what talk pages and subpages are for;
 * 3) The removal of vague, subjective, and litigious terms like trivia and indiscriminate from any statement of editing counsel above the essay level;
 * 4) The curtailment of any bias against modern material appearing in folklore and mythology topics
 * 5) The creation of some sort of talk page template directing those who wish to compile lists of appearances to any appropriate talk page subpage

But RfC is not made to do any of these things, and may unproductively personalize this dispute. So I can't endorse this. - Smerdis of Tlön 19:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by ElectricRay
I endorse what Smerdis of Tlön says here. Someone needs to think about whether "Cultural References To..." articles are a categorically bad thing and should be expunged from all Wikipedia, but until that's happened, I think we should pause. To me they're at worst a technical breach, and they serve a very useful purpose of removing clutter from actually sensible articles, and if anything we should actually be encouraging them: they seem to me to be a really good, pragmatic response to The Trivia Problem. After all, what's notable and important to me isn't notable and important to others: some people really like trivia. It is, in its way, kind of titillating - if for nothing else to see just how sad some people's lives are that they care enough to add this stuff. And in the absence of a clear policy against "Cultural References" articles, they're not going away: for every one you nominate for deletion, Eyrian, people like me will be making new ones. It may seem unpleasant, but the "popular culture bot" isn't an unfair description: I've not seen Eyrian give any substantive reason for deleting these articles, only formal ones, like "they're against policy and that's that" - which to me is a pretty Dalek-like, "resistance is useless ... resistance is useless" sort of response which I personally find wholly unpersuasive. And the irony is that resistance is useless: only it's yours, and not theirs, that is useless. ElectricRay 23:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by AndyJones
This is a short preliminary statement, and I may add more.
 * 1) I don't accept that Eyrian is acted in bad faith, or in violation of WP:POINT. I believe Eyrian to be acting in what he or she perceives as the best interest of the encyclopedia.
 * 2) In all other respects I agree entirely with the views expressed in the opening section, that Eyrian's actions have proved damaging, and that the situation needs to be undone.
 * 3) I would add a further section to desired outcomes: that all disputed AfDs be closed as keep, without prejudice to them being relisted separately after a reasonable time.
 * 4) I would add a further issue for centralised discussion: the finding or founding of another wiki-based project which can accept material deemed too trivial for Wikipedia. I would happily be active in such a process.
 * 5) I'd ask everyone to remember that one person's trivia is another person's wikipedia is not paper. AndyJones 11:07, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by SamBC
I'm not in any way sure of any side to take in this disagreement, but it should be made clear that Eyrian, in the middle of the period under discussion, started a discussion on this topic at WP:VPP, and this discussion does not seem to have reached any sort of consensus IMO, nor has it been discussed heavily. SamBC 18:15, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Frankly, I've been too busy defending the individual articles. They are continuing to be nominated even as this RfC is being discussed. DGG (talk) 06:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Melsaran
This entire thing was a bit unhandy, but I do believe that these nominations were performed in good faith, and were definitely not WP:POINT violations. Like AndyJones proposes above, I think we should keep all these noms and then open the debate of all articles in Category:Representations of people in popular culture (perhaps at something like Centralized discussion/In popular culture, or Village pump/Policy). This RfC was a little premature, to be honest.  Mel sa  ran  (formerly Salaskаn) 22:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by JulesH
While I am happy to assume User:Eyrian's good faith in making these nominations, I do agree with User:DGG's argument that nominating so many articles for deletion (at times within seconds of each other, with cut & paste arguments for deletion) is counterproductive. One potential outcome of an AFD is described at WP:HEY: the article is improved enough that it is no longer a candidate for deletion. Unfortunately, this takes substantially more effort than nominating the article in the first place, so placing an impossible burden on those who wish to keep the articles, even if they are similar in number to those who wish to delete them.

I think a useful outcome of this debate might be if some kind of agreement that nominating large numbers of articles for deletion at once is not a good idea could be reached. Except in the case of WP:BLP violation or reasons that are suitable for speedy deletion (e.g. copyvios) there is no real necessity for the process of deletion to be fast.

As to defining a policy on what "popular culture" is acceptable and what isn't, I'd be more than happy if such an agreement could be reached. As the matter stands, though, I don't believe there is consensus on this issue.

JulesH 17:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by GRBerry
It seems there is a general agreement that the Wikipedia editing community lacks consensus on when we should have "in popular culture" articles. Category:In popular culture has 85 pages at the top level and 13 sub-categories, some of which have sub-sub categories... It is pretty clear that we don't have a consensus for having no such articles. Researchers in popular culture studies would say that at least some such articles belong. It would probably be a good idea to have a short moratorium on further nominations, identify folks who were AFD regulars on the recent AFDs, and get a wikiproject/discussion page going. At that discussion, don't seek to go directly from a blank page to a consensus - search for appropriate boundary lines and test cases, identify some decent test cases, and then do a series of nominations explicitly chosen as test cases. (E.g. article X is nothing but a list of appearances in video games, article Y has a couple secondary sources, article Z is written from peer reviewed literature, and X+Y+Z is the set of test cases - or whatever the discussion identifies.)

It is generally troubling to serious formation of consensus to do too many separate XfD discussions at the same time. Once people have asked for a cut-back, it is time to do it. GRBerry 19:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion
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