Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/BJAODN

Comment by Moreschi
Heaven's sake, wheel-warring over BJAODN? That's even lamer than wheel-warring over user categories, and I believe that's been done as well. If silliness were a blockable offence...

Then again, it might be worth establishing whether BJAODN was a violation of the GDFL. That's a reasonably serious issue, and there does seem to be a view (perhaps even the majority) that it was. There's probably enough to arbitrate here. Moreschi Talk 14:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Radiant
I maintain that wheel warring is a very bad idea, especially over something as relatively unimportant as BJAODN. That goes for both sides. Being bold is certainly useful, but it has its limits, and using it for (un)deletion of several dozen well-known pages is quite a bit beyond those. Such actions generate needless wikidrama, as evidenced in the ongoing deletion review. I suggest that some people need a strong reminder that wheel warring is inappropriate behavior.

Other people who may be considered involved include User:Jeffrey O. Gustafson, who first boldly deleted it on May 30th, as well as User:Sj, who boldly undeleted it a few days later, ironically saying "please discuss before wheel warring" in the undeletion summaries.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  15:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Quick comment: Sj wrote "please discuss before wheel warring" because Jeffrey O. Gustafson deleted BJAODN for the second time, after The Cunctator undeleted it the first time. See the deletion log. Shalom Hello 19:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Chacor
While wheel warring is bad and is rightly frowned upon, the best way to chase away a productive admin and editor for no good reason would be to desysop him for something he did to reverse a decision which itself was not discussed and really, really stupid. Further given that that's where the deletions/restorations stopped, desysopping - however temporary - is excessively harsh in my view. A strongly-worded warning to both sides is more than enough. – Chacor 16:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC) Hang on now, ignoring overwhelming community consensus has suddenly become a right of an admin? Since when? – Chacor 16:55, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Response to ^demon

Comment by Amarkov
Wheel warring is bad. Deliberately carrying out a speedy deletion which you know will be widely disputed (even if that deletion is eventually endorsed) is at least as bad, and arguably worse. -Amarkov moo! 16:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by GRBerry
I note that we've been round this wheel once before. See Deletion review/Log/2007 June 2, where the closer noted that the wheel had already spun a full cycle before he closed the discussion. GRBerry 16:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Clarifying note: I did not use the word "war" in my original statement. This was intentional, I take no position on whether it is a war or not.  A wheel can be spun without warring.  What I did mean was that it is ridiculous to say that only one of the actors is violating the guidance; both are repeating admin actions previously undone by another admin, hence either both of them violate the wheel war guidance or neither did.  I take no position on whether it is both or neither.  Clerks: I don't intend further participation, don't bother to notify me when opened. GRBerry 20:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by ^demon
I agree that wheel warring over this is a very bad thing, but I do heavily endorse Alkivar's actions. The issues raised with BJAODN still exist and have not been fixed in years of promising they will be. Why should we allow yet another chance? MfD has proven undo-able, as far too many people have some weird attachment to keeping it and essentially say I like it. However, policy trumps consensus every time, and what Alkivar did was within policy and (I believe) his rights as a sysop. The undeletion of content may be what the community wants, but it caused more drama than was already surrounding a very contentious and--quite frankly--stupid issue.  ^ demon [omg plz] 16:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC) When it comes down to issues of policy, yes. If policy says one thing, but the community says otherwise (as we're seeing in BJAODN), policy rules.  ^ demon [omg plz] 19:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Reply to Chacor

Comment by Messedrocker
You know something is wrong if we have admins that wheel war. Admins who wheel war should not stay as an admin for long (of course, there is always the case where a wheel warrer takes a step back and cries in a deep, melodramatic voice "What have I done?", but how often does that happen?). Why do I have such a harsh view? Let me put it this way: the wiki is about trust. Breach the trust and you get blocked. Likewise, adminship is about trusting users to cope with power to really do something. Breach the trust and you get desysopped. Formulaic way of thinking? You bet. But after all, that's just a basic summary of power on wikis. MessedRocker (talk) 17:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Misza13
I will re-iterate what I've said in several places already. This was not a wheel war. WP:WHEEL states that such requires a "struggle" (after all, it's about struggling over the wheel or whatever) and the admins undoing each other's actions. In this case, there was only one action (deletion, with all pages treated reasonably as one "atomic action") and one counter-action (restoration). In fact, common sense dictates that admins have the right to one revert, and for several reasons. Noone would call a wheel war the reversions of actions by a compromised sysop account. Neither would when an admin fixed honest mistakes done by a n00b sysop. In any case, admins are not infallible - as much as we claim to trust admins for their good judgement, we must go one step further and say: "if another admin strongly disagrees with an action, trust his judgement as well, let him revert and start a dicussion". This is exactly what happened: BOLD, revert, discuss. Nothing to see here, move along. Миша 13 17:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Quick note: No, there's more than one action. It got deleted three times, undeleted three times. See .  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  07:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * From 60 days ago? Argument stretched and broke.... Georgewilliamherbert 07:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Essentially the same thing happened back then as it did now, and apparently people haven't learned from back then. Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I would agree with GWH that these are separate incidents and cannot be summed up to a wheel war. But as the note on top of the page says, this is not a place for discussion - I have made my statement. While at it, I wish to amend it (per AnonEMouse below) as follows: I ask the ArbCom accept the case and clear up the contentious definition of a wheel war (or say "what wheel war is not") for the sake of all admins - I wouldn't want to lose my sysop bit because of what I consider a healthy interpretation of WP:WHEEL. Миша 13 09:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Shalom
On the Deletion Review, I compared the recent brouhaha to the Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war, which everyone here still remembers. There seems to be some lingering confusion about how to handle a controversial speedy deletion. In both cases, we had strong opinions and simultaneous XFD and DRV discussions. I do not endorse the initial deletion, but once it was done, it should not have been reversed during an active DRV. There is no deadline, and if the result of the discussion is to restore the pages, they will be restored.

I think it needs to be made clear that no deleted page should be permanently undeleted (as opposed to a history-only temporary undeletion) unless the admin who performs the undeletion is prepared to close any active discussions regarding the deletion (at WP:AN, WP:DRV, or elsewhere). That did not happen in the Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war, and it did not happen here, either.

As others have noted, various admins have strongly endorsed the actions of Alkivar or Georgewilliamherbert. Obviously there is no consequence for saying you might have done something that you didn't do. However, these opinions need to be considered as evidence of a cultural trend among a group of administrators. Shalom Hello 17:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Melsaran
One deletion and one undeletion isn't "wheel warring". Like ^demon pointed out, the current community consensus is probably that BJAODN should be kept. Then why is it "within policy" to delete it anyway? As far as I know, policy is that we go through the normal processes to delete something controversial (in this case, MfD) and don't leave it up to the decision of one particular administrator. I see no ArbCom case here. What should the ArbCom do now? Desysop someone? You can't call this a "wheel war", one deletion and one undeletion is something that's very common.  Mel sa  ran  19:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by AnonEMouse
Please accept. The decision doesn't have to be long, but it clearly needs to be made, if even highly respected clerks don't know what wheel warring is. ("Do not repeat an administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it.", repeat being a key word.) I recommend a clean, crisp 3 points in the decision. 1) Bold, Revert, Discuss is not Wheel Warring. 2) Don't undelete pages while a Deletion review is going on. 3) Everybody play nice, or else. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 19:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments by Splash
The above with an overwhelming lack of interest in the details of this particular case. Splash - tk 22:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Disagreement $$\neq$$ wheelwarring. To correct what one sees as a series of erroneous actions requires another series of actions.
 * 2) Done → undone is not a viable theory of wheel warring since it places 100% of the blame on the undoer. Some things need undoing.
 * 3) Admins do not own their actions. You do not get to do something, get all precious, and start insisting that the Committee has ruled that no one may undo your action without first doffing their cap to you. Certainly, discussion is the better part of valour, but there exists a class of action that is, simply, wrong. There is no reason to leave a simply wrong action in place when it is found. A note to the admin, post-reversal, would be useful for educational purposes.
 * 4) Clerks are not Prosecutors General. They have no role in advocacy on either side. They have no role in constabulary, either. This was one of the key bones of contention when the bureaucracy of the position was being constructed. This is not merely a matter of hat-wearing and recusal. The Arbcom has no bulldogs.

Comment from Mr. Gustafson
I do not believe Alkivar's recent deletion of BJAODN represents a "wheel war." There was a period of more than two months between the restorations, and his deletions. More importantly, Sj's restorations were done during, and in complete defiance of, the community discussions taking place at the time (which closed as Deletion Endorsed in the May DRV). If the community had definitively said that the pages should remain, and an admin came along and re-deleted everything anyway, that would be an issue, but it is not because the community discussions were rendered moot. Indeed, the community had said the pages should remain deleted, and Sj restored them anyway without addressing the debates!

I believe this recent round of restorations, as Sj's, were inappropriate, especially in light of the growing consensus (up to those points) on DRV and the AN's that the material should remain or be deleted. It's one thing to reverse a decision, it's another to reverse it while ignoring the community discussion in favor of the original decisions.

I may be a party to this case because of my initial deletions, and because of an unnecessarily foolish period of a couple of minutes not long after the initial deletions: Cunctator began restoring a few of the pages (a rather tiny percentage of the totality of the BJAODN), I redeleted... At the same time that Cunctator stopped, I independently ceased redeleting and even had myself blocked (later re-blocking myself for a longer period), though some questioned whether the block was necessary.

I find the language being used about the import of the issue of whether or not we, as a community, should allow BJAODN somewhat offensive. I believe the deletions are important - I would not have put myself on the chopping block in the way I did - and opened myself up to the attacks I received both on-wiki and off - if I did not believe that the deletions were both necessary, and fully supported by policy. This is a matter of copyright, this is a matter of GFDL compliance, this is a matter of maintaining our integrity as a Project, as a Community, and as an Encyclopedia. I could go into the arguments in support of the deletions and discuss the policies involved, but it appears the focus is on the "wheel warring," which, while important as well (especially in terms of the latitude allowed in reversing decisions of other administrators), is a distraction and a shame.

--Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - &lt;*&gt; 23:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Ryan Postlethwaite
Please can I ask how this is heading for arbitration? The initial deletion and undeletion was months ago, so it's hard to say that parties who were involved this time should be left accountable due the issues a while back. Getting down to the latest episode - Alkivar was bold and deleted BJAODN, but it was perhaps out of process, so GWH restored - I really can't see the need for arbitration. If this was part of wider poor behaviour from the parites I could understand, but, quite frankly - it's not. If people have some issues with the conduct here - they should file an RfC against the involved parties. Any sanction by the arbitration committee at this stage would be punitive.  Ry an P os tl et hw ai te  07:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Kusma
Alkivar is experienced enough to know that controversial speedy deletions of material that has been previously discussed and kept at MfD are going to cause trouble, and that somebody was going to undo his deletion (some may call that wheel warring, but we should always be allowed to revert bold actions once, and then discuss). It is not necessary to do deletions in clearly controversial cases in such an aggressive manner. The many endorsements of the deletion show that MFD might have arrived at the same result with far less disruption. We should try to avoid fighting over silly stuff like BJAODN, and deletions against previous consensus that can be expected to be disruptive should be reserved to emergency cases only, which this one was not. Kusma (talk) 07:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by CBDunkerson
There is alot of discussion above about what is and is not 'wheel warring'. As I've said many times before, people get entirely too hung up on the 'bean counting' over number and sequence of 'reverts'. In truth that stuff is (or should be) irrelevant. What we are trying to avoid is disagreements involving use of admin powers. That's what all policies about 'wheel warring' really boil down to. Admins fighting amongst themselves looks bad and can be extremely disruptive. Thus, if there is a discussion and alot of people say 'do not do this', the participant who goes and does it without consensus anyway is causing a problem. It doesn't matter that they 'only took one action'... how is that at all significant? The one action they took was something they knew could cause exactly the sort of admin in-fighting we seek to avoid. In contrast, an admin who unprotects a page because the problem cited in the most recent protection has been resolved isn't doing anything wrong... even if it turns out there were a dozen older protections and unprotections prior to that for issues which hadn't all been sorted out yet. The admin unprotecting at the end isn't knowingly taking any sort of controversial action. We need to get away from 'revert counting' and look at whether admins are taking actions they knew, or should have known, were going to result in a mess. Admins should be empowered to take 'bold' actions and reverse each other... where it seems appropriate and unlikely to be widely controversial. One or two people might object, but policy is clearly in favor? Go ahead. What we need to put a stop to is admins doing things that they should know in advance many other admins would strongly object to and might 'war' over. --CBD 16:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Xoloz
I am the closer of the relevant prior DRV cited by GRBerry. For the record, I view the deletion by Alkivar as unwise in light of that closure, but I don't think the above described events constitute a "wheel-war" by either Alkivar or Mr. Herbert. I concur with Splash. Only "repeatedly" undoing another admin constitutes wheel-warring under policy, and my long-time understanding. One admin reversal is, I think, a fundamental feature of the "wiki-nature" of adminship: "that which is done, may be undone." As against Thatcher's view above, I believe that allowing "one action/one reversal" returns affairs to their original status quo, and that this is the better state from which extended discussion should proceed if there is extended dispute. Of course, discussion is always optimal, but one reversal may undertaken without fear. As Wikipedia is a collegial project, the admin whose action is undone should accept that reversal gracefully, even if further discussion is needed to discover where consensus, or greater merit, lies.

This means I also disagree, with greatest respect, with Radiant's contention above. Although I believe that the prior DRV made Alkivar's choice unwise, I think the lapse of 60 days does prevent one from calling the action a "wheel war." Consensus can change -- DRVs are important and should be respected, but they are not the final word. Alkivar's deletions caused uproar -- for which he should be made to justify his choice -- but I don't think it is fair to say that "policy was obviously violated", which is what labeling his action a wheel-war would entail.

I offer my view hesitantly, knowing it may be of little importance, but feeling compelled, since my DRV closure is related to the events and has been mentioned in evidence. Xoloz 17:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Until(1
2) ==== This has everything to do with foundation issue #4. The requirement that our content is compatible with with a copyleft license is not something for the community to override, it is a foundation issue. Both sides of the dispute acknowledges that there are GFDL violation issues. An admin should ignore a consensus that goes against a foundation issue. Since much of the attribution history sits in deleted articles, those who wish to source the page must be an admin anyways and thus will not be hindered by the deletion. (( 1 == 2 ) ? (( 'Stop' ) : ( 'Go' )) 19:12, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments by Rickyrab
While Until (see above) has a point, the work of sourcing the page material would go more quickly with both administrators and non-administrators working at it. Furthermore, not all of the pages that are sources were deleted, and thus a non-admin can help with the sourcing. I am a contributor to BJAODN myself and I would like to have access to my own contribs, so I am admittedly a party to this. Furthermore, I helped with some sourcing on BJAODN. I expected others to come in and help, though. &mdash; Rickyrab | Talk 19:19, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Not all of BJAODN is necessarily vandalism. Some of it is funny conversation. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 19:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC) Furthermore, one can self-revert one of his or her own vandalisms promptly after making it. It's not like vandalism in the real world, where it is expensive to fix.  &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 19:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I am not a deletionist, unlike Mr. Gustafson, and I do not consider the deletion of BJAODN to be necessary or desirable. I do, however, believe it has a place off of Wikipedia, rather than on Wikipedia; it looks awkward being on the current wiki, and I favor the founding of a wiki adhering to the GFDL that would harbor BJAODN. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 19:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * As for wheel warring, I'd say there was wheel warring on both sides. It was a long, drawn-out wheel war with much more bickering than actual wheel warring, but I consider some of my own user pages to be victims of an early assault (when Gustafson torched some of my user pages without listing them for MfD or notifying me of the deletion; furthermore, he did so while I had been blocked for trolling over the issue). I had trolled because I was unaware that it was wrong to do so or that it was trolling, until someone pointed it out to me. Anyhow, Gustafson had since cooled down, but other admins apparently couldn't help being bold themselves and wheel-warring (or at least rattling their wheel sabers). &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 19:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I trammeled on the page itself, but what I put there was NOT the attacks mentioned above. Rather, I had cut and pasted the Deletion Review of BJAODN, which was turning rather silly. That is self-attributed, as the contributors sign their edits, as they do on discussion pages. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 14:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

'''Another deletion has occurred related to BJAODN. It is now a wheel war, if it wasn't before.''' - 15:11, 17 August 2007 Jreferee (Talk | contribs) deleted "Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense ON WHEELS!!!!!" (CSD G11 Advertisement for vandal services; CSD G4 See Non-main namespace pages for deletion) &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 15:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This was a pretty dumb fight, wasn't it? &mdash; Rickyrab. Yada yada yada 03:58, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Hemlock Martinis
There is a larger issue at work. BJAODN was, by and far, a violation of the license on a scale never before seen. The community tried to resolve this issue three months ago, with the compromise that sourcing the original vandalism would be required to bring it into GFDL compliance. That has not occurred to the vast majority of the pages. Do we let this violation stand, in the vain and wistful hopes that someday our prince will come and bring it all into compliance, when a minimal effort has been shown so far? Or do we delete the violations rather give in to a fool's hope? ArbCom does not need to rule on the value of BJAODN as a whole (and indeed, since it is a content dispute, ArbCom cannot rule on the merit of the material anyways), but we do need to have resolved the issue at hand: How aggressive should administrators be in deleting GFDL violations? --Hemlock Martinis 19:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Coredesat
I do not think the "wheel war" mentioned by the nominator of this RFAR is as much of a concern as the copyright issues apparent in BJAODN. There was one deletion, and one undeletion followed by admonishment of the deleting admin - that isn't exactly a wheel war, and no one should be forcibly desysopped for it (think of what was deleted, as well). As for the copyright issues, the basic question is: is BJAODN a copyright/GFDL violation? If so, it is a foundation issue, as stated by Until(1==2), and foundation issues and GFDL absolutely cannot be ignored simply because people like it or think it's funny. Something being funny should not give us leave to willfully violate licenses or copyrights, nor should it encourage juvenile vandalism by enshrining it on over 60 subpages. Given that process has repeatedly failed in this respect, an arbitration may be necessary. --Core desat 19:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Mr.Z-man
I don't think wheel warring is the main concern here. I'm not sure if it should be a concern at all. Many people, including myself would not even refer to the dispute as "wheel warring". However, something needs to be done here. To adapt my comment from the August 14 DRV: BJAODN needs to be dealt with. It has caused far too many divisions and arguments for something that's supposed to be funny. There are only a few things we can really do to it. We can leave it as is but it would violate the GFDL, a serious matter. We can assemble a team of editors and admins to make it GFDL compliant, but this seems like a huge waste of effort on something not all that important to the encyclopedia (which after all is what we are trying to make here). Or we can delete it, removing years of work. (That's not to say we couldn't start it over, making any new BJAODN GFDL complaint from the beginning.) Unfortunately, I don't see any community discusion getting any consensus. It's been through 5 MFDs, 2 DRVs, a myriad of discussions elsewhere, and this arbitration request. All that has been determined through discussion is that we need to do something. There are just too many issues here for the community at large to decide on anything: GFDL, Wikipedia history, WP:DENY, the amount of work put into it, vandalism, humor for community togetherness, etc. Hopefully, an arbitration case will come up with an enforceable solution and we can stop wasting so much time debating this. Mr.Z-man  talk  ¢  21:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Black Falcon
I personally favour the deletion of BJAODN and am not too particular about how it occurs: speedy deletion, Miscellany for deletion, server crash, or divine decree.

I will not comment on the actions of Alkivar and Georgewilliamherbert beyond expressing:
 * 1) My confusion at how one can accuse one of wheel-warring but not the other.
 * 2) My opinion that neither of them wheel warred, since wheel warring requires a repetition of administrative actions and I do not consider this incident a continuation of the one two months ago.

I will, however, note that a broad application of 0RR could have the unintended effect of discouraging discussion. When any first action is protected, it may be more logical to act first and only then negotiate from a position of advantage. Instead of getting a consensus to delete, delete first and force others to obtain a consensus to un delete. Instead of having to justify a block, block first and force others to justify an un block.

If the ArbCom accepts this case to clarify the definition of wheel warring, I hope its members will seek to arrive at a wording that balances the need for administrators to have sufficient discretion to undo clearly inappropriate actions without permission (after all, we are a wiki that promotes ideas such as WP:BOLD and WP:IAR) with the need for discussion to figure prominently in any administrative disagreement. — Black Falcon (Talk) 00:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Grandmasterka
I tend to agree with Until 1==2 and Hemlock Martinis that the GFDL violations are the biggest issue being decided here. Personally, I think it would be inappropriate to desysop anyone for this, and it seems to me that this is one of the rare situations where what's best for the encyclopedia may not jibe with what the community decides -- when does this become a Foundation issue, not a community issue? Are the GFDL problems serious enough to warrant an outright and immediate deletion? The "wheel warring" and individual infractions are of lesser importance. Please accept this case. Grand master  ka  00:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Proabivouac
Per Jeffrey O. Gustafson, Until 1==2, Hemlock Martinis and Grandmasterka, it is straightfoward to observe that BJAODN violates GFDL. A very compelling case would be required to overlook that, but this page serves no discernible encyclopedic purpose at all.Proabivouac 01:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by slightly involved Nick
As the committee may be aware, I re-deleted one page of BJAODN when it was brought to my attention the content included the posting of links to vandalism/personal attack on Jayjg's userpage and a link to a common or garden vandal being blocked. It is my personal opinion that such material does not constitute humour but is nothing more than the simple, malicious vandalism and behaviour it really is. On further examination, it transpires the page I deleted was in fact the most recent page at the time, archive 66, created on the 11th August 07 and received content on the 13th and mostly the 15th. Attribution was missing for content that had been copied and pasted into the page. The fact that contributors to BJAODN are still failing to provide history for the content they are moving into BJAODN, in my view, shows the project cannot continue and even if the pages are not to be deleted, I fear that unless the project does not cease, copyright problems will continue to mount up and conscientious administrators will be left with no real alternative to delete pages again and again.

As an aside, since there's possibly going to be work done here, I would like to ask that the committee should investigate some of the more recent contributions to BJAODN to see if any contributor to BJAODN is actively vandalising Wikipedia by logging out, vandalising, logging back in and posting their own work to BJAODN. I believe it may be happening on a small scale and I'm sure with a little investigative work, evidence of this may well be forthcoming.

Cheers folks. Nick 10:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I simply cannot let [another user's] comment "I would like to have access to my own contribs" go without saying something here. The contributions are not yours, unless you are actively vandalising Wikipedia. You might be involved in collating the work. It's nothing more than making up a mix-tape, the songs aren't yours, just the selection. Nick 19:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Animum
Come on... let's face it: BJAODN has some serious GFDL, libel, etc issues and people want to keep it? I still fail to see how delete votes were outweighed by simple I like it-type comments. Libel, GFDL-compliance issues, etc vs. What the community wants. The community loses: You've got to remember, the community is not in the slightest always right. All else has been covered by ^demon above. – Animum  01:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC) 

Comment by uninvolved User:Ummit
George's actions were entirely proper, and I agree with every word of his defense.

With respect to the larger question of whether BJAODN should be deleted: if it's ever deleted, it will be several more nails in the coffin of Wikipedia. Organizations that are fun, alive, and creative always have quirky little in-joke steam-venting appendages like that; they celebrate them, and are invigorated by them. Organizations that are officious, humorless, and dead, on the other hand, must always find ways to quash such frivolity. If GFDL concerns are the only arguments being dredged up to do the quashing with, it's a particularly lame attempt. (Has it been added to WP:LAME yet, or has WP:LAME gotten the axe already?) —Steve Summit (talk) 17:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved SamBC(talk)
I agree that the restoration was entirely proper, as such a major part of wikipedia should not be deleted without discussion.

On the larger question (again), it seems that the debate is: I would thus suggest that we request direct intervention by the foundation in this matter. SamBC(talk) 17:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) very sharply divided.
 * 2) heavily based on interpretation of foundation announcements, policies, etc, and of legal interpretation

GFDL
I may be missing something here... But people keep pointing out that BJAODN is a violation of the requirements of the GFDL because it doesn't give proper attribution to the original authors of the content. However, what about content like this, that was forked out of a main article? Isn't that a violation as well?  Melsaran  (talk) 16:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Indeed, there are probably thousands of copy/paste moves in whole or in part, but there is a procedure in place to deal with them on the Admins' Reading List. &larr;BenB4 12:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * But imagine that I expand every section of the article Zeeland, all in one edit, and a few hundred edits later, the History section becomes so large that it is split off the main article, and a new article called "History of Zeeland" is created. Then I won't get any credit for the edits I make to the History section. And a history split of the articles is not possible, because in the same edit, I expanded (indirectly) both the article Zeeland and something in the article "History of Zeeland". GFDL vio!  Melsaran  (talk) 13:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Wheel-war definition
You mean there's disagreement over the definition of a wheel-war? Wow, who could've predicted that such problems would continue to happen? I argued about this for weeks in the BDJ arb and still nothing was done about it. violet/riga (t) 08:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Edit wars aren't precisely defined in Edit war, either. 3RR is there to draw the line. Why have different standards for admins?  3RR should be the standard for wheel waring, and the penalties should be similar.  We don't indef block for 3RR, and we shouldn't desysop for wheel waring. &larr;BenB4 12:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)