Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington 2

Statement by Doc glasgow
Looks like a case for an RfC at best. This is very premature.--Docg 16:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Doc, NHN already had an extensive RfC and the behavour is continuing. This is the next step. Timmccloud 17:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That appears to be about an unrelated matter.--Docg 17:32, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved party Tbeatty
NHN acted properly according to the rules. There is no reason for ArbCom to hear this unless ArbCom wants to change the process of AfD. --Tbeatty 19:06, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved party FayssalF
It is really premature, guys. RfC would be the appropriate place for such an issue. I tend to agree w/ Doc glasgow, Guy and somehow Pascal. --  FayssalF  - Wiki me up ®  19:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved admin Stifle
Recommend declension in favour of earlier forms of WP:DR. Have to be honest here and say that an RFAR is not likely to accomplish much now. Stifle (talk) 20:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved party Asterion
Admins are not infallible. If you think there has been a mistake, please take it to Deletion Review. IMHO, This process here does not help. -- Asterion talk 20:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Daniel.Bryant
RfC is down one level and the second door on the right. The other RfC was for a totally unrelated thing, so the "prior dispute resolution" standard is not met.  Daniel.Bryant  22:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Confirming that attempts have been made by multiple users to resolve this dispute with NHN
Should this be a separate section somewhere, or do the separate signed postings by (for example) myself and Golden Wattle, which include links to talk pages showing our requests to NHN on this specific issue of his treatment of consensus within AFD closures and his refusal to engage in constructive discussion with us, qualify without being reorganized?

This is the first time I have put a RfC up, and I would like to insure that everything is put together correctly. Balancer 02:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * There is such a section in the usual template, so I've added a section for it: Requests for comment/Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington (2nd RfC) It probaby would be worth sumarising the previous dispute resolution attempt. You should also sign the "Users certifying the basis for this dispute" section. WjBscribe 02:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * FYI, the RfA was not rejected, but withdrawn by yours truly in favor of this RfC before it could be rejected as premature - just in case that matters to anybody. Balancer 21:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment re:Radiant!
This is not about any one DRV (or rather, I should say, any one AFD closure) in particular. A couple of the DRVs relating to this issue are still open, but many (see particularly Pascal.Tessen's examples, or those linked to in the prior RfC) are not, or have not been DRVed. This is a long-term ongoing issue; if anything, it is remarkably late rather than premature. As I have also already said, a number of NHN's deletions have involved appropriate decisions, if not for the correct reasons. Balancer 17:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

As per Balancer, there is not merely one decision that is under discussion, nor is it the actual decision in all cases that is under discussion, but the conduct in declining to explain the decision when further information sought. DRV does not apparently deal with such issues. Thus whether or not all Deletion reviews are complete or not is immaterial, nor is it material whether or not the decisions are endorsed through DRV as the debates there did not focus on closure procedure but whether or not to endorse deletion.--Golden Wattle talk 21:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment re:NetOracle
I would actually have been surprised to see it go to DRV (or be hotly contested in DRV) had NHN closed as keep or no consensus. It's very rare for any close other than a delete to be appealed in DRV, and practically unheard of for a no consensus close to be disputed in DRV. May I speculate that you meant that another AFD would have come following a no consensus or keep result?

If the result would have been justifiably disputed whether it was closed as keep or delete, then that's the textbook description of no consensus. Balancer 01:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment re:Nearly Headless Nick providing more and better explanations
I also noticed that he closed several as no consensus lately. Some of those recent closures can be called questionable, but he seems to be working to avoid getting his AFD closures DRVed right now. To paraphrase what was once said about Richard Nixon... I want to trust, but we do have to verify. The fact that he has not even come to comment on his own RfC leaves us with little reassurance. Balancer 01:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment re:GRBerry
"'This is a dispute about an administrator's actions re:deletion policy and AFD closures. Nearly Headless Nick has been closing AFDs without, and sometimes against, the rough consensus required by Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Decision policy, excepting those rare cases in which an article cannot meet WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:COPYRIGHT standards.'"The issue is not at all about if Nick's AfD closures are resulting in more overturned DRV's. His decisions could be entirely correct and well-reasoned. The issue is that he is not explaining this reasoning in the AfD, instead silently and summarily closing topics in clear violation of what I think most people would consider a rough consensus. He is, at the very least, being quite rude in his cursory handling of this issue: denying other editors' requests for his reasoning, responding with one-word answers that insult the intelligence of the asker, and generally calling anyone who doesn't agree with him an idiot (or a pack of numbskulls, if you prefer). That makes it damned hard to assume good faith! I'm confused why anyone thinks this is about the accuracy/turnover rate of his AfD-to-DRV's, as that is not stated anywhere in the opening of the RfC: rather, it states that he is giving an AfD verdict in violation of what is apparently the case, and not offering any reasoning for it.

As a bit of perspective, please note that I agree with the deletion of several (perhaps all, I have not read the debates closely in all of them) of these articles... but I agree that pretty much all of them have been mishandled, as well.

On top of that, 6 articles is hardly enough for a statistical trend... but it IS enough to see a trend in personal habits. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 10:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

A point on consensus and precedent
As I mentioned in The noob DRV, if we are to affirm in general the practice of closing to delete without a rough consensus to do so, it would therefore be contingent upon us at Wikipedia to remove the no-longer-respected clauses referring to consensus in Deletion policy, and - given the central nature of deletion policy in the current Wikipedia - soon remove, one by one, all the various mentions of Consensus as one of Wikipedia's pillars of operation, as it is apparent that it is no longer a core principle of operation and that this is the next step.

Frankly, I haven't the heart to perform those edits myself, even if it appears that a fair number on Wikipedia, including but apparently not limited to Nearly Headless Nick in recent closures (although hopefully not in his future closures), have already discarded the portions of policy referring to consensus, but I am obliged by conscience to point this out. Balancer 17:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Well said. Timmccloud 23:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The larger issue
The larger issue with Nick is that even when his decisions are correct, his reasoning or explanation is wrong or misleading.

Balancer, et.al. are alleging that in this RfC. Several people have commented to that effect after the ban of Cindery. The quality of his reasoning (as opposed to the correctness of his results), and his incivility when challenged was a major part of the previous RfC. This discussion included his reasoning for banning another user, where Nick blocked, stating a really lame username offense, when the real issue was the user's trolling.

It's clear that Nick either does not have a good understanding of Wikipedia policy, or that he views the work of explaining his decisions properly to be beneath him. Either way, I cannot trust him as an administrator, and would be glad to see his admin privileges removed. Αργυριου (talk) 18:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Personally I wish you would add this to the actual RFC, and not just the discussion page, because I believe you have an extremely valid point. Timmccloud 23:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I have very little wish to take this on, as this RfC is about deletions, not about Nick's general attitudes. I was one of the main participants in the earlier RfC, and got rather heartily sick of the process there. However, anyone who wants to dig into the links I've provided is free to do so, and either add to the complaint or refactor it. Αργυριου (talk) 23:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I can completely understand that, as I'm getting sick of the deletion process too. Thanks for this post, at any rate :) Timmccloud 23:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

So now what?
This RfC has gone stale, what's next? Timmccloud 01:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

The user's deletion log has gone stale too. Perhaps he noted the criticism though we may have a lose-lose outcome--Golden Wattle talk 05:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Time to close perhaps? Let me know below if you disagree. --Spartaz Humbug! 18:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree --Golden Wattle talk 18:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, if that's the case, this RfC has been a pointless waste of time. The arguments for deleting the article "the noob" were primarily because the WCCA was not "notable". Despite pages of argument for and against - sockpuppets notwithstanding - the article was deleted, even though there was ample proof of "no consensus". The article was put to DRV - 48k of DRV I might add - while the WCCA article was under DRV at the same time. The WCCA DRV was overturned, but not before NHN decided to "uphold" the noob DRV. Since then, "the noob" has been creation protected, so there is no chance to try the article again using the WCCA as a notability argument. NHN didn't even deign to drop by his own RfC and say hello, he was allowed to ignore it (and even get commended on his first admin anniversary) so this process is less effective than being whipped with a wet noodle. What a useless, pointless, waste of time. I joined this process thinking (apparently in error) that this might allow the DRV decision to be reviewed so that the noob might get a second chance to stand on it's merits without someone who has their own "notability" agenda. Man oh man, I have lost tremendous amounts of faith in the impartiality of this process, and wikipedia in general because of this. With all that said...
 * Reluctantly Agree --Timmccloud 02:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The RfC was not a second round DRV. Even though the user has not commented here, I see no reason to believe that he has not heard the criticism of his behaviousr and taken it on board.  I disagree that it was a waste of time.  NHN in fact was here, just didn't comment - review the history and you will find his name .--Golden Wattle  talk 09:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The only thing more I'd like to see is some assurance from NHN to that effect. As has been pointed out, NHN seems to have taken the criticism into account during the RfC process, and I think that we have at least discussed all the specifically NHN-related material in this. Balancer 14:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

reset tabs I agree that the discussion has gone stale. It does seem from edit review that NHN has not perpetuated the behaviours that contributed to the perceived need for this process. Although this is no assurance against future ocurrances, I suppose it would be acceptable to wait, assuming good faith, and if needed, we could always reinitiate this process again, citing this RFC. I do find it a bit discouraging that NHN has chosen not to participate, but I respect that each person uses the techniques they feel most appropriate, and perhaps observing without commenting is his way to avoid adding fuel to the fire or being discourteous while being criticized. Jerry 17:59, 10 March 2007 (UTC)