- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result of the discussion was blank page and relocate it to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley/Evidence/User:Abd/Cabal. @harej 20:26, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This subpage of a currently banned editor exists to further disputes in a way the editor has been specifically admonished not to do. It is redundant now that the related RFAr is closed and should be deleted as it contains highly one-sided commentary and allegations of abuse against numerous editors, which allegations have been specifically addressed and rejected by ArbCom. Guy (Help!) 09:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Move
Keep The last edit by Abd was well before the case concluded, so it can't be said to be in violation of any ArbCom ruling, per ex post facto. More importantly, it's part of the record, and we keep the whole record in the interests of transparency. Otherwise, we are engaging in revisionist history, even if not intentionally. Also, Abd is only banned for three months, so it's not about a permanently banned editor. — Becksguy (talk) 10:15, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Change to: "Move to subpage(s) of Arbcom case" per Abd here, and the other arguments to keep all the evidence together. — Becksguy (talk) 06:49, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Move and blank per Hut 8.5. This unfounded (per one of ArbComs saner diktats) attack page has no place on wikipedia, except as a historical record in the arbitration pages - where it shouldn't have been allowed anyway - a failure of ArbCom and the clerks. Verbal chat 10:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- For the sake of the historical record, this page needs to be kept somewhere so it remains connected to the ArbCom case. For the sake of the editors against whom allegations are made, the page should be moved then blanked and replaced with a statement that the page is preserved (in history only) only because it relates to the case, that otherwise it would be deleted as containing unsupported smears, and that the allegations are without foundation and were formally repudiated by ArbCom. That having been done, the page should be fully protected so that it cannot be resurrected. EdChem (talk) 10:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Strong Keep. WMC and Raul (who opposed Abd in the recent case) maintain userspace pages that are much worse than this. WMC's is up for deletion now and I voted keep, because a user has a right to express himself on his talk page as long as it doesn't violate NPA or other policies. I'll note that WMC's page calls specific arbitrators "fools" and "cowards" and calls the words of another arb "rubbish", much worse than anything Abd says here. ATren (talk) 11:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- See WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. You are welcome to nominate those for deletion or request blanking. Accusations of cabal behaviour which have been specifically addressed and rejected are not an acceptable use of userspace and never were (see prior arbitration discussion of "laundry lists of grudges"), and note also that Abd's userspace contains a number of pages which are similar in nature in that they repeat as fact opinions which are disputed, have been examined and rejected by the community and/or ArbCom, and where he states that he will not tolerate other editors inserting any contrary material (and has previously removed any clarifications or edits, sometimes with uncivil edit summaries). Remember, too, that continuing to restate as fact opinions which have been examined and rejected is one of the many problems with Abd's behaviour, leading to some fairly significant sanctions. Even leaving aside the WP:OWN issue there is no meaningful distinction between this kind of page, retained after you've lost the argument, and any other form of attack page. Moving it to the arbitration and courtesy blanking it is a fair suggestion, keeping it is antithetical to every policy we have on use of user space. Guy (Help!) 16:38, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Re othercrapexists - you miss the point, I've voted to KEEP the others too. :-) I just believe everyone should have the right to express their views in their userspace, as long as the views do not cross significantly into attack territory. I don't believe Abd's page does. ATren (talk) 16:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Strong Keep Per Atren, and also because this is part of the official record for the case. Move it under the case if you don't want it under Abd's user space but deleting it is totally inappropriate. It is also worth noting that the nomination is coming from someone with a serious grudge against Abd and so the original motivation for the nomination is highly questionable. --GoRight (talk) 14:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Courtesy blank and whatever Which I've done. Hipocrite (talk) 15:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I've undone. People need to see what they're voting on. I've noindexed it though. Cool Hand Luke 17:57, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- And I've removed one editor from the what-links-here on the page. People who insist on seeing the unvarnished version of the page should feel free to look at the history tab at the top of their browser, which, if they were not already aware, allows them to view the article in prior versions, so that regardless of the state of the article they can see what it looked like in the past. I wonder when we added such a valuable and unique feature? Hipocrite (talk) 18:38, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I did not realize that she had left. I've re-blanked as a courtesy. Some have analogized this to ArbCom evidence. As it happens, the WMC-Abd case will certainly be blanked as a courtesy, probably on behalf of multiple editors. Cool Hand Luke 22:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you, Luke. Some have analogized this to ArbCom evidence. There's no analogy; this is ArbCom evidence. Abd's evidence consisted of 318,000 bytes of text, most of it housed in his userspace and represented in his evidence section only by a link to where the evidence was housed. I myself am leaving as a result of this case, but am greatly relieved to hear that the case itself will be blanked; if that's the case then surely it makes sense for the evidence housed in Abd's userspace to be blanked as well, doesn't it? Woonpton (talk) 23:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete, if failing that Blank and Move and Protect. It is apparent that this page will be used to harass at least one editor, per [1]. Hipocrite (talk) 20:42, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- In what way is this supposedly harassing someone? --GoRight (talk) 02:32, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep. Like ATren, I agree that WMC's page should also be kept. By comparison, this one is more civil and polished. It's analogous to a page maintained by Raul654, actually. I don't think any of these should be deleted, and these MFDs are only contributing drama. Cool Hand Luke 17:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Luke, please explain why you see the WMC and Abd pages as comparable. Abd's page might be overtly more civil than WMC's but it also makes unfounded allegations against several editors with whom Abd disagrees. ArbCom itself has found that Abd's allegations are without merit, and that his general behaviour warrants a three month site ban. Abd's targets are ordinary editors who have done nothing wrong but who have been smeared throughout the case by these false allegations. By contrast, WMC is targeting ArbCom members - who are at the pinnacle of the WP power structure - and doing so based on specific actions they have taken. Undoubtedly WMC's choice of wording is harsh, and I've already said he should refactor and tone down his language. However, your comments suggest that civilly worded totally unsupported accusations of unethical conduct by ordinary editors are somehow better than aggressively worded criticism of ArbCom for actions and decisions which WMC is hardly alone in criticising. As SBHB suggests below, is superficial civility really that highly valued on wiki? EdChem (talk) 03:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- WMC's page is based on founded allegations? No, they're both editorials, but Abd's is characteristically more verbose. At any rate, I do consider the page evidence in the case. Cool Hand Luke 12:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Luke, it is natural for ArbCom members to be sensitive about criticism, but you are supposed to exercise good judgement. The difference in civility is hardly the most important distinction between the two pages in question. Further, the civility of Abd's page would not help save it from deletion were it not an evidence page, whereas WMC's page will likely survive MfD without being an evidence page. This sure suggests that the community can see a difference between them - so if you seriously cannot see a difference between criticism of ArbCom members for ArbCom decisions / activities and allegations of cabal activities to undermine the purpose of wikipedia against a group of ordinary editors with no special power, then I suggest your good judgement skills are having a bad day. EdChem (talk) 13:07, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep and annotate clearly that this was part of the evidence in the case. Restore to the version of 3 August; do not refactor, do not blank. The evidence must be kept intact. (To CHL: I fail to see how lying and unsupported allegations are somehow "civil and polished"; perhaps this says more about our superficial approach to civility than you intend.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- By "do not refactor... must be kept intact" I think you are supporting the notion that it should be moved out of Abd's userspace? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I hadn't thought of that but it's a very good idea. Abd scattered evidence all over the place -- in userspace, deleted material that was then incorporated by reference to the diff (yes, really - believe it or not), and goodness knows what else. There was quite a spectacular failure of Arbcom to maintain control of the case. All of the evidence should be brought together, presumably under the main case name. Otherwise it will be impossible for anyone in the future to get a coherent view of the case. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Wait, why does it need to be unblanked? The evidence page itself is blanked. Cool Hand Luke 12:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Move to subpages of the case and blank. Maybe we should do the same with all the evidence pages that users placed in their own userspaces during that case. (lol, I wonder what arbs will think about this.....) --Enric Naval (talk) 04:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Move to subpage of case and blank The arbitration committee has decided that the allegations on this page were unsupported by diff and without merit; however, it should be stored somewhere for reference if at some later date there is a need to access Abd's evidence. Mathsci (talk) 06:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - Following a request relating to the arbitration case in which this subpage was used, I have courtesy blanked the following pages of the case: the proposed decision talk page, the evidence page, the evidence talk page, the workshop page, and the workshop talk page. I also intend to blank the user subpages that were used to present evidence in this case (or move them to subpages of the evidence page and blank them, but need to leave a note at this MfD first - this is that note). I think Abd and Enric Naval used subpages in this case - will need to check that. If there are no objections, I will start doing that tonight (or others can do this instead if they want to help out), but will wait for this MfD to close before considering what to do with this page. One of the parties to the case has objected to this, so I have also started discussion here. Carcharoth (talk) 08:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- strong keep (unblanked, of course) - see talk for full rationale William M. Connolley (talk) 21:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC) [Switching to strong keep per User talk:Carcharoth; no, it makes no sense to me either] William M. Connolley (talk) 08:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Strong Comment I have something to say and saying it is going to be physically difficult and painful due to the surgery I had and the severe weakness I have on my left side (arm, hand and leg). I have been following this case from it's beginning to almost the end but surgery and the case going over 30 days got in the way. I am named in the cabal of Abd. Everyone who followed this case knows how upset I was and how I along with other asked for the lists to be removed for policy violations, WP:CIVIL & WP:NPA for starters. We were told it was going to be part of evidence so it had to stay. Now I thought evidence meant proven or at least attempted to prove. Well as the close of the case shows, Abd proved nothing of the sort to any cabal activity. I for one didn't know most of the editors on the lists, I also have never participated at any of the Cold fusion articles nor did I edit at global climate articles. I didn't comment in the arbcom case JzG/Abd. I was an uninvolved editor who got attracted to this with the AN/I report. I got accused of not following difs to make a fair judgement of the facts when I voted for the ban of Abd from Cold fusion. I even tried to be more fair and tried to talk to Abd on my talk page after asking a question on his talk page. Abd got abusive to me and the discussion ended (see my talk page archives). The cabal listings was a group of editors who are in good standing as far as I know with this project. They all do their thing to better this project. What I really want is for everyone to look closely at the list of editors and look at the contributions, block log and so on. See what kind of editors were accused of bad faith behavior here. Then look at Abd's contribution and block log. Then, honestly tell me/us, who is here for the well being of this project and the writing of an enclopedia? Ladies and gentlemen, this is what is important, the encyclopedia. I don't belong on that list because most of the editors on that list write articles, are scientist, or doctors and they have a lot to provide to this project. I am a vandal fighter who tries to help out on the boards on occasions. If my good name is now not so good due to this case and what was said, well leaving is probably the best for me and the project so please just let me know on my talk or even by email. Thank you for listening, and thank you for trying to protect me. good bye for now. --CrohnieGalTalk 12:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- The page speaks loudly to the qualities of the author, and I urge you not to dwell on the unlikely chance that some editors may judge you based upon a shallow reading of it. To be sure that it is not easily read as truth, I think it should be blanked, as I said far above. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:57, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.