The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany 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 debate was Keep. There are many problems with this nomination, including 1) in general, pages should not be nominated for deletion by persons not wishing to see those pages deleted; 2) the addition of extraneous section breaks tends to particularize debate, and is disfavored; 3) Tallies of opinion during debate are disfavored; and 4) MfD is never a good place to make a policy proposal. Of the 90 kilobytes below, a large portion is irrelevant. The pages will be kept, and I will edit them for personal information, not including IP addresses, which are routinely presented as evidence in ArbCom cases. Xoloz 16:39, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Hillman/Dig[edit]

This is not a vote. If someone brought this page to your attention, or you brought this page to others' attention, please make a note of this fact here. While widespread participation is encouraged, the primary purpose of this page is to gauge consensus of all Wikipedia; therefore, it's important to know whether someone is actively soliciting others from a non-neutral location to discuss. Such contributors are not prohibited from commenting, but it's important for the closing administrator or bureaucrat to know how representative the participants are of Wikipedians generally. See Wikipedia:Survey notification.

Two other users have raised concerns about what they feel are privacy violations in the subpages listed at this page in my user space; I am seeking community feedback by the unusual procedure of nominating them for MfD myself. Please note the pages I am nominating are the subpages listed at User:Hillman/Dig. CH 22:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Users that abuse measures of introducing new cases may be declared vexatious litigants, prohibiting them from filing new requests under such categories. If the user feels they have valid grounds for a new case they may be directed to contact one or more Arbitrators (named on a case-by-case basis).

— From Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy/Precedents#Abuse of processes

I again respectfully request that contributors to this debate carefully examine not only the subpages under MfD but also read my (unfinished) essay on Digging, where I make the case that pages similar to some of my experimental pages (the subpages under this MfD) should be kept as documentation related to ArbCom actions in specific cases or in relation to monitoring for reconstitution of socks/anons of permabanned users in cases where it can be documented that this has been attempted. I would have preferred to lay my case before the Wikipedia community only after having had time to complete my essay, but my hand has been forced. However, I hope and believe that there is already ample material presented in the current draft of this essay to establish my good faith in this matter. Respectfully, CH 23:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

XfD processes are not a way to complain or remove material that is personally disliked, whose perspective is against ones beliefs, or which is not yet presented neutrally. Using XfD as a "protest strategy" in an editorial or NPOV debate is generally an abuse of process and the article will usually be speedy kept.

— From the official policy on deletion

I ask again that DrL not edit these subpages and that she respect the outcome of this MfD. ---CH 03:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  1. on the talk pages of the participants in the recent deletion review, including User:Asmodeus,
  2. on the talk pages of a few others users who had commented in my talk pages recently,
  3. in the talk pages of WikiProject Physics and WikiProject Pseudoscience (because the members of those projects know my cruft control work, so can verify my motivation in various "digs").

AFAIK, this was in no way improper; if anyone thinks otherwise please cite a policy in my user talk page. In any case, the closing admin can check my contribs just after I created this MfD to see who I contacted to alert them to this MfD. ---CH 00:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am concerned that this MfD not be hijacked into a policy discussion. The whole point of writing my essay and gathering evidence to explain the nature of the QC problems which concern me is to have a policy discussion, but please see Wikipedia:How_to_create_policy etc. for how to do that, and note that historically, hasty proposals tend to fail. I have some further suggestions for Obsidian Order below as per his request for suggestions. Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment here! I read every comment carefully and of course I plan to study any further comments made in my absence once I return (I presume I will be able to find an archive of the MfD, which should be closed by the time I return). Your feedback is invaluable in helping me help the Wikipedia Community to start to grapple with the difficult policy issues raised by wikishilling and digging. ---CH 17:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. My "threat" to Linas was the use of ((npa2)) in response to these personal attacks, and my "threat" to CH was a notification that some of the "dig" pages violate the Posting personal details section of the blocking policy. The arbitration decision refers specifically to Requests for comment and Requests for arbitration; since I've never filed either type of request, it obviously does not apply to me. Tim Smith 04:14, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Phr, I discussed MfD versus RfC with Jitse Niesen, and decided to go for MfD because Tim Smith has repeatedly threatened me with blocking, and I understand that under MfD I have protection against this but not under RfC. ---CH 00:04, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I saw Tim Smith's whining at WP:ANI#Dig pages about these pages and getting absolutely nowhere with the admins. The only thing he can do right now to get you blocked is close his eyes and wish real hard, and I don't think that's going to work. His threats are not backed by any evidence of consensus, so they mostly indicate that he is operating from an m:MPOV. They should be documented as such. Phr (talk) 02:00, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! I've already had to warn this user to assume good faith, but it looks like he needs to attend to our civility policy as well. By the way, my "threats" consisted of notifying CH that the "dig" pages violate numerous Wikipedia policies and guidelines, including the Posting personal details section of the blocking policy. Tim Smith 05:05, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:AGF, "Yelling "Assume Good Faith" at people does not excuse you from explaining your actions, and making a habit of it will convince people that you're acting in bad faith." Phr (talk) 05:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, and in this case, as I've said, my actions are motivated by the fact that by naming presumed real-life identities, CH is violating the Posting personal details section of the blocking policy, which states that "Users who post what they believe are the personal details of other users without their consent may be blocked for any length of time." Tim Smith 06:39, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BLOCK also says "Admins are never obliged to place a block". You do not seem to grasp the concept that you do not get to unilaterally decide whether any user is actually blocked, no matter what they do. Your requests for administrative intervention got nowhere, the admins you approached approved of CH's activities, and CH is clearly doing her best to act responsibly and I'm sure she will cooperate with any admin requests that might come. So I think the likelihood of her being blocked is close to zilch, regardless of your desires. If you want to participate thoughtfully in a discussion of a complex issue, that's great. But your constant harping about blocks isn't impressing me. It just sounds like frothing and empty threats posturing. Phr (talk) 08:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't call for CH to be blocked. There's a difference between (1) pointing out blockable activities in an effort to stop them, and (2) calling for a block. Again, I caution you to be civil. Tim Smith 14:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I corrected "empty threats" to "empty posturing". Hope that helps. Phr (talk) 02:56, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think I agree with rootology regarding adding this to my user page, but right now that page is pre-emptively locked (I think) re the LA Times. On an inclusion/deletionism note, I've long since changed my mind about schools, incidently. If nothing else, this kind of link can be good reminder to users to clean up broken links and suchlike.---CH 00:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting point--EVERYTHING here is functionally publically logged. I fail to see any arguments against connecting the dots with already available information to find possible abuse. Worst case: nothing comes of it, and it's dismissed. No harm, no foul. Best case: a vandal is caught. Every argument vs. that I come up with in my head seems to always come back to an analogy of a politician or celebrity calling foul if the media "sets them up" with already available public records... rootology 00:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. He/she is one of our best editors, has done a lot to improve WP, and has taked a lot of abuse for doing it. Bubba73 (talk), 01:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
N.B. It is perhaps important that I declare that I have been heavily involved in one of the cases that Hillman is documenting, the CTMU affair. Also, it is obviously this recent fracas which has brought Hillman's endeavours to the current discussion, because the primary concerns have been raised by Tim Smith, the individual who had an article deleted because of my AfD nomination. Byrgenwulf 06:32, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Asmodeus, you were invited here on your talk page, here, as were DrL, Tox, Michael Price etc.: all people who voted "keep" in the AfD and DRV; I think Hillman tried to tell all parties to the recent events about it. So your allegation of them stacking the jury doesn't really hold, irrespective of your argument about blocking, etc. Byrgenwulf 19:31, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This edit has much to say about where Asmodeus is coming from here. As someone who is pushing an alternative theory to GR but who
  • also accepts that it does not belong here and
  • that in Wikipedia GR should be documented as it is current understood,
I have very little sympathy this Asmodeus and his position. I think that WP:AUTO is very relevant here. --EMS | Talk 19:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Get your facts straight. The theory you mention is not, by any stretch of the imagination, "an alternative to GR". As for the WP:AUTO guidelines, I have not violated them, and that stands regardless of who I am. Specifically, I am not the author of any article about myself by any name whatsoever, and I've edited a biographical article only in response to transparent vandalism and name-calling. That's explicitly allowed, even for the subjects of the articles themselves. (Why do so many of the people around here seem to understand nothing about Wikipedia policy, yet cite it like holy scripture at a prayer meeting?) Asmodeus 16:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Asmodeus, please remember WP:CIVILITY. Particularly because EMS was not talking about the CTMU, but rather about his own views on GR, which are somewhat unorthodox, but which he does not use Wikipedia to tout. Why not get your own facts straight before commenting? Byrgenwulf 16:38, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps EMS does indeed have his/her very own "GR alternative". However, this is plainly irrelevant to his/her obvious misreading of WP:AUTO, which is indeed a simple matter of fact. In all fairness, this misreading may be at least partially due to certain false allegations spread by others, notably including Byrgenwulf himself. Asmodeus 17:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The reason for my WP:AUTO comments is that Asmodeus was asserting in This edit that people have carte blanche to edit articles about themself (as well as engaging in other conflicts of interest) in Wikipedia. My point is that this is not only not so, but is dealt with in a Wikipedia policy. --EMS | Talk 22:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I asserted no such thing. I did say that the original authors of theories should be allowed to edit articles on them if those articles "deal with complex, hard-to-understand material and the authors confine their edits to corrective or protective changes." That's well in line with policy. Similarly, WP:AUTO says that biographical subjects can make corrective or protective changes to biographical articles as well (after somebody else writes them). If you don't sympathize, that's fine, but please don't accuse me of things I neither did nor said. Thanks. Asmodeus 23:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I support the guidelines given above, but in those cases I feel that the identity of the editor ought to be known. Otherwise, you leave the door open to abuse. --EMS | Talk 17:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Response Byrgenwulf's comment raises an obvious question: could the original jury in the "recent events" to which he evidently refers - the set of people whom Hillman has invited here - possibly have been inappropriately selected in the first place, e.g., by somebody who knowingly mislabeled the subject matter of a disputed Wikipedia article and took this misleading information to exactly those (inappropriate, technically unrelated) sectors of the Wikipedia community that were most likely to support his own actions with respect to the events in question? If so, then it would immediately follow that Hillman's invitations are stacked as well. (In fact, as Byrgenwulf is well aware, it has already been shown that this is exactly what happened.) Asmodeus 20:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
User:Hillman/Dig/Anderton Delete. User's contributions seem to be in good faith.
User:Hillman/Dig/Androcles Weak delete. User's numerous personal attacks are already documented at an RfC.
User:Hillman/Dig/Borg Delete. Seems to be a good-faith user.
User:Hillman/Dig/Bogdanov Keep as a sock record, but remove any personal information posted without consent.
User:Hillman/Dig/Frieden Delete. Notable public figure with good-faith edits.
User:Hillman/Dig/Gomez Delete. Spamming in November/December 2005, but mostly to talk pages.
User:Hillman/Dig/Haisch Delete. Notable public figure with good-faith edits. Mentioned his conflict with Hillman in a recent LA Times op-ed.
User:Hillman/Dig/KraMuc Keep to watch for IP socking by this indefinitely blocked user, but immediately delete speculation about his real-life identity.
User:Hillman/Dig/Licorne Keep to watch for IP socking by this indefinitely blocked user.
User:Hillman/Dig/Langan Delete. Good-faith users. Immediately delete speculation about real-life identities.
User:Hillman/Dig/Marinchev Delete. User barely edited. Immediately delete speculation about real-life identity.
User:Hillman/Dig/Reddi Keep to watch for socks.
User:Hillman/Dig/Salsman Delete. No useful information, and risks antagonism.
User:Hillman/Dig/Sarfatti Keep to watch for socks of this indefinitely blocked user.
User:Hillman/Dig/Schubert Weak delete. Mild linkspam.
User:Hillman/Dig/SciAm Delete. IP's talk page already notes connection to SciAm and links to further discussion.
User:Hillman/Dig/Tesla Delete. Indiscriminate tracking of IPs, some with good-faith edits.

Since the users and circumstances tracked by these pages are so varied, I encourage the other participants to likewise individually break down their opinions. Tim Smith 21:09, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, broken out so I could keep track, and to modify as MfD discussion proceeds, here's why I think that.

  • WP:BLOCK I will continue looking for "personal details" (which in my book is email addresses, blood types, phone numbers, etc). Summary, a few IPs/users are associated with RL names. And not because it was made up, substantial evidence and patterns are given for each.
  • User:Hillman/Dig/Salsman Uh-oh, user's RL name given, though on the users' own talk page the user almost gives himself away. Marginal.
  • User:Hillman/Dig/Frieden another RL name associated with a user. Not really a strech to figure that out, as his username is Friedenr. Were the IP edits by that user done by that person? Hard to say, but since they were definitely done by someone from that university, a reasonable person would say yes, based on the pattern of edits. Oops, didn't see this dead giveaway edit.
  • User:Hillman/Dig/Haisch RL name, but ponied up by user here.
  • User:Hillman/Dig/Gomez gives RL city/country of user, but seeing as the user is using what is presumably, his full name as his id, and the ability for anyone to IP lookup, I don't think this is real cat out of the bag.
  • User:Hillman/Dig/Licorne RL name is listed, but it wasn't like it was made up, see here.
  • User:Hillman/Dig/Schubert RL name is listed, but after reading the page, and the User talk:Perspicacious, again not a huge leap.
  • WP:CIV nothing jumped out. Hillman seems to go out of his way to stay WP:NPOV
  • WP:AGF nothing jumped out. Could the whole thing be considered bad faith? Kind of a leap, a (maybe not perfect) analogy would be a lawyer/private eye/ombudsman/law enforcement. Of course it could look bad; that's why they are investigating.
  • WP:NPA nothing jumped out; were some comments unflattering? yes; have I seen worse on an WP:AfD? definitely.
  • WP:NOT yep, per WP:NOT a free host
  • WP:USER WP:USER#What can I not have on my user page? none of those bullets specifically qualify. WP:USER#Removal could come into play, was there a previous notification given, as in "..the community lets you know that they would rather you deleted some or other content from your user space.."?
  • Ok, I didn't see anyone bring this up (yet).
  • WP:NOR I could see how this could be seen as WP:NOR, but if you are writing about patterns and edits on WP, and citing internal history as well as external links, that's ok in my book.
  • Could all of this information be kept external to WP? Sure. But given the amount of WP link info/history/etc, I'd sure keep it in my user space too.

 — MrDolomite | Talk 22:09, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • NOR is only for articles, not user pages etc. Phr (talk) 12:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BLOCK explicitly prohibits posting personal details, including speculation. Some of Hillman's watch pages include speculation about the name, location and place of employment of a given target. For example, my own "watch page" contains irrelevant, poorly sourced personal information and speculation, including an irrelevant report of teen drug abuse, complete with unpleasant aspersions on my "character".
WP:LIVING states that "poorly sourced negative material about living persons should be removed immediately from both the article and the talk page" and that "These principles also apply to biographical material about living persons in other articles". So WP:LIVING applies to all articles on Wikipedia, including user pages.
WP:NOT Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not and should not become a collection of "public watch pages" maintained by unverified users for the purpose of monitoring other users and speculating about their RL identities. The unregulated creation of "watch pages" by users can (and certainly will) be extensively abused.
While Hillman may have good cause for suspecting vandalism in some cases, some of his/her/its other targets are clearly good-faith users. After all, who is Hillman to decide who gets "watched"? He/she/it's not even an administrator. Leave Hillman's "watch pages" standing, and others will inevitably spring up. Potentially, everyone on WP can have his or her own set of "watch pages" in user space, targeting any other editor with suspicions, personal details, and unpleasant allegations with respect to which he or she has limited editing rights.
Who verifies the identities and motives of the watchers? There is a reasonable amount of circumstantial evidence to the effect that the "Hillman/CH" identity constitutes a shared account. It would appear that Hillman's "research" comes down to an essentially anonymous experiment in social psychology, and that Wikipedia has been taken for quite a joyride. Allowing unverified individuals to register at Wikipedia and erect such pages in their user spaces is a road down which Wikipedia would be wise not to proceed.
Which pages should stay and which should go? Although, some users may bear watching, this would need to be done at the administrative level. Leaving it up to users, anonymous and otherwise, will inevitably lead to chaos. DrL 17:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure whether CH is an admin. If not, I'd be happy to make a nomination. There are plenty of anonymous admins and CH would be fine as one. I note the irony of Tim Smith's attempts at "digging" CH's identity while himself complaining about "digging". I similarly note the irony of DrL complaining of other people's anonymity while asserting anonymity eirself even in contexts where there is a clear question of conflict of interest.

    I've done some digging about CH myself. So far, I'm satisfied with what I've found. Phr (talk) 20:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Then you must have found something that I didn't, because everything I've found tends to confirm that Hillman is a multiple-user account (many people pretending to be one person by using one name and one account; that's the opposite of sock-puppetry, where one pretends to be many by using multiple names and any number of accounts). If you have evidence to the contrary, you'd only be doing Hillman a favor by following "his" advice and pursuing a full disclosure policy. (You probably needn't worry about violating Hillman's privacy - Hillman evidently doesn't see anything the matter with that.) Asmodeus 22:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
the irony of Tim Smith's attempts at "digging" CH's identity - hardly ironic, I would say fair. if digging anyone is legitimate - a point which I am not prepared to grant - it would surely be digging the diggers. Basic principle of reciprocity, golden rule and so forth, you know. ObsidianOrder 07:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a court. Please stop treating it like one. While WP:STALK does say that, we also have WP:IAR, and there is significant support for these pages, and for uncovering the conflicts of interest of these editors. At some point, knowing the identity of these types of editors becomes important. If, for example, DrL is the person who Hillman shows evidence she is, then that highly casts into doubt her description of Langan, and more recently, her description of a documentary about Langan, since it would be highly implausible that such a person could follow NPOV, even if they consciously tried to. As for illegitimate sock puppetry, I did not claim that DrL was using any illegitimate sock puppets - I was trying to give an example of one reason why it is important to know when an editor has a serious conflict of interest. In fact, one of the main reasons the RfCU was turned down was because it wasn't about sock puppetry, but about confirming the identity of DrL, and there wasn't really any violation of policy involved. --Philosophus T 14:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Gee, right from the Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates page, subsection What Advocacy is NOT: "...A lawyer-client relationship..." and "...Advocates are against wikilawyering. ..." Good thing that "The AMA is an independent association and is not subject to any committees or other external controls." because if it was, one would imagine they would have to ask User:David.Mestel to leave for violating the spirit of the group. My 2c. — MrDolomite | Talk 15:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think Mr. Mestel, should he attempt such a thing, will discover that anything even resembling a legalistic approach to Wikipedia disputes, not only gets a person nowhere, it gets them extremely rapidly into deep deep doo-doo. I'm reminded of the old joke about why attorneys make poor airplane pilots (They forget they're arguing with God...) SBHarris 17:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You cannot possibly be serious, Asmodeus. You speak of avoiding "wikilawyering" in one breath, and in the next you speak of a "charge" and a "test case". Also, I cannot believe that you are actually serious about anyone wanting to rip off/suppress the CTMU. It scarcely needs suppressing, since it is so thoroughly obscure, and unanimously ignored by all but the popular press and a fringe science group, and anyone wanting to plagiarise it must be incredibly foolish. You have absolutely no proof whatsoever of what you are alleging, and I think you are merely blustering about in order to ascertain Hillman's identity to sate your own curiosity. This borders on the absurd. Byrgenwulf 18:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am perfectly serious. WP does not require that advocates or editors waste their time chasing after inappropriate or cumbersome synonyms just to avoid terminology which has been co-opted by the legal profession. There is no reason to think that Advocate Mestel is unaware of the difference between the legal and Wikipedia contexts, or the connotations which they respectively bestow on various terms whose usage is perfectly natural under the present circumstances. If you want to uncover an instance of Wikilawyering, I suggest that you look for something more extensive or pedantic.
(Continuation) I'm also perfectly serious about a possible conflict of interest involving a possible shared account on the part of MfD initiator Hillman. As most of those here are well aware, you (Byrgenwulf) managed to get the CTMU article removed on AfD by knowingly misrepresenting it to a segment of the Wikipedia community consisting of non-experts in metaphysics who are miltantly opposed to what you misleadingly called "pseudoscience" (they know this because they are the ones to whom you misrepresented it as such). The problem, of course, is that (1) Hillman was arguably instrumental in helping you do that; and (2) it appears that Hillman's own contributions (such as they may be) could overlap the CTMU (which is in fact notable by Wikipedia standards, and which you clearly do not understand). When one is doing purportedly original work in a given field, one is not allowed to use the editorial procedures of an encyclopedia to suppress reportage on a competing theory covering the same field, unless one can cite a very detailed and solidly verifiable consensus (as opposed, for example, to merely flinging epithets and making diversionary accusations). If one were to do this, then one would be guilty of a conflict of interest by definition. Please do not underestimate the gravity of this situation, or the seriousness of the charges...er, allegations...uh, accusations...but no, that's not quite right either (darn that legalese, it's everywhere!)...against Hillman. Asmodeus 18:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Since Mestel also refered to DrL as his client while making threats to go and get Hillman blocked, I'd say there's a problem with connotations of words, for sure. Advocates have wards or charges or simply users they're helping. They don't have "clients." I will assume good faith and merely note that under the circumstances, clarification is in order.SBHarris 19:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is all the funnier (advocates giving themselves capital letters) for the fact that the Wikipedia AMA is a volunteer group and has no formal standing. Nor any power. Nor any special privilege, as a person admitted to the bar has, to argue cases "before the bar" on behalf of somebody else. They do have one use I can see, which is to speak for somebody who has been unfairly blocked and cannot speak for themselves (Wiki policy forgot to allow for that, and seems to think ArbCom cases can be constructed and submitted by email). But that's not a problem we have here. SBHarris 20:27, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Mr. Mestel did not capitalize the title "Advocate". I did, simply because I attached it to a proper name. I don't think there's anyone whom I owe an apology for that, except perhaps Mr. Mestel himself (inasmuch as it seems to have exposed him to a withering barrage of empty shells from the peanut gallery). In any case, I think that we should let him do the job which he has kindly volunteered to do on Wikipedia's behalf. Thanks. Asmodeus 21:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with David Mestel. This is precisely what WP:STALK was intended to prevent in spirit, even if it does not list all of the specific types of info posted by Hillman. Also, charges of wikilayering against DM are preposterous, since he is precisely going by the spirit and not the letter. ObsidianOrder 08:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The very first sentence of WP:STALK begins "Harassment is defined as a pattern of disruptive behavior that appears to a reasonable and objective observer to have the purpose of causing negative emotions in a targeted person or persons". I don't see Hillman's pages as having that purpose. Phr (talk) 08:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You don't see Hillman's attempt to dish the dirt on users without their consent, even describing it himself as "digging", as an attempt to cause negative emotions, speculating as to their real name, place of residence and marital status? --David Mestel(Talk) 08:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, I see it as an effort to document various apparent abuses, for the benefit of the encyclopedia. The specific disclosure you're referring to, for example, points to a serious conflict of interest that the editor in question didn't disclose when editing certain articles. CH's disclosure IMO was intended to prevent that undisclosed conflict of interest from undermining the encyclopedia's integrity. Any resulting effect it might have on the conflicted editor's emotions, positive or negative, is incidental. If CH was aiming to cause DrL distress with the disclosure, the page would have been written much differently and CH would have announced it in more places. For example, I personally only looked at the pages because one of DrL's associates complained about them at AN/I. Phr (talk) 09:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If there is abuse, let it go through the regular channels (mediation, RfC, ArbCom etc etc). Some of the subjects of these pages have been through that and I'm not especially concerned with those (although some followup seems meritted, I would say how much and what kind should not be an individual decision). If there isn't abuse, then there is no case and hence no reason for public scrutiny, is there? What we have here is private suspicion leading to public scrutiny even though no actual case can be made against some of those editors... this is definitely harassment in my book. ObsidianOrder 10:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I miscounted, I found:

The voting appears to split along rather predictable lines: the majority seems to view this as a more or less benign activity, with some concern shown, and some leeway granted. Of the minority, two are involved in a recent and very verbose, very wiki-lawyered dispute and are accused of being the same person. A third was involved in previous disputes along similar lines (as were many of the 'keep' voters), and two newcomers to this type of case. linas 03:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Come on, now. As everyone knows, the "majority" were invited here by User Hillman because they had previously participated in an AfD to which they were lured on the false pretext that its topic was "pseudoscience" purporting to be "physics". In other words, they were deliberately misled by somebody who had cunningly calculated that they would react by supporting his position. As one of those awful wikilawyers might say, the jury was stacked like bales in a hayloft. User Hillman, evidently pleased with the results, simply renewed their invitations in the expectation of a repeat performance, and it is no surprise that they obliged. (By the way, which two participants are "accused of being the same person", who is doing the accusing, and on what evidence?) Asmodeus 05:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please assume good faith, unless you have actual evidence of Hillman soliciting users. --David Mestel(Talk) 11:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Response Of course - I'm trying to assume good faith wherever humanly possible. It's just that early on in this process, I checked the talk pages of the participants and found that most of them had been RSVP'd by Hillman. (For example see linas' own talk page.) I also noted that many of them had participated in the CTMU AfD/DR, in which it was established that misinformation regarding that topic had been posted in inappropriate places (special-interest pages other than the actual category of the topic). Please see here and here. Hillman therefore knew that he was merely re-selecting a group of participants which was artificially selected in the first place, and which in the large had previously supported him against the subjects of his "dig pages". (Even if some of Hillman's invitations have been deliberately removed from the talk pages of the invitees, they should remain in the edit histories.) Perhaps this helps explain why there was an early influx of "keep" recommendations in this MfD, and why the tally is incredibly lopsided given the extremely hurtful and violative nature of Hillman's abusive digging enterprises. Asmodeus 14:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Linas, in your perfectly legitemate attempt to discredit those arguing for keep (this is an established part of the XfD process), it would be helpful if you named those on whom you comment, to facilitate response. A brief reply to your last comment: part of it seems to be a Catch 22, since either one has been "involved in previous disputes along similar lines", or one is a "newcomer to this type of case". --David Mestel(Talk) 11:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect I'm one of the "newcomers" described in the half-completed tally description. I was hoping that a detailed characterization of all the "kinds" of keep supporters would appear soon, but I guess that's taking longer.
Honestly, I don't feel comfortable posting in much detail on a thread like this. In fact, there are a lot of edits I've wanted to make on some controversial pages in main space -- edits I think would be real improvements -- but if the consequences of making those edits could leave me on someone's "dig" page with speculation about what city I live in, who I may be married to, or what I do for my employment? And jesus, what if I forget to log in and suddenly the digger's got my home and work IP's run through GeoIP? Forget it. No couple of improvements are worth it if someone who disagrees is going to start "digging" into my life in meatspace and chronicling it in a bunch of user subpages. No, not even if I'm notified about it and offered "compromises".
Sure, I'll bet there are some marginal vandal- and sock-fighting strategies that can be gained from interpreting the personal details and attack page policies to spike out this kind of behavior, but the cost is too high.
Sure, you can make distinctions between some of the pages. Some only have info on IP's, without any personal info speculation. The Langan page, though, is terrifying. I cannot imagine reading that and not thinking it's posting personal information.
Absolutely, the blocking policy does not require that the user who created these be blocked. All I'd like to see come out of this is for the entire digging project to be removed. If the only way to ensure their deletion is blocking User:Hillman, then I won't object. It seems like that user pretty much only deals with digging pages these days anyway.
So, what if digging could enable high-accuracy sockpuppet intervention, with real stopping power? It's a good question. But asking it with dig pages always seems to be WP:POINT, no matter how I try to look at it. If the bots get better and the volunteers get broken, we may have to revisit this in the future. I can wait.
Is this sufficient to allow my opinion to be reclassified from unnamed "newcomer" to perhaps something else? Thanks.
—ptk⁂fgs 11:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After giving the matter considerable thought, I would like to float the following policy. This is not (yet) written up as precisely as it should be but it should serve to start a discussion, I hope.

One: _Any_ information about people (editors or anyone else) may be posted on any page (article, talk or user pages) _only_ if it passes the same test as it would have to pass in order to be included in a biographical article about that person, if one existed. So conjecture, rumor, hearsay or any other kind of poorly sourced info is right out. If I say that X did Y, I had better have a link to a newspaper article (or equivalent reliable source) that says that. Note that Wikipedia edit history is itself a source, which obviously may be treated as a reliable source on the subject of which user id made what edits, but nothing else.

Two: _Any_ information about editors' _real-life_ identities may only be posted if (a) the editor explicitly stated it (in which case it is courteous to link to that edit) or (b) if the editor is a notable person (for example, they have a Wikipedia page about them) _and_ they have said they are that person _and_ the information comes from a reliable source _and_ it is not one of certain classes of information we don't want to disseminate (such as private phone numbers or addresses). So when it comes to real-life identities of editors, you can either just quote what they themselves said, or if they are a notable/public person you can say things which would be suitable for inclusion in their bio page.

Three: _Any_ information pertaining to the _online_ (as opposed to real-life) identity and activities of an editor is fair game, if it is reasonably well sourced. So correlating edits of different anons in order to determine whether they are the same person is ok, but guessing that person's name or what city they live in is absolutely not ok. The vast majority of information of the type typically posted to the ANB (for example to track sockpuppets) is of this type, and hence not affected by this policy.

Four: The above three guidelines may be waived in regard to certain editors, if necessary to deal with particularly obnoxious cases, but only through a certain administrative process (to be determined; perhaps as part of an ArbCom ruling? or an RfD - Request for Digging?). In any event, it should be necessary to establish _first_ that someone merits such scrutiny before applying it, and the process for doing so should involve a number of people. I really don't much care about the details of the process, as long as it is not a one-person decision, and as long it can be appealed.

Five: None of the above should be construed to mean that an individual editor cannot engage in digging, as much as they want - but they cannot post the results of that on Wikipedia except if it meets the above guidelines. In other words, dig to your heart's content - if you find something that you think merits an administrative waiver, contact an admin, get a waiver, and then post it.

Motivation:

One: privacy is one of the cornerstones of civilized society. While in fact there is a wealth of information about all of us is readily available online, communities require the polite fiction that that is not so in order to function. Everyone may (and undoubtedly will) scrutinize everyone else as much as they want, in private. But to make the scrutiny public without an extremely good reason destroys the functioning of a community.

Two: scrutiny of the type that Hillman engages in can and does turn people away (arguably, she does it precisely in order to turn away people viewed as undesirable). This is not the Wikipedia way. For those unfamiliar with the specific cases, many (not all) of those people are productive editors who make good-faith edits; they are not vandals. Such scrutiny should really be reserved to a very small number of cases, and engaging in it should not be the decision of one individual. When in doubt, assume good faith, and consequently don't dig.

Comments?

ObsidianOrder 08:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  1. I don't think an MfD is the right place to discuss such a proposal. The MfD should stick to the narrow question of whether the specific pages under discussion should be deleted or not deleted. That decision should be completely independent of other hypothetical pages that might have some characteristics in common.
  2. The reason we have an MfD about these specific pages (rather than about the general principle of allowing such pages) is indeed to decide whether a "good reason" exists for having these specific pages. My "keep" vote, for example, expresses my opinion that for these specific pages, a good reason exists. It by no means applies to other digging that other people might post. Phr (talk) 08:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Obsidian, we have had previous discussions on the difficult issue of digging (thanks for reminding me where to find that, incidently) and I appreciate your input! I would like to discuss this with you and others further. My hope is that despite the large gulf between our current positions, in civil discussion we can find some common ground to help us author (perhaps) competing drafts of a proposed policy regulating "digging", which clearly we both agree is urgently needed.
However, I strongly agree with Phr that this is not the place to propose a new policy; see Wikipedia:How_to_create_policy. I am concerned that the MfD will be distorted if you start discussing this here. Also I am about to go on break for a week as per my user talk page and I hope you won't rush to propose a new policy as per the HowTo in my absence, since this matter concerns me too! Here's my idea: you move this section to someplace in your user page (leaving a note with a link here) and refine your draft proposal. I'll be back in a week and will start drafting my own proposal and will leave a note on your talk page so we can link discussion of the two drafts. Please note that there is some good advice in the page I've cite and ones it links to about how to propose a policy in such a way that it actually becomes enacted after discussion and modification. Note that being hasty seems to guarantee failure. Hope you are agreeable to my proposal. ---CH 16:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Phr: thank you for the comments. I have never been involved in writing a policy so I would appreciate any suggestions on how to proceed. I will look for a more suitable place to post this.
At the same time, it is certainly relevant to the MfD, for several reasons: Hillman specifically said she wanted to have the MfD serve as a spur for formulating policy; people reading the MfD would be thinking about the very same issues; and I think if one agrees with the general outline of this proposal it provides a way to examine the merits of these specific pages. Namely:
Is the info on the pages in question reliably sourced? No, it is mostly conjecture.
Is it info about real-life identities? Yes, much of it is. (and it is prohibited by existing policy: WP:STALK)
Is it provided by the people in question themselves? No, it is not.
Have the people in question behaved in such a way as to merit special scrutiny? I would say most haven't (although opinions will differ on that).
Was there any kind prior of community decision process to determine whether they merit scrutiny? No, there was not. Regardless of the answers to the other questions, that is the absolute stumbling block. The correct order of business is to delete the pages, then look at cases and decide whether they merit extra scrutiny (and by that I mean: a similar level of evidence as would be needed for other administrative action against the people in question), and then restore the pages for those who do. At a glance, Sarfatti is the only one of those who already pass that criterion, but then again there are a number of pages dedicated to tracking him already.
ObsidianOrder 09:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The info is sourced with diffs from edits provided by the people in question. What you call "conjecture" others would call "reasonable inferences". WP:STALK is about behavior done with the intention of causing emotional distress, which IMO was not the goal of these pages. The community process to determine whether the people in question have behaved in a way as to merit special scrutiny is, in fact, taking place right now in this MfD. I haven't commented much on the specific behavior because an RfC (not an MfD) is the right place for that. But you can interpret my "keep" vote as an expression that in my opinion, the people in question have behaved in a way that merits extra scrutiny. Phr (talk) 09:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC) (Forgot to add): Re your discussion of delete first and discuss after, that makes it a bit difficult since people can't see what they're discussing. I think what happened was not ideal but was not too bad: Tim Smith posted about the pages at AN/I, several admins looked at the pages and chose not to intervene, and now we're here. We do appoint the admins because we trust their judgement about stuff like this. If the pages in question were really bad, they'd have done something immediately. (And I could add, many of us are here because Tim chose to call admin attention to the pages publicly instead of privately. Admins are supposed to have email enabled. Until Tim did that, AFAIK the pages were sitting unnoticed in CH's userspace with at most a few of CH's fairly close co-editors aware of them.) Phr (talk) 10:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I understood your vote to mean that ;)
The info about _online_ activities is indeed sourced, and I think is not in question. The info about _real-life_ identities is pure conjecture, or I would rather say "wild assed guess", for example: User:Hillman/Dig/Langan#Gina LoSasso or User:Hillman/Dig/Frieden. Whether it is a "reasonable" inference is utterly immaterial; it is not properly sourced.
"WP:STALK is about..." - I think it is quite clear that posting personal information is not ok regardless of intent. It is a bit less clear about what is personal information, but ... I would say any information about someone who is not a public figure (in the newspaper sense) and which did not come from them directly is "personal". ObsidianOrder 09:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You may be confusing user pages with enclopedia articles. Encyclopedia articles have to be sourced. The pages in question are investigative notes and as such are perfectly free to contain relevant conjecture for further study. I didn't see the stuff at the Langan page as irresponsible. I believe I looked at the Frieden page but I don't remember specifics. Phr (talk) 10:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not confusing the two; I'm proposing that in regard to personal information all pages be held to the same standard as article pages. Re: Langan - I am shocked that you think that is ok. Depending on whether User:DrL is who CH thinks, the conjecture ("wild assed guess") on that page could either be seen as damaging to two people because it isn't true, or damaging to one person because it is. There is already a policy which touches on this, WP:LIVING: "Editors should remove any unsourced or poorly sourced negative material from biographies of living persons and their talk pages, and may do so without discussion; this is also listed as an exception to the three-revert rule. This principle also applies to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Wikipedia.". This applies to user pages as well, obviously. ObsidianOrder 10:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, you're right, it does say that; I mainly remembered the recent arb case saying stuff only had to be removed from talk pages if it was actually libelous [2]. I will think about this. Phr (talk) 13:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Re: delete first, discuss later: I think WP should certainly follow its own policies. Many of the dig pages claim to give the legal names corresponding to certain usernames. This is explicitly prohibited by WP:STALK. Ergo, those pages should be speedy-deleted. There is nothing to talk about here. We can have a nice discussion about coming up with a new policy after we have actually shown that we follow established policy, otherwise why bother? ObsidianOrder 10:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
These WP: documents that you're talking about are internal editorial policies that shouldn't be broken without a good reason; however, in any particular instance, the project is entitled to decide (usually by community discussion, which is what we're having now) whether to enforce them or not. The project is in these cases answerable only to itself as long as it doesn't break any laws. To get acronymish, see WP:IAR (which has been toned down a lot since I looked at it last, hmm). All these WP:* policies you speak of are subidiary to WP:ENC. And as several people have mentioned already, privacy (which is not a WP:*) is at most indirectly impacted here; we're discussing whether a particular expression of public info is ok. Remember it's a deliberate decision, not an accident, that the Wikipedia software displays the IP addresses of non-logged-in users to everyone, and not (say) just to admins. It's for the precise purpose of helping track down abuse, the addresses are displayed expecting us to type them into WHOIS, and they're constantly used to do things like identify spammers and vanity edits (another example of connecting supposedly anon edits to real-world identities). The dig pages are there to investigate apparent abuses of a particularly insidious kind, and CH has in my opinion written the pages carefully to cause as little distress as possible and to not overdisclose, while still documenting the relevant info. So I'm looking at them mainly with an eye towards whether they benefit the encyclopedia, and in my view they do. Phr (talk) 13:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, once the personal information digs do become verifiably sourced -- that's when I probably get so spooked that I just shut down my account and go do something else. WP:BLOCK#Posting_personal_details makes no distinction between accruate and speculative posts, and I don't see a reason it should. —ptk⁂fgs 12:14, 2 August 2006 (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.
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