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 speedy delete, user request. See R's comment at bottom. Picaroon (Talk) 22:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User:R/Single Letter Group[edit]

This was closed early by Freakofnurture out of process, given that the discussion is days away from being closed and there is no clear consensus. I have speedy relisted, per DRV. --Deskana (talk) 23:23, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Silly page creating an elitist clique of 26 users who won't let anyone else edit "their page" or join their IRC channel. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:57, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: According to his userpage, User:R is travelling and probably without Internet access until Friday night. People should not assume he is deliberately ignoring comments here if he does not respond until then. Newyorkbrad 21:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - Though I am obviously biased, I don't see what the problem is. I made the "mistake" of editing the page before I usurped a single-letter account, and I wasn't flogged. It's interesting how what was apparently a bit of humor has turned into an uproar. - U 03:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, add to WP:LOC, and add ((humor)).   j    talk   03:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. The concept itself seemed somewhat harmless at first, but the fact that they seem to be forming a clique, complete with a members-only IRC channel and WP:OWNing their page, is somewhat troubling. Factionalism should be discouraged at all costs. Ƙɽɨɱρᶓȶ 03:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Obviously I'm baised here. Anyway. There is no IRC channel, I don't think it was ever made. And R only asked that people without single letter usernames not edit it, so as to have the history only have SL edits. If you see something that could be fixed, you can just say something on the talk page, which has been done before. It's not elitist, except that by its very nature it can only have 26 members. Adding LOC and a Humor tag would be fine. I really don't think it's hurting anything.I  ^{(said) (did)} 03:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Because of various developments, my opinion has changed. I still think that this page should be kept, but extremely pared down to what it originally was intended to be. Delete the lists of numbers and letters and the like. The discussion can be moved to the talk page. Also, apparently an IRC channel was created, but mere hours ago, and not by the person who suggested it. As such, I was not aware of this. I do not agree with the creation of the channel, since it would serve no purpose as an open channel, and be cabalistic as a closed one. Also, another concern is the racist comment made. That was out of line; but it doesn't warrant a deletion of the page it was made on, the editor who made it should be the focus. As for the editing of the page, I think that it would be a unique page with only single letter users editing it. But its not that big of a deal. I would also support adding a humor and LOC tag, as that would help people to know it was nothing serious. I  ^{(said) (did)} 04:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment You do know that "no harm" isn't a valid rationale, right? On another note, the IRC channel wasn't going to be members-only. (→O - RLY?) 03:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strange, it said that only SLG members got voice in the header, and "Cannot join #wikipedia-en-slg (You are banned)". Well, so much for that. Daniel 03:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I didn't even know there was an IRC channel! What a sad, disorganized cabal faction.   j    talk   03:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. I've never been truly comfortable with the existence of this group to be honest, much as I like some of its members. Clubs with limited membership are generally a bad idea and are rather "un-wiki". The expansion of this group in particular concerns me - IRC channel etc. Cabalism is something we've been at pains to limit. I also don't like the fact that this group encourages people to get renames - something which puts a load on the server and often causes confusion (especially remembering who each single letter contributor used to be). I also note admins have now been persuaded to start using their tools to keep the revisions of this page "pure"... I had ignored this as harmless fun but I see we're now moving on from single letters to encourage single numbers - this is going to scale badly. So with some reluctance and without objection to the humour element, I think this page should be deleted. It does nothing to help the writing of encyclopedic content and may (inadvertently I recognise) cause harm in the form of cabalism and encouraging frivolous renaming. WjBscribe 03:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. This needs to stop. Now. Mackensen (talk) 03:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I said to the IRC channel, heads will roll if it happens again, and it sure-as-hell won't be mine. Brad's was a legit G7 deletion of his own edit only, but the rest were complete and utter bullshit. We give people tools for a reason, and that isn't it. Daniel 03:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • *cough* so were wimt's deletions *cough* —« ANIMUM » 01:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With the exception of NYB, why were any deletions different from the others? I  ^{(said) (did)} 01:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since when does IRC matter here? --Son 02:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno, but I (hereby used as a proper noun :-P ), Newyorkbrad's deletion and wimt's deletion both show restoration and deletion for the same reasons: Only to keep the history of the page "pure" as per the request of the group. —« ANIMUM » 21:30, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Using userspace purely for social networking may sometimes be tolerated in small doses, even though it's not really what userspace is provided for, but now that they're seeking to delete any edits to their page by users with more than one character in their username, well that's just absurd. There are plenty of sites out there for social networking, and I suggest that the members of this group move the group to one of them. --bainer (talk) 03:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete- It was humorous at the beginning, but their current elitist nature, ownership of the page, and the other concerns raised by User:WJBscribe and User:Thebainer are troubling, so it should be deleted. --Boricuaeddie ^hábleme 03:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Their current elitist nature"? WP:AGF still applies, please.   j    talk   03:30, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why didn't your "members" AGF of me before banning me from "your" IRC channel without even talking to me? Or is that not elitist in nature? Daniel 03:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • (ec)I said I know it is not intended to be taken seriously, but the members don't really do anything. It's just a page with a bunch of signatures of users who do nothing but sit around boasting about their club and delete the contribs of anyone who's not a member who edits their page. --Boricuaeddie ^hábleme 03:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep under the condition that group members do not engage in edit warring, do not express ownership of the pages, do not act holier-than-thou, and that they treat this thing as extremely extremely not-serious. This is a harmless page, and if treated right, a nice little thing people with single-letter names and multi-letter names alike can laugh at. MessedRocker (talk) 03:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does that include not having an IRC channel which bans people, not deleting revisions by others, not blanket-reveting people not in the "group", and actually editing the mainspace once in a while? If so, I'm all for it. Daniel 04:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well yeah (but they still reserve the right to kick out troublemakers, of course). MessedRocker (talk) 04:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment- Their "logo" should also be deleted. It basically says: "Oh, look at me! I'm part of an exclusive club that you can't be part of unless you bother the bureaucrats with a request for changing your username. Please join: you get a cool image like this one!!!" :-) --Boricuaeddie ^hábleme 04:02, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• While not the most asinine deletion discussion I have ever seen, this is pretty close. "Delete the page because they banned me from IRC?" Umm ... huh? --B 04:07, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hardly. That's just what got the ball rolling. Daniel 04:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • (ec) I think his concern is not, primarily, that he got banned from the channel, but that they did this because of their elitist nature. --Boricuaeddie ^hábleme 04:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • For the record, I had no idea the IRC channel even existed until about an hour ago. I only joined it to see if "auto ban" was in place, or if I could pop in. I didn't even try to join as my wiki username, but as my regular nickname (which is longer than a single character). If I knew why Daniel had been banned, I'd like to kick the butt of the person responsible, too. - Wyv/U 04:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • It was Vishwin60, I've been told by ChanServ, and I suspect (my suspicions are generally wrong, though) that it may have something to do with the fact I torpedoed his RfA last week. Daniel 04:17, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Why do you care? There are kazillions of channels on IRC. I can't imagine a use for this one, but if two or more people are interested in gathering there, that's their prerogative. An off-Wikipedia channel has no bearing on an on-Wikipedia joke page. I don't have access to the admin IRC channel (my request for entry was ignored). Should we go ahead and delete all admin cabal related pages (like WP:SPIDER)? --B 04:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • I don't care. What I care about is how these users (yourself not included) didn't let anyone edit the page, reverted them when it did, and even deleted their edits altogether. Is that not ridiculous? Daniel 04:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
              • It's user space. A user has (within reason) the authority to exercise editorial control over their own user space. --B 04:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
                • To the point that I am reverted when I remove what a number of administrators consider racism on the basis that my name is six letters and not one? Or the fact that there has been select-deleting of reversions? Daniel 04:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• As a minor aside, WP:SLG (the redirect) does need to go as it is a redirect into userspace. --B 04:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nope, psuedo-shortcuts are fine as redirects. I don't remember exactly where the policy is, but you can quote me on that...since I reverted a tag placed on it for that reason ^^ --L^augh! 11:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Here we go, from ((db-r2)) Redirects to the Talk:, User: or User talk: namespace from the article space (this does not include the Wikipedia shortcut pseudo-namespaces). (emphasis mine) --L^augh! 11:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, it was fine when it was only a few users and a harmless warning at the top, but the fact that users are wasting crats' time by requesting usurpations so they can become part of this "exclusive" group of 26 users is going too far, as placing large warnings under each header reading "do not edit this page". Sebi _[talk] 04:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, very biased I know, but it's similar to a autograph book, basically, and Jimbo has personally sanctioned them. People editing the page on purpose to mess up the history is just mean. -N 05:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Removing a racist jibe is mean? What on earth? Daniel 05:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I believe he is referring to the edits just prior to yours, [1] and [2].   j    talk   05:40, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK, fair point, apologies to N. Regardless, the difference between this and an autograph book is the fact that anyone can edit an autograph book. Will everyone be able to edit the SLG page? Daniel 05:42, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Making fun of accents isn't racist. Saying people kill babies or are inferior or something is racist. But yes, of course, I did mean people adding themselves without meeting the criteria. Of course we can't control who edits it, but I will remove any names that don't meet the criteria listed on the page. -N 05:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)*[reply]
          • I'm not even making fun of an accent! It's the way that R and L are translated into Japanese- it's exactly the same character and sound. Making jokes about a big blue ass (instead of earth), or Mickey Mouth might be racist- not a comment on language differences. It's the same as the old Spanish joke where a little old woman who doesn't speak a peep of english walks into a store, asks where something is, and the clerk has no idea. The clerk proceeds to point at just about everything in the store, each time after which the woman says "¡no!". Eventually, they get to the clothing department, and the clerk points at a display of socks. The little old lady says "Eso, si que es!", which translates roughly to "that's it!", to which the clerk replies "Lady, if you knew how to spell it, why didn't you just say so?!" It's nothing about disliking Japanese people or culture or language- I've had three very good friends from Japan, and plenty of other friends who are Japanese or Japanese descended. I love Japanese culture, and I've tried to learn the language a few times. If I were going to insult anyone, it wouldn't be the Japanese --L^augh! 11:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Per WP:UP, User:R can reasonably request that other editors refrain from editing a page in his user namespace. It isn't a policy, so his request is merely a request.   j    talk   05:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • "Other users may edit pages in your user space". You can't discriminate between one-letter users and two-or-more-letter users. That's the core problem here, as far as I can tell. Daniel 05:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Keep I don't really see any harm in it, but others do raise a decent point. Jmlk17 06:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak delete. The first time round I saw it, I thought harmless and even looked with envy that "M" is not up for taking anymore. So, I lost interest in observing it. Until recently, when my usertalk archiving bot started to flood the logs with errors that came out as a result of multiple users being renamed to single letters. So, I looked what's up with the page and noticed this zOMGdrama burst. I must say elitism accusations are founded, with the exception that IRC is pretty much none of our business (rather whether or not Sean accepts an exclusive channel/given #wikipedia-en-admins' existence, this should be a non-issue). Deleting edits because they "taint" page histories is a big no-no (not quite what the toolse were given for). This started as a harmless exercise but seems to have attracted some bad kind of users. I would also be interested in knowing who created all these single-character sockpuppets that invaded the page few hours ago... Миша13 09:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In case you really wanted to know, it was a combined effort by Daniel, Banes, Krimpet and Kat Walsh. Kat Walsh explained here, Krimpet here, and Daniel here. They were all apparently good faith creations of test accounts. A good portion of them were blocked. I  ^{(said) (did)} 09:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"some bad kind of users"? Hello? WP:AGF.   j    talk   16:25, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• • " zOMGdrama burst" .. that goes down as my new favorite wikisaying. :) Now back to your regularly scheduled XFD. - Wyv/U 09:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, if we were going to be a cabal, we would be much better organized- I just now am finding out that we have an IRC channel. I of course am biased, but this isn't a matter of social networking, It's really just a list of people with single letter user names. I highly doubt that anyone is changing their user name over a tiny little logo on their user page. Like I said in my CHU/U, I'm changing because I want to distance myself from who I am elsewhere on the internet, and I like the way sigs can be changed around. WP:SLG is just a stupid little fun thing on top of that. If someone's only reason for wanting to change their name is SLG they should be denied, as that is about the stupidest reason you could ever think of to change a name. The only thing SLG does that encourages this is add a status list on the user names. I agree with us not owning the page, and if there's something that needs to be fixed, I don't think any of us would seriously object to it being fixed, but so far every edit to the page from a non SLG member has either been an innocent mistake, or an intentional WP:POINT (and probably WP:SOCK) violation. I really doubt that anyone editing the page for a reason other than "OH HI IM POSTING ON UR PAGE LOL" would be shunned. Now, if people want to try to act like they are better than other editors because of SLG, I would agree that the page should be dissolved (or the user removed), but I doubt any of us would. --L^augh! 11:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • What the...? My removal of what consensus considered to be your racist remark was an innocent mistake, an intentional point, or even a sock violation? What on earth are you talking about? Daniel 02:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - considered humorous, but isn't funny in any way, shape or form. Seems to do more harm than good, doesn't help the project in any way, burn it with fire. -Halo 11:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. I was quite concerned when I saw that people were afraid to edit the page because of mucking up the edit history. Renames are a server hog and shouldn't be done just to fit in, or join groups like this. The other day Andrevan renamed someone with about 40 edits and it caused three minutes of database lag. Renames are not something to be taken lightly. Secondly, it's important to notice that almost all of the people voting keep are a part of this "group". --Deskana (talk) 11:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  You could say the same thing about people not in it though. People in a group are going to be biased to support it, and people outside it to dislike it, it's not really a winnable debate. Anyway, like I said, I agree that people shouldn't be restricted from editing the page (as long as it's actually to improve it, and not to say "LOL I CANT EDIT UR PAGE HU?"), and that anyone asking to WP:USURP a single letter name just for the sake of joining SLG is both incredibly misguided, and deserving of having their request denied. I think most of us would agree with that --L^augh! 11:54, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Per the content on the page which makes it seem like they own it, It was funny at first but now it becoming a little silly. Rlest 13:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete — Stupid idea, encourages user account fetishism and all-around waste of time scrambling for useless single character (and extremely annoying) usernames. Were I running the place, all user account names would have to be at least four characters long. --Cyde Weys 14:30, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • So basically, WP:YOUDONTLIKEIT? --L^augh! 14:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • You do realise that the whole of that essay is just about articles in article space? Surely "you don't like it" is a fine excuse when you're talking about random crap in Wikipedia space that serves little to no purpose aside from humour (which, surely, is WP:ILIKEIT). -Halo 17:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • From Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions: "The following are a list of arguments that can commonly be seen in deletion debates at templates for deletion, images and media for deletion, categories for discussion, stub types for deletion, redirects for discussion and especially articles for deletion which should generally be avoided, or at least, supplemented with some more arguments." Please note it does not mention MfD. --Boricuaeddie ^hábleme 18:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • It doesn't have to mention MFD, since the title of it contains "deletion discussions". That means XFD, and MFD is surely part of that. (→O - RLY?) 18:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • I don't think it applies to MfD because, as Halo said, "you don't like it" is a fine excuse when you're talking about random crap that does not help Wikipedia in any way. --Boricuaeddie ^hábleme 18:42, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • You don't think? I advise you to think of a stable answer on this, because people looking at unsure arguments may just take it with a grain of salt. (→O - RLY?) 18:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
              • I fail to understand your remark. --Boricuaeddie ^hábleme 18:50, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
                • Basically, the "I think" or "I don't think" part of your argument waters it down to the point where some people would take it with a grain of salt. Because of that, it may imply that you are not sure of something (like MFD not applying to the essay). (→O - RLY?) 18:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ah, nice try there, trying to turn it around on me. Not going to work, though. The only argument being made to keep this thing is WP:ILIKEIT. Remember, the default stance for all non-encyclopedic content is it shouldn't be on Wikipedia (remember "Wikipedia is not a webhost"?). You have to justify it. And everyone has utterly failed to justify how this stupid clique is helpful. --Cyde Weys 23:56, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well now, I'd say you're biased in putting the treshold at 4. :-D But the idea has its merits. I, for one thing, find single-letter usernames quite confusing (it's hard to spot them in logs and page histories, as they don't stand out very much). Миша13 14:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete This page needlessly encourages factionalism. It could have been funny, but the racist remark (which does strike me as quite offensive), the IRC tiff, and the misuse of admin tools to maintain the "purity" of the history have ruined any humor it might have had. Even without those problems, encouraging particular usurpations in this way might be considered a misuse of WP's resources -- that might have merited removing the page, even if it were only funny. Now, it is decidedly not funny, and it is reasonable for users to resent it a little. (When one has a select group of 26 members "honored" by a page, and one member repeatedly makes a racist comment thereon -- even assuming he is innocent of comprehending its racist dimension -- then the "honored" group does bear some of the shame of the remark. That's a risk one takes when one makes a "club.") I almost speedy closed this, until I realized that the racist remark left me a bit too angry to be impartial. I would support someone else doing so, though. Xoloz 16:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• At first, I was inclined to keep it, based on the bias that I have, but after throughly thinking it over, listening to consensus and refreshing my own brain, I must say that I support deletion of this userpage. The policies, guidelines, and consensus were clear—no unencyclopediac content should be present in any namespace. Though userspace has a bit of leniency over a strict policy, this looks like a blog, personal webpage, or something that would be appropriate on MySpace. The userpage guidelines clearly support this. (→O - RLY?) 18:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and block all single letter users. --W.marsh 19:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I do hope that last part wasn't serious, if only because two of them would be admins. I  ^{(said) (did)} 20:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They can request a change to a non-vanity name. --W.marsh 20:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Admins or not (whoever said we can't block admins?), WP:USERNAME clearly says that "confusing usernames that make it unduly difficult to identify users by their username" are inappropriate. It was bearable while there were 2-3 SL users. Now there's at least 10 active ones - maybe more - can't really tell - single letters do not identify you well - can't tell you apart right now. Миша13 20:19, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that debate is out of the scope of this debate. As for my username, I followed an accepted community practice and was able to request my current name. - U 20:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CCC -Halo 11:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete and no more usurpation for vanity names like that, geesh, all it can do is start a foolish power struggle where people compete to have the best ultra-rare vanity names. Yuck. Really usurpation should be discarded and instead we should just mass delete all accounts which have no edits or uploads(deleted or otherwise), no blocks, and where there exists no account with edits by the same name on any other Wikimedia Wiki. Doing so would naturally release millions of names, and get the ugly usurpation process out of things. Vanity names will always exist, but at least the'll arise more naturally. --Gmaxwell 19:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as originally envisioned, harmless quasi-humorous page in userspace. Concerns about excesses of the page or related matters could more courteously have been raised with the members or on the talkpage before nominating it for deletion. Several of the arguments in favor of deletion appear to be red herrings (e.g., the comment about Japanese speakers, which has been discussed at length elsewhere, has been removed and has no bearing on the viability of the page; the trend toward renames to single-character usernames originated long before this page was created and I don't believe the page has much, if anything, to do with the trend; rename policy is not up to these editors anyway; the gimmick about having only single-letter usernames edit the page was also harmless, and in any event, it's been ruined now; disputes about an IRC channel are generally considered irrelevant to on-wiki matters). I do urge the group members to accept the decision in good grace if the page is deleted (though I think this would be the wrong outcome), and to spend only a reasonable amount of time having fun with the page if the outcome is to keep it. Newyorkbrad 19:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Come on, this MFD makes us all look bad. It's just a bit of harmless silliness. Andre (talk) 20:42, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete I say we start out at the Community sanction noticeboard and go from there. If that fails a community ban may be in order. Per nom. --MichaelLinnear 21:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is this a dispute or a last resort? Because the noticeboard does say that that should only be used as a last resort. (→O - RLY?) 21:07, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why would a community ban need to be discussed? And on whom? I  ^{(said) (did)} 21:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • A community ban?? What the heck are you talking about?? Newyorkbrad 21:50, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep but modify. The way it is written, it seems way too exclusivistic. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 21:38, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • What do you mean? It's bound to be exclusive - the very concept of the page outs everyone whose username doesn't belong to a specific inflexible set (read: hasn't usurped one in time). You can rewrite it all you want, but the idea stays the same. Миша13 22:17, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • What I mean is basically saying "You can't join anymore, ha ha. Oh, and only group members can edit this page." It's unwiki. What happened to the idea of a wiki? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 22:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I believe an APB has been issued for both it and WP:AGF. Keep your eyes peeled.   j    talk   22:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes but it's a userspace page and it's basically an autograph book that is looking for certain autographs. If someone started randomly editing my userspace pages I'd be pissed too. People randomly edited the page for fun, without regard to whether they were actually being constructive. -N 22:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • "Other users may edit pages in your user space" --WP:USER. Exclude everyone, or no-one. Daniel 02:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Then on another note, why is your main userpage fully-protected? You're also excluding everyone from editing that too, because of your logic. (→O - RLY?) 16:40, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • Like Daniel said, you either exclude everone or you exclude no one, but you don't exclude/include a select group of people. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 17:23, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
              • But isn't protecting your own userpage excluding everyone but yourself? I find this very odd, given that that is allowed to exclude everyone but himself. (→O - RLY?) 18:19, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep - it's not hurting anyone whatsoever, if R wants to keep a little record in his userspace then let him. I'm extremely disapointed at the lack of community spirit involved here, wikipedia is not a battle ground but users here seem to wish to delete something that makes another user happy. If you don't like it, don't look at it - there's plenty of other constructive things people can be doing than trying to take a stab at another editor. Oh, lets not take anyone to WP:CSN just yet. Ryan hangs his head in disbelief.Ryan Postlethwaite 22:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)```[reply]
• Keep. Let me make this very clear, I think that all these single letter names are totally confusing, I think that allowing usurps in the first place was a mistake and I have no intention of ever changing my name to anything, never mind a single letter. However, none of these things are at all relevant. This page is in userspace and it is fundamentally harmless. Some inappropriate comments have been made on it and have been removed. Is it worth all this arguing? Surely not. Will (aka Wimt) 22:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It was harmless until people started to shun outsiders and (mis-)use admin buttons to cheat page history. Миша13 22:21, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Those things were playful in this context and IMHO also harmless. Newyorkbrad 22:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • As someone who did remove some revisions from the history, I apologise for doing so as I did not realise it would cause so much outrage and argument. I did consider such actions harmless and was acting in good faith in response to a userspace request. Let me also reassure you that those revisions that I did remove were either made in jest or in error, and the editors in question did not object to my actions. These revisions have been restored now in any case. This MfD should be about whether this page should be deleted in its current state, not about any contempt you might have for my actions. And I reiterate my apologies for inadvertently contributing to the escalation of this. Will (aka Wimt) 22:30, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • I realize your apology may be an attempt to calm the furor here, but I don't think it's necessary. WP:UP gives User:R wide latitude over the management of his user namespace (for example, using ((db-userreq)), he could reasonably have any of his user subpages, including all their revisions, deleted quite quickly). There apparently is now a lot of concern about insignificant revisions being deleted in jest, but, at the time, it was done as a good faith response to a good faith request, and I believe it was in line with both the word and spirit of WP:UP. But, I digress.   j    talk   22:44, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Well, reverting the removal of racism when backed by consensus is actually prohibited by WP:USER, and it spells out the larger problem. This is a Wiki. Daniel 02:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • Totally agree. However, I also believe that it isn't necessary to delete the whole page to instigate such a consensus removal of material. Surely a message to the reverting user could also serve the same purpose. Will (aka Wimt) 08:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong KEEP: This is a userpage - its also not putting Wikipedia in any danger. One goal of Wikipedia is to develop a community. Isnt that what R is doing? Actually - Attempting to do? It isn't a personal web page, sure, but its still a userpage. Plus the reason for requesting this MFD had nothing to do with the content of the page in itself. (I do think that there is discrimination going on here, but that doesn't warrant this MFD.) master son^{T - C} 23:58, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, what about how my removal of a racist remark and how I and others were reverted at least five times, despite having a clear consensus and WP:USER on our side? Is that harmless?

But it is an exclusionary community by its very nature, much like the erstwhile Esperanza project was. --MichaelLinnear 00:08, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's still userspace and would need to be dealt in that matter. MFD is not the solution here. master son^{T - C} 00:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• STRONG KEEP. Is there some level of discrimination? Yes. Should this MFD have happened? No. While there might be some headstrong users wanting to maintain the humor that only single letter named users edit that page, that's a completely different issue from whether the page should exist. I believe it should. As far as I know, the user names do not violate policy. If this is the case, then I think it's fair to allow the group. Why? Because it's in good humor. Should multi-lettered user names be banned from editing that page or using IRC? No. But that's an issue elsewhere, not here. --Son 00:21, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hardly. There's no "Request for permission to edit a certain page" (hence why we're a Wiki), so there was no other way to resolve this. Daniel 02:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • That doesn't mean that the page should be deleted. --Son 03:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment As User:I has mentioned above, the creation of ASCII usernames to illustrate a point has been brought up here. All are more than welcome to comment. (→O - RLY?) 00:36, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Closed as not blocked. Daniel 02:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Meh, just stop blatantly abusing the deletion tool to remove "unwanted edits" from the history and accept that from time to time other people may want to edit the userspace, even when they don't have single character usernames. It is somewhat exclusionary, but if what I just said is followed then who cares? Let them have their fairly pointless fun, as its not as if these are non-contributors who are using wikipedia purely for social networking. Viridae^Talk 01:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's not allowed, apparently, to the point where consensus removals are reverted five+ times on the basis of who is removing it. Daniel 02:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, to be fair, it was only removed on the basis that it wasn't a SL user once, and it was the initial revert of yourself. Reverts after the initial removal were made by another editor because of differing opinions as to whether or not the comment should still be there. I  ^{(said) (did)} 02:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Funny and harmless cabal. Chubbles 03:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete although harmless, it is also completely unnecessary and gives the wrong image of Wikipedia as a set of cliques. The fact that these users have all massively supported the recent RfAs for R and E with such clear rationales as "has the support of the single letter cabal" is a sign that this is sliding down the same path that forced the deletion of Esparanza. Pascal.Tesson 12:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok... The above was indeed written quite carelessly and it certainly was not intended to be so aggressive in tone. Still, let me try to clarify my thoughts here. I stand corrected: very few SLGs got involved in the RfA of E. There were however quite a few in R's. Perception is the key here: whether or not these supports are a direct result of the SLG is irrelevant. The fact is that "has the support of the single letter cabal" sends the wrong message. The same can be said for N's comment below that he did not support E's nomination: if you think E is not ready, why not mention that in his RfA? I am not saying that there is any sort of conspiracy to have SLG editors promoted to adminship. What I'm saying is: these kinds of social-networking substructures in Wikipedia inevitably induce unwelcome distortions in things like RfAs and unnecessarily contribute to the perception that cliques rule the wiki. Those concerns had a lot to do with the demise of Esperanza. Pascal.Tesson 10:17, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note - Not "all" of "these users" have massively supported the RfAs for the users you mentioned. I did not know that R or E had an RfA (correction, I did know "R" did, but not as part of SLG; I even commented on the thing) until I read it here. The painting with the same brush is what got us into this position. Simply because I chose to be clever on someone's user page does not mean I endorsed or even had knowledge of what any other user was up to. - U 18:09, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Ok, officially I am on wikibreak and am not discussing any *fds, but I will *NOT* allow myself to be smeared like that. Saying that "these users have all massively supported" ANY RfA is both a complete lie and a huge personal attack, which I'd have half a mind to make into something bigger if I weren't on break. I knew of User:E's RfA, and made a comment on it, which had NO effect on the vote itself, OR supported him either way. I only vote on editors that I'm at least somewhat familiar with, but regardless of that, there was no conspiracy to promote him or anyone else- and if there was, then we must be a pretty shitty cabal for our own members not to know about it. If we were a cabal and we were that badly organized, we'd pose no harm anyway! --L^augh! 18:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I made that comment on R's nomination as a joke. However, it should be noted I did not support E's nomination, as I don't think he's ready for adminship. HTH. -N 18:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - I believe that, within limits and within userspace, there are legitimate uses for humorous and trivial pages. In most deletion discussions, we evaluate content against whether it is actively benefiting the encyclopedia; however, in deletion discussions for userspace content, we need to ask whether it is actively harming the encyclopedia. This is clearly doing nothing of the sort. Furthermore, all of the single-letter editors are active contributors - none of them are just here to show off their special usernames, and it's an established principle that those who contribute actively are allowed substantial leeway in their own userspace. Walton^One 12:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - and I am a member :) -- Y not? 17:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • May I ask your reasoning?   j    talk   17:23, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah. It's meaningless, and has no collaborative purpose. WP:MYSPACE. -- Y not? 18:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - WP:MYSPACE. Miranda 02:03, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Respectfully, WP:NOT, and, specifically, WP:MYSPACE do not mention anything relating to the MfD at issue here. Wikipedia allows autograph books in the user space. The page is not for "social networking." Nobody is hanging out there, looking for dates or parties to go to, or long lost schoolmates. The page is intended to be a humorous page on which there is a list of all the weird Wikipedians with only one letter in their username.   j    talk   02:13, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - It's in userspace, it's harmless, and this level of drama is just silly. Lighten up, Francis' - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak delete. It could have been fun and harmless, but right now it's just weird, backwards and cliquish. Grandmasterka 06:10, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, no, I don't like it either, but traditionally we've been lenient wrt allowing things in user space. I fail to see how this is divisive. >Radiant< 08:38, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep per discussion on the talk page, in which any user is welcome to participate in. — E ^talk_bots 10:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep for now; if this turns into a Giantly Dramatic Mess That Refuses to Quiet Down, then we can discuss esperanzifying it. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 14:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep the page does no harm. So what if a group of users wants to have their own page in one of their members userpages. (though perhaps the shortcut WP:SLG could be deleted). New England ^{(C) (H)} 14:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The WP:SLG shortcut should be deleted . --Son 16:38, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Semi-Delete Per Radiant!, and the fact that this is not much different from the autograph books (sorry for the WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS vio), however, neither the signature pages nor this page help build the encyclopedia, and with the addition of this page being rather bureaucratic, I will have to vote Semi-Delete. —« ANIMUM » 16:34, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  That's a new one :-) --Boricuaeddie ^hábleme 17:09, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How is it a "new one"? :-P —« ANIMUM » 23:31, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep It's not all-exclusive, nor is it preventing us from making a better encyclopedia. Sr13 17:19, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please check the logs for the page if you have not already done so, whereupon you will find that the page was deleted and restored by numerous sysops per request of the group to keep the history "pure". —« ANIMUM » 23:29, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Newyorkbrad. The exclusivity got a little out of hand, ((sofixit)), it doesn't need to be burned with fire. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• D. Oh, no, K. Oh, whatever. Duja► 19:20, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Now that is an opinion I respect! -- Y not? 05:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - Per Walton One and Newyorkbrad. Just Keep the VIP aspect out of the group. --Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor (ταlκ) 20:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yet even as this discussion continues the page continues to be deleted to purge edits by people 'outside of the club' from the history. --Gmaxwell 23:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Um, what? It was deleted once, but was speedy relisted since the discussion had not even been existant for 48 hours, and there was no consensus. The page is actually protected currently, and all edits to the page have been restored, even ones deleted way before this MfD. I  ^{(said) (did)} 00:01, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - and get a life, people. We have oodles of articles needing all sorts of fixing, and here we are arguing over an autograph page. Stop finding stupid things to fight about and go find something useful. The Evil Spartan 23:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - user:Newyorkbrad had it right. Many of the reasons expressed for deletion here are irrelevant to deleting the page. The alleged racist comments, the exclusive IRC channel, the purging of edits from the history are all actions that certainly merit community discussion, and I know I find more than one unacceptable. These are not however, reasons to delete the page, other processes exist for that. Nothing about the page itself is unacceptable within the traditional bounds of user space, and most of the reasons for deleting are as Newyorkbrad put it, "red herrings." --Ybbor^Talk 00:10, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per Krimpet. TomTheHand 00:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep. It's in the userspace, and his pretty much harmless. Although those without single letter names should be allowed to edit and such. T (Formerly Known as FireSpike) 07:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete Per WJBscribe. Also, allowing only certain users to edit the page is a violation of WP:OWN. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, not users with a single letter user name. ~ Wikihermit 12:57, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete The way I see it is: Could it do harm to Wikipedia?(yes, it already has) Could it really benefit wikipedia?(no, not really. At best, it's a humor page) Nathanww 16:09, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment from author-First of all, I just got back from a trip and found this. I'm sorry to have caused all this fighting and everything. It wasn't meant to harm the project or own anything. It was just an attempt at humor. I am requesting it and all pages associated with it be deleted. It was just an attempt at humor in the userspace. Apparently, a lot of people took it the wrong way. --(Review Me) R ^ParlateContribs_@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 22:26, 20 July 2007 (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.