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Party Statement I'll offer an explanation, but mainly an apology. Reversing another admin's action is wrong - and despite my sense of being justified - it was wrong to do it, and negligent in checking the facts before doing it. I apologise and will accept whatever medicine arbcom choose to deliver.
Daniel Brandt was deleted by Yanksox citing amonst other things 'privacy reasons'. It was listed on DRV, and (at the time in question) the deletion was being massively endorsed. For reasons not relevant to this, I was delighted by this, and thought Wikipedia was finally doing the right thing, and moving WP:BLP to its logical conclusion. I went away for a short period. I returned to find that, despite the gathering DRV consensus to keep deleted, the DRV had been closed and the article undeleted, and filed on AfD. That seemed unacceptable - we don't undelete something deleted for 'privacy concerns', we don't undelete when nearly all who were commenting were supporting the initial deletion, we don't forum shop. The purpose of DRV is to decide whether we undelete it, or relist it, - and DRV was then clearly saying 'no'
I re-opened the DRV [2], closed the AfD [3], and then re-deleted the article in order to allow the DRV to run its course - my rationale was "still on DRV - leave it there - no consensus to undelete and relist" [4]. Foolishly, I did not check the deletion log for the article, had I done so and seen that 6 actions separated mine from the initial deletion, I would certainly not have acted in this manner. For me to reverse an admin on the strength of defending the DRV consensus was bad enough, but I would not knowingly have engaged in a multi-admin wheel war. I was under the misapprehension that I was simply replacing the status-quo of Yanksox's deletion that was under consideration by DRV.
Having entered this limited mitigation, and pled guilty at the bar, I do not intend to defend myself or criticise any other party's actions. I now consider myself on a 0-RR regarding admin actions.--Docg 00:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
On 4 February 2007, Majorly did a delete followed by a selective restore to purge personal information from the history[5].
On one of the time periods while the page had been undeleted, I noticed there were no deleted revisions; it could be either because the revisions with personal information had been oversighted, or because they had been restored together with all the others. I decided to err in the side of caution and delete the whole article[6]; I also added a warning on the discussion on the noticeboard about that[7]. I also commented on IRC about it, where after some time Majorly said these revisions had already been oversighted (Majorly also said the same on the noticeboard[8]).
After that, I told Freakofnurture (also on IRC) that it had already been oversighted; Freakofnurture then restored the article[9].
I deleted several redirects to the Daniel Brandt article while it was deleted, together with the associated talk pages (log; look on 23 February 2007 between 17:02 and 17:16). At the time I had not noticed the wheel war; I had only noticed it was on DRV, and the DRV had already been closed (it was this revision). I fully intend to restore them if/when the article is restored and it does not look like it's going to be deleted again in the next few minutes.
Since I had been looking at the Brian Peppers talk page DRV, things somehow got mixed in my mind and I thought Daniel Brandt was on one of the Wikipedia:Protected titles lists. Thus, when I saw the Daniel Brandt article recreated as a redirect[10], I quickly protected it, noting that the creation of the page as a redirect would disable the title protection[11]. The protection was lost when the article was deleted again a few minutes later[12]. This was also during the time before I noticed there was a wheel war (see previous section).
I really don't have much to say other than what I did and my exact reasons for doing so:
After seeing that Yanksox had deleted Daniel Brandt, I thoroughly read the top deleted revision of the page, looking for any material that might be unsourced, unduly negative, or otherwise afoul of the biographies of living persons "BLP" guidelines, and found nothing of the sort. Additionally, but of lesser importance, the article met no generally accepted criteria for speedy deletion, so I restored it, fully unaware that it had already been restored and deleted again by Bumm13 and Deskana, respectively (neither of whom I've heard of). I did this because I believed this deletion was grossly improper. —freak(talk) 00:18, Feb. 24, 2007 (UTC)
After I restored the article, Yanksox deleted it again with the summary "How do you make so many Wikipedians go apeshit? By arguing agaisnt their squewed logic that is based upon sophmoric revenge. This site has gone to the pits, let's clean it up!" I interpreted portions of that as a personal attack, possibly directed toward me, so I calmly commented at his talk page. [13]. Regardless, I feel that personal attacks should be weighed on their own severity, regardless of location (edit summary, deletion summary, etc. or in paragraph form — it should make no difference). —freak(talk) 00:18, Feb. 24, 2007 (UTC)
Most recently, I saw that CesarB had deleted it again, stating that "The careless restore restored revisions with personal information which should not be restored (check the deletion log). Please restore only the revisions which were not already deleted before". I contacted CesarB on IRC saying that it would be good to get an WP:OVERSIGHT to handle that if it if what he said was true. He responded saying that it had already been done. Meanwhile I examined the deletion review discussion and concluded that many of the people commenting had probably not recently, or ever, had the chance to read the article as it stood, so I restored it again, and protected it in the blank form containing only the "please see deletion review" template, and directed all further attention to the discussion in that forum. —freak(talk) 00:18, Feb. 24, 2007 (UTC)
Per the Brandt article log, Yanksox deleted the Daniel Brandt article at 1253 UTC on February 23, 2007. Yanksox gave "(privacy concerns, more trouble than it is actually worth. Are you people even human?)" as his edit summary. I was frequenting the Wikipedia IRC channel as I typically do when I became aware that the deletion had occurred. I was surprised that no administrator action had been taken regarding the matter, given that no discussion had recently taken place to suggest that the article was going to be deleted.
During this time, a deletion review regarding the article was started by User:Cool Cat at 1354 UTC [14]. At 1547 UTC (almost 3 hours after the article was initially deleted), I decided that something wasn't quite right and went ahead to undelete the article but only restored the latest version of the article and history, giving "This deletion was not discussed and is current under review at DRV" as my edit summary; I assumed that the article was deleted out of process and thus should return to its previous state during DRV discussion (similar to how things work regarding WP:AFD). User:Deskana appropriately posted a comment [15] on my talk page regarding GFDL issues with having an incomplete document-edit history, so he went ahead and restored the article's history via deletion.
Soon after, Deskana posted another comment on my talk page stating that it's best not to undelete an article while pending deletion review [16], so I heeded his comment and made no further actions regarding the Brandt article. Various other admins, including Yanksox (who originally started the chains of events surrounding the article deletion controversy) deleted and undeleted the Brandt article after my previous (and only) deletion and Deskana's undeletion/restoration of the article's history. I never had any intention of interfering with the appropriate actions taken by any of our administrators. Bumm13 12:53, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I thought I'd present a timeline of what happened, in order get a clear overview of the situation. This covers both the wheel warring on the article itself and the edit warring on the subsequent deletion review discussion.
Admin actions performed on article | Edits to DRV debate | Edits to AfD debate | Dialog between parties | Other edits to article |
All times are in UTC. Note that the whole thing takes less than five hours; beginning with the first undeletion, all actions take less than two hours. Many actions occur within minutes of each other.
Time | Action | Performed by | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
12:53 | Article deleted | Yanksox | Deletion summary: "privacy concerns, more trouble than it is actually worth. Are you people even human?" |
12:55 | Talk page deleted | Yanksox | Deletion summary: "privacy concerns, more trouble than it is actually worth. Do you people use common sense at times? We are not obliged to do this nor are we proveyers of knowledge" |
13:28 - 13:46 |
| ||
13:54 - 13:56 | Listed at DRV | Cool Cat | NB: listing was actually done in two edits. |
14:06 |
| ||
15:47 | Article undeleted | Bumm13 | Undeletion summary: "1 revisions restored: This deletion was not discussed and is current under review at DRV" |
15:48 | Article deleted | Deskana | Deletion summary: "drv currently in process, do not recreate this page in the mean time" |
15:50 |
| ||
15:52 | Talk page undeleted | Bumm13 | Undeletion summary: "540 revisions restored: Talk page is associated with an article that was deleted without prior discussion; article talk pages shouldn't be deleted without discussion" |
15:55 |
| ||
16:01 |
| ||
16:24 | Article undeleted | Freakofnurture | Undeletion summary: "2,270 revisions restored: everything here is referenced. there are no defamatory statements, nor unsourced ones." |
16:26 | Article deleted | Yanksox | Deletion summary: "How do you make so many Wikipedians go apeshit? By arguing agaisnt their squewed logic that is based upon sophmoric revenge. This site has gone to the pits, let's clean it up."
NB: this action was performed at 16:26:10. |
16:26 | DRV discussion closed | Gaillimh |
Comment made on closure: "deletion endorsed per WP:SNOW and more importantly WP:BLP" NB: this action was performed at 16:26:31. |
16:26 | Talk page deleted | Yanksox | Deletion summary: "note: I'm not gone, but I'm sick of lemmings that follow a scribe from above without even thinking twice"
NB: this action was performed at 16:26:43. |
16:27 - 16:40 | Article nominated for deletion | Chacor | NB: the page was prepared over several edits. |
16:32 |
| ||
16:35 |
| ||
16:37 | Edits made after Gaillimh's closure removed from DRV debate | Doc glasgow | Edit summary: "rv edits to a cloded debate" |
16:39 | DRV discussion reopened | Mark | Edit summary: "revert closure of active debate that is by no means uncontested and is in fact not snowballing the way of 'endorse' " |
16:40 |
| ||
16:41 |
| ||
16:41 | Reversion of reopening of DRV discussion | Gaillimh | Edit summary: "rv back to previous version by doc" |
16:50 | Reversion of reversion of reopening of DRV discussion | Bumm13 | Edit summary: "undoing unilateral archiving action by User:Gaillimh" |
16:51 |
| ||
16:55 |
| ||
16:57 | Second closure of DRV discussion | Steel359 | Edit summary: "Daniel Brandt DRV closed, article has been taken to AfD" |
17:04 | Recreated as redirect | Hipocrite | Edit summary: "redirect to what he's notable for" |
17:07 | Article protected | CesarB | Protection summary: "creating a redirect nulifies the cascade protection, protecting by hand instead [edit=sysop:move=sysop]" |
17:09 | Article edited to display AfD notice | Malo | Edit summary: "article is back on AFD again" |
17:10 | Article undeleted | Geni | Undeletion summary: "2,270 revisions restored: out of policy and process deletion. The guy's long history of campianing makes him noteable." |
17:12 | Revert closure of DRV discussion | Doc glasgow | Edit summary: "no consensus to relist - clearly being endorsed, let it run" |
17:14 | Article deleted | Doc glasgow | Deletion summary: "still on DRV - leave it thre - no consensus to undelete and relist" |
17:15 | AfD closed | Doc glasgow | Edit summary: "close - no consensus to relist" |
17:15 |
| ||
17:16 | Article undeleted | Geni | Undeletion summary: "2,274 revisions restored: no that would still be out of process deletion AFD is thata away" |
17:19 | Article deleted | Mailer diablo | Deletion summary: "going back on DRV; let's settle that first" |
17:20 |
| ||
17:20 | Article recreated with DRV notice only | Mailer diablo | Edit summary: "on deletion review, period."
NB: this action was performed at 17:20:46. |
17:21 | Article protected | Mailer diablo | Protection summary: "((Delrev)) [edit=sysop:move=sysop]" |
17:22 | Article undeleted | Geni | Undeletion summary: "2,274 revisions restored: the arogence of asking people to vote on an article they cannot see is incredible" |
17:23 |
| ||
17:29 | Article deleted | CesarB | Deletion summary: "The careless restore restored revisions with personal information which should not be restored (check the deletion log). Please restore only the revisions which were not already deleted before." |
17:31 |
| ||
17:32 |
| ||
17:45 | Article undeleted | Freakofnurture | Undeletion summary: "2,276 revisions restored: i've just been told the revisions were oversighted. restoring so sheep voters can actually read the article." |
17:45 | Article protected | Freakofnurture | Protection summary: "drv [edit=sysop:move=sysop]" |
17:52 |
|
--bainer (talk) 13:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Geni has disputed part of one of the findings of fact, so I submit this additional evidence to illustrate how that finding can be reached.
On the basis that:
it may be deduced that if Geni had consulted the deletion log, Geni would be aware of the DRV debate.
Geni's undeletion summary was "out of policy and process deletion. The guy's long history of campianing [sic] makes him noteable." I submit that the only way to determine whether any prior deletion is "in" or "out" of process is by consulting the reason for deletion, available in the deletion log. Since Geni made such a determination, it is logical to infer that Geni had consulted the deletion log.
Thus it may be inferred that Geni was aware of the DRV debate when undeleting the article for the first time. --bainer (talk) 14:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
My only assertion with regards to this whole thing is that I didn't take too kindly to Freakofnurture's restoring comment at 17:45 ("Undeletion summary: "2,276 revisions restored: i've just been told the revisions were oversighted. restoring so sheep voters can actually read the article.""). I personally find "restoring so sheep voters can actually read the article" a violation of WP:CIV. Side note that Freak has, to his credit, responded about this on the main talk page of the RFAR. – Chacor 13:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
In response to TheBainer's evidence regarding the events that happened at 16:26, the deletion of the article was actually performed 21 seconds before the closure of the deletion review. This can be confirmed by looking at these two pages generated by the MediaWiki API:
Tra (Talk) 23:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Geni restored [17] Daniel Brandt after an administrator (User:Hoopydink, who has utilized their right to vanish) deleted it [18] on December 8, 2006. His reasons for restoration were essentially the same then as they were in the most recent wheel war (asserting Brandt's notability): "Not A7 student protest days got him enough profile particlay [sic] when you consider his later work", on 9 December and "out of policy and process deletion. The guy's long history of campianing [sic] makes him noteable [sic]." most recently.
Geni also engaged in a minor wheel war [19] over the deletion of Talk:Brian Peppers, restoring the page twice one day before the Daniel Brandt wheel war (February 22, 2007). I can't read the deleted edits, as I'm only a humble user, but it seems that Geni was trying to preserve a message that he had left on the talk page. PTO 02:55, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
My deletion of the article was mainly for housekeeping reasons; I apologize for possibly worsening the situation unwittingly. I absolutely had no intention to wheel war.
There was a confusion of whether the discussion should take place at deletion review or articles for deletion (AfD). In this case, the article is assumed to be speedy deletion and should fall under deletion review, which is also the first discussion initiated. Things became messier when the review was closed, and brought over to articles for deletion. Doc later closed the discussion and brought back to deletion review. It should be noted that Geni undeleted the article shortly after the AfD discussion was closed.
This was the version that I saw before I deleted the article - [20] 01:09, 24 February 2007 by Malo. As the discussion is now closed the notice is now inaccurate. After I deleted the page, I replaced the deleted page with the Deletion Review notification ((delrev)), and protected it. I also share the sentiment of Deskana that undeletion of the article would not be suitable given that it is on deletion review. I also did note the possible problem of editors not being able to view the deleted edits, but both Chacor [21] and Kirill Lokshin [22] have pointed out that it is possible to retrieve them cached in two seperate discussions.
After Geni has overturned my deletion, he left a note on my talk page [23] in which I replied to and debated on which is the correct process. [24] - Mailer Diablo 03:25, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
In addition to the evidence produced above, this happened during the Arbitration Committee Elections 2006. If they hold any relevance now – Logs of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006/Candidate statements/Questions for Paul August – [27]. diff – [28] — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 13:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Yanksox received "barnstars" or awards from Doc Glasgow [29], Hipocrite [30], Mailer diablo [31], Messedrocker [32], Tyrenius [33], Random832 [34].
This culminated in this, the launch of a petition to canonise Yanksox. "We the underside[sic] call on the powers that be to officially declare Yanksox a saint of wikipedia, a defender of our humanity, and an all round good guy." Catchpole 19:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
With opposition to this statement [35] removed [36], SqueakBox 21:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Gaillimh was given sysophood on 4 February 2007 by Redux as the reincarnation of an administrator who had previously left Wikipedia. [37] Catchpole 12:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
(further evidence submitted via e-mail)
I am reserving this section however, I invite everyone to look through each entry in my admin log.[38]. Yanksox 04:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Feb 21, 2007, two days before this wheel war, Yanksox used admin powers in the Brian Peppers incident: deleting and restoring the article, and deleting and restoring the photo. [39]
There was no sudden burning emergency with the Daniel Brandt article requiring quick, decisive, radical action on Feb 23. The article history for the last week shows
Total 19 edits, including maybe 12 vandalisms or reversions, in the past week. While this was a reasonably actively edited and contentious article, it was by no means a raging bonfire. Just for comparison with an unrelated article that I happen to know well, another biography of a controversial living person, Jenna Jameson (history) got about 70 edits, including about 40 vandalisms or reversions in that time, and even that is nowhere near a record.
I haven't looked further, but that covers the last 2 years, and should demonstrate the point sufficiently.
Complete
Here is User:Thebainer's close of the deletion review. The result is to undelete the article, wait a week, then AFD it if nobody has found a better solution in the interim. GRBerry 15:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks to User:Mackensen for providing the reasearch. I present herewith some evidence regarding Geni's history of reversing the actions of other admins:
Here's Geni revert-warring with Anthere over the site notice, in January of 2006:
And another revert-war over the site notice, this time in July/August of 2006:
Finally, there's the time he undid protect on an OFFICE-protected article without consulting Danny, back in March of 2006. This occasioned his second temporary de-sysoping (c.f. [45]).
Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.
Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.