Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war

Scope comment by User:GRBerry

There was also some close-open reversion of the deletion review this morning. The number of actions is smaller and the parties overlap slightly but are not identical. I recommend against the ArbComm including that in the case, but thought it should be mentioned. GRBerry 00:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree and suggest that we add Gaillimh (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) in particular to the list. Gaillimh made a WP:SNOW closure of the DRV twice thus contributing considerably to the flareup by denying anyone a place to discuss this controversial matter. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

A comment

Just chiming in to say that undoing an admin action once is not wheel warring, so Bumm13 shouldn't really be a party to this case. Zocky | picture popups 00:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Given that the article had by then been deleted and restored 5 or 6 times within the space of an hour, I would suggest that Bumm13 was wheel warring, as was anyone else who subsequently deleted or restored the article rather than allow for discussion and cooling down, and definitely should be a party to the case. Proto ► 00:55, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

If Bumm13 made the first undeletion then I could partially agree with that statement, but only partially. The policy states:

is a struggle between two or more admins in which they undo another's administrative actions — specifically, unblocking or reblocking a user; undeleting or redeleting; or unprotecting and reprotecting an article.

Undoing another admin's action once is not considered a wheel war, although it is still preferable to discuss it with the other admin first. Doing it twice, or repeating your admin action after someone has undone it, is wheel warring, unless a significant period of time has elapsed between the initial administrative action and its repetition.

Therefore, by this definition, the first undoing did not consitute a wheel war but he may have done something that is counter-recommended by the policy by not discussing the matter first. (It is even possible there was some discussion that has not been presented.) Certainly this should be considered as the case unfolds. Johntex\^talk 01:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You may want to read the log again. Newest actions go on top. Bumm13 did the first undeletion, which was the second action on the article today. Yanksox deleted, Bumm13 undeleted, and then all the rest happened. Zocky | picture popups 01:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Chacor

This is a mess. One side ends up happy, the other side pissed, and nothing good will come of it. I do believe, however, that while some parts of this "wheel war" were not wheel warring, they may have been uncivil. For example, Freakofnurture's second restore, "2,276 revisions restored: i've just been told the revisions were oversighted. restoring so sheep voters can actually read the article." Emphasis mine. I'm sorry, unacceptable incivility when things aren't going your way by an admin. That's all I have to say on this. – Chacor 01:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

While I regret my choice of words, I meant what I said, and I'd like to ask whether you believe that "votes" of "XXX per User:YYY", made by users who do not have access to read the content, should be given equal consideration. —freak(talk) 02:59, Feb. 24, 2007 (UTC)

Statement by blissfully uninvolved user Peter M Dodge

I have to say, it does not surprise me in any way that this happened. The administrators that were desysopped all have a record of this kind of behaviour. That we consider to let them misbehave in such a way is as much a reflection on the community as it is on the administrators involved. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. It is about time that hard sanctions are placed on these users and a clear line drawn in the sand that this behaviour is completely and unequivocally unacceptable. ✎ Peter M Dodge (Talk to Me) 01:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

It was inappropriate of you to put your comment in the RfAr itself, and it was subsequently moved here as a result. Please use more care in the future. Thanks, CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to butt in, but you shouldn't say such a thing about our administrators. People make mistakes, but you shouldn't talk about them in such a matter, even if you are uninvolved. bibliomaniac15 02:08, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to butt in, but you shouldn't say such a thing about our blissfully uninvolved users. People make mistakes, but you shouldn't talk about them in such a matter, even if you are Bibliomaniac15. WAS 4.250 03:13, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Really, is any of that little witty series of remarks going to help aid in reoslving this dispite, which is the core idea of this process? C'mon, guys, think of Essjay :) Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 12:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I would encourage you to provide evidence that The administrators that were desysopped all have a record of this kind of behaviour. it should certainly inform the ArbCom decision on sanctions and any future RfA's. I would not have thought it to be true, but have a very limited perspective. Eluchil404 06:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war/Workshop#Track record of the involved parties attempts to address these perspectives. —freak(talk) 21:19, Feb. 24, 2007 (UTC)

Statement by even more blissfully uninvolved user Casey Abell

It's times like these that make me enormously happy I'm exo. I just want to reiterate the one itty-bitty remark I dropped into the original discussion at WP:ANI. An out-of-process and/or unjustified deletion pushes constructive editors away from Wikipedia perhaps more than any other administrator action. If a grunt-level editor reverts or alters an edit of mine, I can at least still see what I wrote and whether the revert might have been justified. But when an admin makes thousands of edits go poof – especially with a grossly insulting log summary and completely outside normal Wikipedia process – a lot of hard-working writers are going to get plenty ticked, with good reason. Such deletions are even more irritating than unjustified blocks. After all, only one editor gets blocked at a time; a single deletion can destroy the hard work of dozens of good-faith contributors. Several admins in this case have displayed great sensitivity toward Daniel Brandt. I only hope that ArbCom will display the same sensitivity toward the people who actually write this encyclopedia. Casey Abell 19:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for recusal

Since Kirill Lokshin and Mackensen have both voted on Brandt's DRV, I respectfully ask them to recuse themselves from this case. jgpTC 11:27, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

That made me laugh out loud. Thanks. WAS 4.250 19:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

This arbcom case is about whether admins should quickly reverse other admin actions, and doesn't need to address what the the "correct" outcome of the DRV might have been (even if that does come up, I'm certain the arbcom will do everything they can to avoid ruling on that, since it usually avoids ruling on content issues if at all possible). --Interiot 20:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I hope you're right. —freak(talk) 21:16, Feb. 24, 2007 (UTC)

On a marginally related topic, it wouldn't be a bad idea for Arbcom to assist in determining the outcome of the DRV. Otherwise we're going to be right back where we started. --BigDT 02:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

That is the sort of content dispute that Arbcomm normally stays out of. The current primary DRV closers are myself and User:Doug Bell. User:Xoloz (who was the regular DRV closer for at least half of 2006) has already indicated a willingness to come back and help with this close also. If you think any, or all, of us wouldn't be able to do an unbiased close, please let us know. We are currently thinking that at least two of us will close it jointly. We also could probably could get User:Coredesat who is another occasional DRV closer or User:Trialsanderrors who was the regular closer for late Nov-early Feb to join us if need be; neither of them has opined in this yet. But we still have a few more days before it will have had its five day run, so no hurry to decide. GRBerry 03:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement of regret by uninvolved NYC JD

Heads have rolled here and will probably stay rolled. It is a sad day for the community. These are good, good people. I hope the Arbitration committee can (forgive) (overlook) an embarrassing momentary flipout by some of the wheel-warring sysops and allow them to continue doing their invaluable work here. - NYC JD (make a motion) 00:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I second that sentiment. --BigDT 02:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

(Probably tangential) Statement by uninvolved Colourburst

I think clearer procedures for DRV would have avoided at least some part of the wheel war, or at least give enough guidance so that we can point to the procedure and say "this is the normal procedure, there should be a good reason to not follow it". Wikipedia:Undeletion policy is woefully out of date right now (it talks about a majority vote when we have long since moved to a rough consensus model). It (meaning a clearer DRV procedure) may not have prevent this unfortunate series of misunderstandings, but it may have mitigated some of it (mainly the whole keeping stuff deleted while in DRV - the current model is to either delete recreated versions or to put up a protected notice with the history available, something more consistent is needed here). ColourBurst 04:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

There is very little more clearly broken in wikipedia than our deletion process. I know of no solution that would gain ready consensus, but I have seen ideas floated that I would like to see tried. We clearly need some cat herding here. WAS 4.250 05:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by User:Messedrocker

We sure are spending a lot of time on a single article, aren't we? —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 05:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Gaillimh

Clerk note: Moved to the main case page since Gaillimh is now a party. Newyorkbrad 20:23, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Temporary Injuctions

I've logged the desysopings and related comments as to their scope in to the temporary injunctions section here. I try not to get heavily involved in arbcom cases, so if this is unhelpful or entierly out of process, please revert. Thanks, — xaosflux ^Talk 04:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Confirmdeletetext

After having read about this case here, I've added a link to the page log in MediaWiki:Confirmdeletetext. This text is shown to admins when they are about to delete a page. --Ligulem 10:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Even better would be to have the deletion log automatically appear, as it happens with the block log when you try to block a user. It would also help to decide whether or not to WP:SALT a page after multiple recreations. Kusma (討論) 13:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree. That would need a change in MediaWiki, though, I think. Shall we file bug? --Ligulem 13:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

As I already mentioned on the workshop page (someone else had the same idea there), we cannot file a bug right now, because Wikimedia's bug tracker is currently offline. --cesarb 15:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I strongly agree with this as well. The deletion screen is pretty small, there's plenty of room at the bottom for listing the most recent deletions/undeletions. Similarly, it should be possible to do this for the protection page as well. --Interiot 18:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Er... As far as I can see, this is already done for the protection page. --cesarb 20:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

bugzilla:9118 --cesarb 20:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree too. Note that the deletion interface is the odd one out; the relevant log fragment appears in the blocking interface, the protection interface and even the undeletion interface too. --bainer (talk) 06:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for recusal2

Given that my past conflicts have become part of the subject of the case Essjay should withdraw due to his involvement in one of them[1].Geni 13:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

If you are going to bring in that arbcom incerdent I don't think it unreasonable that Paul August recuse as well.Geni 03:58, 3 March 2007 (UTC)