Advocron

"Lord of the Flies" Administration

The administrators I've dealt with have been extremely civil - not just as a front, but genuinely so. My complaint is not personally directed at any particular administrator but rather the administrative process.

I will describe something that happened to me in an AfD discussion that involved the actions of an administrator, but not for the purpose of denigrating him. Call him BUB (Blindly Unaware of his Bias). The issue at hand in the AfD was the notability of a certain computer company. I came in on the side of the computer company. I was immediately "evaluated" by BUB (his word), a euphemism for having my IP blocked and being branded as a sockpuppet of the only other advocate of the computer company article, a person I'd never heard of. Here's the problem: BUB was the same person who initiated the AfD nomination! Thereby bypassing the whole AfD process. The administrators are supposed to *judge* consensus, not *create* consensus by booting their detractors. This judge-jury-executioner style of administration stinks. -Advocron 05:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

A point somewhat weakened by the fact that, as it turns out, you were editing under multiple usernames. Oh, and the fact that it was a janitorial nomination of SEO spam. And was deleted by consensus. Oh, and the fact that I am perfectly open about my bias against spammers. Just zis Guy you know? 22:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I had only used one username in the Puget Computer discussion (your AfD nomination), when you booted me out and blocked me on the grounds that I was a sockpuppet for HayMeadows, someone I'd never heard of. And that was the first time I'd ever used that particular username. You had no way of knowing at the time that I had multiple names, and you didn't know. I don't see how any of this weakens the case against your blatant non-neutrality, JzG. Stop rewriting history. You perfectly well know what you did and why you did it. -Advocron 17:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Other Complaints

I find the gangs of deletion yahoos (fanatical deletionists) and the administrators who enable them troublesome. You see these rallying cries of "WP:VAIN", "WP:BIO", "WP:CORP", etc. When you look into it there's usually nothing in those articles that signals a failure of the AfD in question. It's just your basic McCarthyism. Then the so called "administrator" comes along and judges the so called "consensus" for the demise of the article. I really think the administrators should evaluate the validity of the arguments being made, rather than just tallying votes. And I think they should state their reason for deletion or inclusion, based on the WP:xxxx's. Not just, "don't blame me; I just judge the consensus."

While many have mastered the art of civility, some have simultaneously mastered backbiting, stalking, and a variety of other dark arts. One person in particular embodies this for me. Call him ES (Extra Sneaky). ES is not an administrator, or even a deletion yahoo. ES can only be described as a cunt. On the surface, he's mature, ingenuous, and (somewhat) intelligent. But all that only makes his cuntliness even more cuntish. For ES and others who fit this description, take a mental snapshot of your dark side. Then tear it up and cast it into the wind. On a really windy day. Like, small craft advisory. Do humanity a favor. In the case of ES, you'll be surprised how quickly your extensive list of vandals/impersonators/etc. shrinks and eventually disappears. -Advocron 05:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If I had a dollar for every time the author of a deleted article has screamed "censorship!" I would be a rich man. Wikipedia has standards, established by consensus, and these standards exist to esure that we are not overwhelmed by trivia, and that those article we have contain sufficient reliable secondary sources to allow us to verify their neutrality. WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR are immutable policy. Without multiple reliable secondary sources (a degree of external attention often characterised as "notability") we cannot ensure NPOV. Also, of course, WP:NOT a free web host. We have long and ionvolved debates about what is and is not right for inclusion, with constant disputes at the margins. I don't think there is any such thing as a deletionist or an inclusionist, just a spectrum of inclusionism. I don't know of anyone who would seriously try to delete IBM because it's a commercial organisation, for example. Many of those characterised as deletionists are actually mergists: we would rather see one decent-sized and referenced article than dozens of tiny, unreferenced ones. A flower is more beautiful than a scattering of petals, as they say. One thing that many of us do not like is the abuse of Wikipedia to promote political, corporate or religious agendas. When you get a dozen articles on a new "religion" springng up over a very short period, this is almsot always the sign of an agenda being pushed. We push back. I particularly dislike spam, in the Wikipedia sense of the word, and work hard to remove it.

A lot of the acrimony you see on my Talk page is (in my view) the result of people pushing the boundaries of WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV. I have my own views about what these policies mean. Some believe that if all the published sources are uncritical of a subject, albeit they emanate form that subject's proponents, then we can be uncritical about it too. In my view if the subject is not covered in seocndary sources outside of its prponents, WP:NPOV suggests we probably can't cover it at all. These are philosophical debates, of course. I would suggest that you may be misreading some of the deletion debates you have seen; people use shorthand (I know, we should not) and refer to precedent (we don't actually support that either). There are long-running debates such as WP:SCHOOLS, where a small cabal of people who flat-out refuse to compromise prevailed againsta pretty strong majority view that minor schools should be merged into districts; the people who shout "all schools are notable" and "keep all schools" have prevented the deletion or merging of any article on any verifiable school, no matter how insignificant. Not everybody is happy about this. Compared with them,, the so-called deletionists are entirely powerless. All an article needs for a keep is enough people to argue keep. Deletion requires consensus, usually interpreted as a supermajority. It's rare to get that in the case of a genuinely notable subject, and far more common for legions of fans of some ephemeral subject to come along and ensure it is kept. The Game (game) was deleted as unverifiable, the fans set up a website to find a relibale source, and we eventually kept an article on a supposedly widespread global phenomenon on the basis of a single citation fro a Flemish newspaper - still the only mainstream source in existence. Deletionism as a philosophy,a s you describe it here, is futile on Wikipedia. Just zis Guy you know? 10:15, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If I had a dollar for every . . . When someone feels they got group snubbed, naturally they're going to try and find fault with the snubbers. That doesn't mean you can safely assume there's nothing wrong with the snubbers. A deletion yahoo, or fanatical deletionist, is someone who constantly tries to delete articles and never supports them. There seem to be a lot more deletion yahoos than inclusion yahoos. Is it a cabal? Let's save that for a later discussion. -Advocron 17:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

So your vanity article was deleted, and then you found yourself in trouble for defending a known SEO spammer's article on his client. And this is our fault? Of course it must be: it is, of course, inconceivable that you would do anything wrong. Just zis Guy you know? 07:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello

Hello Advocron, is there any way I can help you with any issues? --Terrancommander 16:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Nope. Thanks for offering though. The administrator above mentioned turned out to be very civil. The problem is with the system wherein administrators are allowed to initiate AfD nominations and boot detractors from their own AfD nominations, thereby bypassing the (already seriously flawed) AfD process. Planning to address all this in Wikipedia complaints later on. -Advocron 02:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If you don't mind, could you explain the purpose of this edit? Was it an attempt at WP:POINT? Thanks. --Terrancommander 08:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the nature of AfDs. In this case it was janitorial: having found an evident spammer, I removed their spam from several established articles and nominated their new articles for deletion (after first checking that they were not obviously covered by WP:CORP, which neither was; Puget does not have "multiple, non-trivial" mentions, only a couple of reviews, some of which are self-submitted, and according to the data is not publicly traded, let alone used to calculate a stock market index). As it turns out, the user in question is not just a spammer but a seller of search engine optimisation. If I'd known that I would have deleted them straight off as vandalism; as it is I left Puget because there are keep votes from a small number of editors who have an actual edit history - the other article was an unambiguous delete. The appearance of sockpuppets in AfDs for spam articles is so commmon as to be unremarkable, and blocking them is also a janitorial action. Just zis Guy you know? 09:56, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I'm just trying to help solve this problem the esperanza way. So what was the purpose of this edit? Was it meant to establish a point? Cause a message regarding this matter was posted on the esperanza noticeboard. I'm inclined to think better of it, but it still needs clarification. --Terrancommander 14:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that, Terrancommander. I forget the specifics now, but someone pissed me off and I noticed that they were a member of Esperanza. I found some language in one of the WP's specifically prohibiting the use of Wikipedia for social clubs. I didn't notice at first that it's actually Wikipedia:Esperanza, not just Esperanza, which I assume creates an exception to the social club rule. Anyway, please accept my apologies and carry on with Wikipedia:Esperanza. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Advocron (talk • contribs)

Okay, I see... But don't do it again, thanks. --Terrancommander 17:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't tell me what not to do. Thanks. -Advocron 23:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: Something you posted on WT:ESP

Well, excuse me for belonging to an organization that you disapprove of. I wasn't aware that I had to ask your opinion before joining Esperanza, or any other particular organizations on Wikipedia. As long as you sit in complete judgement of anything that anyone does on Wikipedia, why don't you take a look at Special:Contributions/Elkman and tell me what the hell ELSE I'm doing wrong. I'm already aware that my contributions here don't mean squat to you, to the administrators here, or anyone else, but maybe you can provide fresh insight. You seem to know it all, so why don't you tell us ALL just what you think.

Also, since I contributed to Boston Light, maybe you can tell me how I totally screwed that article up as well. You'll probably have to look back in the history of that page.

Also, tell me who ES is. Again, I'll trust your obvious store of knowledge on this point.

--User:Elkman 02:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• I'm sorry you got the impression that I "disapprove" of Esperanza. As I tried to make clear, I really don't give a shit about Esperanza either way. I was only making some observations. Take some wikidollars and go buy yourself a sense of humor.

• I don't want to engage in any personal attacks which is why I gave not even the slightest clue as to the actual identity of ES. -Advocron 03:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry, but that's not good enough. ES refers, I'm reasonably certain, to myself; given that we've had discussions before (primarily on Talk:Wikipedia), and you seemed unhappy with what I had to say. I'm certainly not out to get you (or anybody else); but sometimes editorial or administrative actions don't go the way people like. I've had articles I made (not about myself) AfD;d, that's life. What isn't acceptable is referring to Wikipedia editors as "cunts" or other profanity; this is all laid out in WP:NPA. And no, using initials rather than a full username is not a way to successfully dodge the rule against no personal attacks--such wikilawyering has been tried many times before, seldom (if ever) successfully.

If I'm not "ES", feel free to let me know; regardless, civility would be highly beneficial on your part.

--EngineerScotty 03:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• ES stands for Extra Sneaky, as I clearly stated. You think you're the only person I've had a disagreement with? Who even said I discussed anything with ES? I don't engage in personal attacks, and I'm not going to start answering questions about who ES is or isn't, thereby narrowing the possibilities of who ES may be. Why all the interest in ES anyway? -Advocron 08:17, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Regardind your comments on my talk page:

Regarding this edit: [1]

I'm not. The only reason I took note of your recent edit to Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia (and your initial contribution to Talk:Wikipedia for that matter) is those pages are on my watchlist. And as mentioned above, the initials "ES" seemed familiar. Trust me, I've got far better things to do then follow users around. That said, users who make suspicious, vandalising, abusive, or other questionable edits do have their contributions looked at to see if there is a pattern of vandalism or abuse; referring to other Wikipedia editors (even in the abstract) with profanities often warrants further investigation. This is standard MO for RC-patrollers and the like; you are not being singled out in any fashion.

I will apologize for one thing; in retrospect, my addition to the deletion review was probably not necessary.

If you have any concerns or questions about my actions, feel free to contact me or an administrator.

Cheers, --EngineerScotty 16:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:MCCARTHY

Please don't create articles to make a point. This is considered vandalism and could lead to you being blocked from editing for a period of time.  (aeropagitica)  (talk)  19:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• I read WP:POINT and I don't see how I'm either disrupting Wikipedia or attempting to make a point. I certainly wasn't intending to vandalize Wikipedia. Can you please clarify? I was only attempting to make a genuine contribution and improve Wikipedia. -Advocron 20:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

As I write this, I notice that the article has been speedied. Just thought I would give you my two cents. I totally understand your concerns but I have to disagree with you about editors putting comments like "Fail WP:CORP". Generally speaking, the guidelines do not give the requirements for non-notability. They instead give the requirements for notability. In other words, unless the article in question meets at least one of the requirements listed, then it fails WP:CORP (or whichever guideline is applicable). To note which part it failed one would have to list the entire article since it doesn't meet any of the guidelines. However, to argue that it doesn't fail, you only have to note which of the guidelines it meets. Dipics 19:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• Ok, that makes sense about the requirements for notability. Still, I've seen a number of examples in which a WP:xxxx was cited as an argument for non-notability, when in fact the invoked guideline argued for the notability of the AfD. -Advocron 20:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, entitling a page WP:x suggests that it is a policy or a guideline, as with WP:BIO, WP:CORP, etc. This implies that the content of article x should either be included in Wikipedia's policies or guidelines considered as a criticism of such. Secondly, McCarthyism is a perjorative political term and is an explicit comparison between the actions of Wikipedia editors and those involved in the McCarthy hearings.

Thirdly, the content of your article is entirely your point-of-view. This violates WP:NPOV. Your thoughts on Wiki policies and procedures should be given at the appropriate policy Talk pages and not placed in an article under the guise of policy. The WP:POINT aspect comes in to play when the article is deleted. Writing an article criticising those who delete articles with the expectation that it will be deleted is making a WP:POINT and is an act of vandalism. Please keep WP:NPOV in mind when creating articles in future and please do not make points when you do so.

This correspondance is now closed.  (aeropagitica)  (talk)  06:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

User account deletion

Hello again. If you want your user account to be deleted, please follow the instructions at WP:U#Deleting_your_user_account rather than listing pages for speedy deletion. The speedy deletion process doesn't delete the user account.  (aeropagitica)  (talk)  16:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Gross incivility

[2] is utterly unacceptable. Any repeat and you will be blocked. Just zis Guy you know? 22:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Trolling?

Are you deliberatly trolling? If yes then please stop if not then please read my reply on the page. That talk page is for discussing the article. Please discuss the article on that page and nothing else. Cheers Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 16:15, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

How could you possibly misconstrue criticism of Wikipedia on the Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia page as "trolling?" Stop vandalizing my edits. -Advocron 16:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Blatant incivility

Why do you persist in making blatantly incivil edits like one? This level of name calling makes it look like you are only interested in pushing your particular point of view, not reaching a consensus. Is this a fair summary, or is there another reason why you continue to assume bad faith everywhere and try to harrass and insult everybody here? Thanks, Gwernol 16:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

What do you expect to find on the Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia page? Flattery? Obviously the adminstrator cabal has decided to focus on vandalizing my edits. -Advocron 16:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I expect you to remain civil and not make personal attacks, wherever you edit. If you are not able to do that, I will politely request you to stop editing at all. Thanks, Gwernol 17:16, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed it again. Wikipedia is not a discussion forum. You cannot keep adding irrelavent comments to that talk page. Discuss the article only please. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 19:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Moved

I have moved your discussions from Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Moved_from_Talk:Criticism_of_Wikipedia. The reasons are explained there. Just zis Guy you know? 10:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)