Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-12-11 BooyakaDell

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Wikipedia Mediation Cabal

Article: Multiple wrestling articles see User Contributions of User:BooyakaDell, User:Curse of Fenric and User talk:81.155.178.248 State: New Requested By: User:Lethaniol Other Parties: User:BooyakaDell User:Curse of Fenric

Contents 1 Mediation Case: 2006-12-11 BooyakaDell 1.1 Request Information 1.2 Mediator response 1.3 Compromise offers 1.4 Discussion 1.4.1 Personal attack? 2 Lack of good faith shown by Booyakadell

[edit] Mediation Case: 2006-12-11 BooyakaDell

[edit] Request Information

Request made by: Lethaniol 00:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Where is the issue taking place?

On multiple non-US based wrestling pages - both organisations and biographies

Who's involved?

User:BooyakaDell User:Curse of Fenric but likely others including random IP addresses.

What's going on?

User:BooyakaDell is putting notability tags on various wrestling articles, User:Curse of Fenric among others are removing the tags, but some pages have been deleted either by AFD or PROD. The exchange is getting very heated and beyond my control - with warning templates being slapped on user talk pages. I have tried to mediate (am Adopter of BooyakaDell see WP:ADOPT), but am failing, see my talk page for discussions - User talk:Lethaniol. Situation is complicated by fact that BooyakaDell is thought to be a potential sockpuppet - see Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/JB196. Situation has been brought to Admin attention - not sure how they are responding see under BooyakaDell, Wikipedia:Requests for investigation.

What would you like to change about that?

The all parties agree notability criteria for wrestling articles and then apply in good faith. Oh and that no one gets banned. Also in the interim that edit warring stops and that the discussions can be held in one suitable place.

Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?

No - swoop down on flying horses for all I care. I will inform parties that I have contacted you.

[edit] Mediator response

[edit] Compromise offers

The most basic compromise I can think of is that we both agree that we are both here to improve Wikipedia and that the trouble is thatwe simply are going about that different ways because we have different standards for notability.BooyakaDell 01:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Another idea for a compromise is that me and Curse each achknowledge how we could have handled this situation better. We both edit warred with each other. In addition, we posted messages on each other's talk pages, some of which may have been out of good faith and others which may not have been out of good faith. I'm just bringing up examples of what exactly we could achknowledge we each did wrong as this may perhaps be another form of compromise to consider. Thank youu!!BooyakaDell 18:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

As I mentioned here [1] standards of notability may vary from country to country. I'll bring the discussion over here, as the points made were never addressed on Lethaniol's talk page. Please note that I'm not really intending this to discuss the two pages in question, more the general points it makes regarding notability in different countries:

Right, a situation has arisen which ties in nicely with this. Notability tags have once again been added to two wrestlers who work in Puerto Rico, Glamour Boy Shane and Thunder(wrestler). I'll give you a quick outline, as from what I can gather you're not overly knowledgeable with regards to wrestling.

• There are four major wrestling markets in the world - America, Japan, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The UK/Europe could have been considered 20 or more years ago, but not at the current moment in time.
• Both wrestlers have wrestled extensively for both major promotions in Puerto Rico, World Wrestling Council and International Wrestling Association, Glamour Boy Shane having worked for approximately 5 years for each promotion.
• Both promotions have 2 different TV shows each week [2] and [3].
• These TV shows are shown on high profile channels WAPA-TV and WKAQ-TV, not shown on some minority fringe channel. A quick look at the articles linked will confirm this for you.
• On the front page of the IWA website [4] there is a list of results, I'll just use the ones from November for the sake of brevity:

1. Results: Levittown 11/25/06
2. Results: Juana Diaz 11/24/06
3. Results: Peñuelas 11/19/06
4. Results: Carolina 11/18/06
5. Results: Arecibo 11/17/06
6. Results: Carolina 11/11/06
7. Results: San Lorenzo 11/10/06
8. Results: Hato Rey 11/05/06
9. Results: Cayey 11/04/06
10. Results: Toa Alta 11/03/06

• That's more shows than any American independent promotion did in the month of November, and other months would easily show similar results. I don't have the details for WWC due to their site being in Spanish and difficult to navigate, but I'd imagine they would be similar.

As I've just shown, wrestling is popular in Puerto Rico. The promotions are shown on major TV channels, and the promotions run a significant number of shows. However BooyakaDell seems to think the wrestlers are not notable. However, when edited the article of a US independent wrestler J.C. Bailey he did not see fit to add any notability tags. This wrestler does not appear on TV, and has not appeared for any major promotions. So why did he not add notability tags to this article? I won't speculate as to his motives, but it seems any wrestler or promotion from outside America is non-notable, whereas any from America are notable regardless of how insignificant their contributions are.

Is Wikipedia an encyclopedia that covers global notability, or just American notability? 81.155.178.248 01:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I think 81.155.178.248 brings up an excellent point. All this trouble is occurring on non American promotion/wrestler pages for the most part (there have been exceptions, but they are in the minority).

Booyaka was advised not to edit anything until the situation was resolved. He has ignored this advice (I think it was from Lethaniol from memory) and went ahead with his own version of notability. That's why I slapped the three tags on his talk page as a warning.

With regard to his rejection that he is JB - the fact is that JB was banned for doing precisely what Booyaka is doing now. So if there is any consistency in admin procedure - with respect to the admins here - Booyaka should suffer the same fate.

I've been about as patient as one can with this situation. His persistent tagging when told not to for whatever the reason (whether it was me or Lethaniol) frankly - in my view - pushes this beyond mediation. Personally, I can not rid myself of the notion that this IS JB. Sorry - that is how I feel about it. And Booyaka runs onto my talk page (check the history if no one believes me) and bluntly tells me to "get the notion....out of my head". Sounds like a guilty man to me, but I'll be the first one to say that without a checkuser this can not be proved. So let's compare Booyaka's behaviour to JB's and see what we get. The similarities - from what I can tell - are staggering to say the least.

To be honest - I don't know what mediation can achieve. I stand by my assertion that Booyaka is applying a hard and fast interpretation of the notability rules, when there is more than one interpretation within the structure. It is designed that way for flexibility, and that is the way that it should be. Booyaka - if anyone - is ignoring the spirit of that flexibility (and therefore the notability rules), and when this fact is brought to hihs attention he proverbially puts his fingers in his ears. The last three tags (Action Zone Wrestling, Chuck E Chaas and Carlo Cannon) were three too many for me. Frankly I've had it with Booyaka. He does not understand how notability works when it comes to wrestling, and I'm not the only one having problems with this person. Sir Fozzie for example is taking a wikibreak because of this mess, and frankly I don't blame him!

And I am not the other user. An admin with check user can check if they wish. Curse of Fenric 06:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Booyaka is continuing to place large numbers of tags on articles, and also listing articles for deletion. I would strongly contend that carrying on with the same behaviour that caused the problems in the first place while mediation is ongoing is totally inappropriate. 81.155.178.248 10:41, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

My two cents: On 3 December Booyaka nominated all three of New Zealand's regularly promoting professional wrestling organisations (IPW, KPW and NZWPW) as non-noteable, in an action that, if succesful, would essentially have purged the New Zealand wrestling scene from Wikipedia. There were and still are legitimate weaknesses with these articles regarding citations, but given that all three (particularly KPW) are frequently edited it would have been more constructive to note these weaknesses on the talk page and give the community some time to respond, either by rebutting specific criticisms or editing the page to meet them. I won't comment on sockpuppetry, desired outcomes etc because I really don't know much about Wikipedia governance and how these things are usually dealt with. But I will say that, assuming Booyaka is editing in a good faith to improve Wikipedia, he's made things difficult for himself by swooping down on the pages in an area he's obviously not particularly knowledgeable about (in this case New Zealand's pro wrestling scene) and attempting to 'raze and burn' it rather than engage constructively with the Wikipedia editors who are knowledgeable about the area. - Conniption 14:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello to those involved in this mediation. If the promotions which I marked as not being notable were indeed notable as Curse of Fenric contend they are, then there would be people in the afds other than Curse and the anon IP arguing for them to be kept. As of this point, there is not even one person other than those two have argued that any of the articles I tagged for afd be kept, so in my opinion, the tags that I placed were all warranted and the afds back up that point.

Conniption - Your point that I am not knowledgeable about the New Zealand wrestling scene is made less strong by the fact that as of this point everybody besides Curse and anon ip 81 who have posted in the afds agree that the New Zealand promotions I have nominated are not notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article. I do agree with you that there are ways I could have handled this situation better.

The fact that neither of us is innocent in this whole matter (which I think Curse needs to achknowledge--if nothing else he edit warringed) is NOT the only thing we have in common - the other thing we have in common is that we are both trying to improve Wikipedia. All three of us are wrestling fans who wish to make the wrestling articles on Wikipedia more accurate, more informative, and better written which is one step towards improving Wikipedia as a whole.

Curse of Feneric and anon IP 81 as well as myself are all out to improve Wikipedia, as evidencing by the positive edits we have all made to Wikipedia. It seems that we have different standards for notability and that very well may be the brunt of this dispute. I achknowledge that local notability is important as Curse of Feneric says. However, when multiple people support the deletion of an article for it not being notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia, then I think that that article should be deleted. We will see what happens with the afds I have began.

As long as Curse of Feneric acts in good faith and realizes that we are all out to improve Wikipedia, and assuming that he is willing to accept whatever results comes out of these afds (and I agree to accept whatever result comes out of them), I am happily willing to refrain from nominating any articles for afd for the next two weeks.

I also want to thank Lethaniol for his patience in dealing with this issue.

See Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Professional_Championship_Wrestling_(Australia) , Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Professional_Championship_Wrestling_(Australia) , Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Wrestle_Zone_Wrestling , Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Action_Zone_Wrestling , Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/New_Zealand_Wide_Pro_Wrestling BooyakaDell 17:41, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The above comments, especially However, when multiple people support the deletion of an article for it not being notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia, then I think that that article should be deleted. show a lock of familiarity with Afd procedures. Afds are not votes, this is made explicitly clear. Case in point [5]. Several editors have agreed with the nomination, but the comment by Capitalistroadster clearly shows that the promotion is notable. WP:CORP states:

A company or corporation is notable if it meets any of the following criteria:

1. The company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company or corporation itself.

* This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations except for the following...

The number of comments made in favour or against is not relevant; it is the weight of their arguments which is the determining factor, again this is made explicitly clear.

Also, my comments regarding global notability have again been ignored. The token reply seems to be "well they aren't notable, other people agree", rather than actually addressing the issues raised. 81.155.178.248 18:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I did not say they were votes; I said they were expressions (of support or opposition for a move, a merge, a deletion, or another major change).

If there are third-party non-trivial sources, then I encourage you to add them in to the respective articles.BooyakaDell 18:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

AS I stated above, expression of an opinion one way or another realistically means nothing in Afd. It is the weight of arguments brought forth that is relevant. I encourage you to address the many points raised on this page, instead of constantly ignoring them. 81.155.178.248 18:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• I am at this point not encouraged to participate in what amounts to a one way discussion. Booyaka is clearly trying to be an admin. Everything I have done has been in defence of the Wikipedia ideal, and I have therefore done nothing wrong. I reject all his claims on the grounds that he is acting in bad faith, wrecking the base of independent wrestling in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and the UK - especially the first two. That can hardly be described as positively contributing to Wikipedia.

• I consider the mediation to be over. Booyaka is a vandal, and should be removed from Wikipedia in my view. He is a threat to it - as was JB196 who did the same thing. If he is not deleted within 48 hours - I will be leaving, for good. Curse of Fenric 20:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

My knowledge of this case is limited to the one article, Action Zone Wrestling, but I can say that the most effective way to combat the deletion of that article would to add sources to it. I don't see how you can be so upset with someone who's proposing unverified material for deletion - WP:V says that any unverified material may be removed. We're trying to get all of our articles sourced, not to host information that we have to take an anonymous editor's word for. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Just want to put my .02 in (yes, I am on a short term wikibreak due to frustration with the whole issue, but poked my head in).

As User:Lethaniol requested, I am not going to bring up BooyakaDell's similarities to JB196, because that cannot be 100% proven (although I do believe the two are the same and under ArbCom rulings that they should be treated the same). Instead I will deal with the other reasons that have made it impossible to WP:AGF with BooyakaDell.

The thing is, Booyaka does not want to compromise at all. You can see it time and time again throughout the articles he's edited. He's not willing to give a single inch. He will do whatever it takes to take down articles he does not believe are notable. Examples are articles such as Glamour Boy Shane and Thunder(wrestler).

He tagged the articles with the notability tag. However, when Curse and others presented evidence (see above)) of notability, he promptly slapped three more tags (including "Verifiable") on it. That is the EXACT opposite of acting in good faith, indeed it's acting in the worst faith, completely disregarding other's viewpoints. Booyaka seems to believe that he is Lord Most High of Notability, and anybody who disagrees with him on any iota is to be ignored, reverted and to be worked around.

I agree with user:Curse of Fenric that a mediation will not do anything. In fact, when Lethaniol started this mediation (and I appreciate and applaud that he's trying to find a peaceful resolution), he suggested that BooyakaDell hash out issues here before continuing to tag articles.

The friendly and helpful advice was promptly ignored, as he went on to PROD a few more articles and tag other articles. Booyaka will say anything he feels necessary to get admin attention off him, and then continue editing in his(in my opinion, tendentious) typical manner. SirFozzie 22:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "evidende of notability" that doesn't come in the form of independent sources. That's all that "notability" means - a subject is "notable" if it's doucmented non-trivially in multiple independent sources. It's not a comment on the topic's significance or anything like that, it's a comment on whether or not we have enough sources to write a verifiable article on that topic. If we don't, we have to delete. Otherwise, what does our verifiability policy mean? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Look above. There was VERIFIABLE evidence of notability in the cases above, which was promptly ignored. SirFozzie 22:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Are we talking about Glamour Boy Shane and Thunder(wrestler)? Why are there no references to this verifiable evidence in either article? Articles with sources should be kept, and those without should be deleted. I don't see what the problem is with someone pointing out which articles are currently unsourced. If you react by providing sources, then Wikipedia gets better, and everyone wins. If nobody provides any sources, what are we supposed to do? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Look right above with the list of match results from the IWA-PR site SirFozzie 22:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, ok, but who'd going to know to look here? That link, and any other links you can find to sources talking about these people, should go in the articles. Articles with sources actually provided in the article are much less apt to be tagged as unsourced. How are people supposed to know that the content is verifiable if you don't indicate anything about where it can be verified? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

It was made on User:Lethaniol's page days ago (and copied here, and the Notability tag was removed. Booyaka then added the wikify, verifiable etcetera tags (which is a major impediment to WP:AGF) to the article. He never gave it a chance to be added to the article SirFozzie 23:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Margin...

getting...

too...

wide...

must...

outdent...

There, that's better. Ok, I don't see how he could "never give it a chance to be added". You can do it right now, right? What's stopping you? As for the wikify tag, the quickest way to get rid of one of those is to wikify the article. These actions shouldn't be an impediment to assuming good faith. It's pretty clear to me that Booyaka is trying to implement Wikipedia policies and guidelines as he understands them. There may be a more congenial way to do it, and we can work on that, but I see no evidence of bad faith from anybody in this dispute. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

And here we go out again.. *Grin* I will add that tonight when home from work, and only then remove the excessive tags SirFozzie 23:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personal attack?

Sirfozzie, how can you say I'm not assuming good faith and yet here (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Curse_of_Fenric&curid=6822185&diff=93668500&oldid=93665616) YOU call ME a "bastard"?BooyakaDell 22:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

It's called an old saying, "Booyaka".. "Don't let the bastards get you down"... SirFozzie 22:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

(sorry for the dola post, but just in case folks think I violated WP:NPA, let me cut off Booyaka's argument at the knees, here's the full sentence. "Despite the vandals and shit, it's still a worthwhile endeavor, and it'd be a shame to let the bastards win by running good editors off". CoF is frustrated with WP right now (a viewpoint I heartily agree with, and the reason I took 48 hours off a couple days ago), but I was trying to say it has its good points too. SirFozzie 22:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Please lets not get concerned about the phrase "Don't let the bastards get you down" etc... it is a good old English phrase, I should know as I am from England, and as it was not directed at anyone. It is sort of like the phrase - "Keep your chin up" - meaning don't let the situation (general) get you down. There are more important things to discuss - and I don't think that this comment by SirFozzie was directed at any one but the situation. Lethaniol 00:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Lethaniol. Trust me, I am trying to WP:AGF, and maybe it would help if Booyaka didn't fly off the handle assuming that every thing is an attack at him. (couldn't hurt, could it, at this point?) SirFozzie 00:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of good faith shown by Booyakadell

Yesterday it was made explicitly clear by GTBacchus [6] that the removal of tags is NOT vandalism. This was clearly read and understood, as you can see a reply from Booyakadell underneath. Yet while constantly claiming others are not assuming good faith, he edited these pages [7] [8] [9] today leaving an edit summary of "vandalism". This was after it being made perfectly clear that the removal of such tags was NOT vandalism.

Furthermore, there is clear evidence that his edits and use of tags are wholly inconsistent. Teddy Hart and Matt Sydal have both been edited by him recently. The Teddy Hart article contains absolutely no references at all and therefore cannot be verified, but there are NO tags added to the page. Matt Sydal's page has 2 external links as references, neither of which can be used to verify the majority of the information in the article, and again, there are no tags. As these articles aren't concerning Australia/New Zealand/Puerto Rico/UK/etc they have not been tagged, therefore showing a clear bias against any non-American/Canadian (in the case of Teddy) article. 81.155.178.248 02:06, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually you overlooked my putting a ^{[citation needed]} tag on Sydal, hehe. Despite what you have stated, there is not one point that you have brought up which I have neglected to address. The points you insist I have neglected to address have actually been shown to be totally invalid and/or incorrect in previous posts by me or somebody else (sometimes yourself). There's no point to responding to them when they've already been addressed.BooyakaDell 02:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, you've totally lost me. Can you please explain your justification for adding tags requiring verification and sources to Puerto Rican wrestlers which have unsourced information, while totally ignoring that the entire Teddy Hart article is unsourced? Furthermore, you added unsourced information to the article [10]

Also if you insist you have addressed all my points, please quote each of my points while putting your counterpoint underneath, as you have addressed nothing that I can see 81.155.178.248 03:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

BooyakaDell, I would agree with 81.155 regarding edit summaries. I suggest that it's a bad idea to describe edits as "vandalism" unless they are clearly efforts to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. If someone replaces an article with a picture of a penis, or inserts random profanities, or changes the release dates of Beatles albums to the 1870s or something, then you can be pretty confident that you're dealing with vandalism. If, on the other hand, someone is doing something that they might think is an improvement, then it's not vandalism. They may be wrong, misguided, against consensus, biased, ignorant of policy, and a jerk to boot, but that won't make them a vandal. The trouble with accusations of vandalism is that they engender ill will, and make productive discussion difficult. We have to work together, if we're going to work here at all, so it's necessary to maintain an atmosphere in which discussion can happen without stooping to ad hominem attacks. Please be careful about this in the future, thanks. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

GT - I agree with you and understand where you're coming from. I will make sure not to call something vandalism in the future unless it is blatant. Again sorry about that.BooyakaDell 05:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Can you please explain your justification for adding tags requiring verification and sources to Puerto Rican wrestlers which have unsourced information, while totally ignoring that the entire Teddy Hart article is unsourced? Furthermore, you added unsourced information to the article [11] 81.155.178.248 12:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)