User:Travb/E

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Politically motivated AfD's: the elephant in the room

(originally posted on village pump, before it was automatically deleted)

It seems like Politically motivated AfDs are the "elephant in the room"--which everyone sees, but no one can mention. Certain editors will go around in groups (some people call them "cabals") and actively push their own narrow POV.

It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will vote to delete pages which are against their political beliefs, yet fervently support to keep similar pages which suport their political beliefs.

Partisan editors voting record is clear--if an article is against their narrow POV, no matter how well written it is, how well sourced it is, etc, it will be put up for deletion, and this little group will vote against it. I have been an editor for just over a year, and I have been troubled by the amount of articles which have been deleted by partisans of ALL political persuasions, right or left.

It is clear that certain editors are doing it because they are biased and slanted, but no wikieditor can actually bring this up. When another wikieditor brings it up, people scream WP:NPA. I support WP:NPA fully, but in some cases, policies are detrimental. WP:IAR? Policies are tools to help us wikieditors build a better encyclopedia. When a small group of users is actively deleting well referenced material because of political bias, then the policy rule needs to be reevaluated.

Why is the word (insert title here) cabal so off limits?

Why when anyone brings up the subject, they are heckled off the talk page?

One user suggest this:

If an editor or a group of editors is pushing a narrow POV then follow the dispute resolution process. I know it's a lot of work, but going through the trouble of presenting a case with evidence and diffs is what's needed to rise above (possibly subjective) accusations of POV pushing. Is this the only option?

Any other experienced editors have suggestions? Travb (talk) 23:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If cool, rational discussion between editors doesn't work (or isn't possible), then the Dispute Resolution process is the best option. Taking unilateral actions or appearing uncivil can only hurt your case. It can be slow and, yes, tedious, but the process is still your best bet. Good luck. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 23:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Doc Tropics Thanks for your comments.

I am just wondering if there is any system which is faster, which has been proposed before. WP:DR is tedious, and can be disruptive to all of the editors involved. I am concerned how much well researched information is deleted on wikipedia, often by editors who have agendas and strong POVs.

I am looking for editor suggestions, other than the tedious WP:DR.

"Taking unilateral actions or appearing uncivil can only hurt your case." I agree 100%, I was once booted for being uncivil on an AfD and for singling out one editor. Travb (talk) 00:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You could try to find a neutral 3rd party to help with some informal mediation. It might be a good option if the editors involved are all amenable. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 01:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• First, discuss the topic on its discussion page. In some instances, some discussion on an individual editor's page might be helpful, too. In some cases, not.
• Get other editors involved. Cite the article which appears to be "owned" by a "cabal" on a discussion page like this one where additional editors might view what is going on. Often enough, just getting 2 or 3 more editors with a fresh point of view irons the wrinkles which are preventing a reasonable, neutral article.
• There is the process of WP:Mediation and Request for comment and so on.
• In the other direction, WP:DE (Disrutive Editors) is a new guideline which is still being hammered out, but you might find some help there if you post your example to its discussion page. Terryeo 01:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks User:Terryeo. From a quick glance at WP:DE, I don't know if making WP:DE a policy is a good thing. We can discuss my opinion of WP:DE on another page, including the WP:DE talk page, if you wish, I would like to focus only on the AfD issue here. After spending some time on Wikipedia_talk:Disruptive_editing#comments_about_this_article, I don't think WP:DE applies :( Travb (talk) 03:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old example

Old example, removed from above:

It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will attempt to squelch 9/11 consipracy theories by putting these articles up for deletion. (Just for the record, I do not support any 9/11 consipracy theories)

Another example is a user's page, who actively attempts to delete all conspircy theories:

User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard

I am sure there are other user pages like this. I bring this one up simply because it is the only one I am aware of. Any other editors now of others? Travb (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

While this is a reasonnable concern, I find your example pretty unconvincing. I, for one, have voted on a couple of these 9/11 AfDs and even added a couple to GabrielF's list if I remember correctly. But I fail to see how why this should be viewed as a political question. You seem to assume some political motive behind this string of deletions but I see no evidence of this. I'm not American and I don't have a political agenda around here and to me this is just another effort to clean up some of the cruftiness. I view that particular list like I would the equivalent list that would point out the Pokemon cruft. The few 9/11 conspiracy I got involved in concerned not-so-notable 9/11 truth movement participants, were for the most part blatantly point of view and seemed to exist mainly to give credibility to far-flung theories of the nonsense. To me their deletion was less a political act than their creation was... Are cabals a real problem? maybe. Are politically motivated cabals a problem? I have yet to see convincing evidence that they exist. Pascal.Tesson 01:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It is only one example, I don't want to get in a debate about this one example, I am only interested in the problem in general...Travb (talk) 03:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The example travb offers does not support the accusation's he's making. I didn't create that userpage to eliminate articles because of their subject matter, I created it because there were a flood of non-notable 9/11 conspiracy articles nominated for deletion around the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and I thought it would be useful to create a list of them. Please understand that article's weren't nominated because someone disagreed with their subject matter - nobody nominated Alex Jones for example - they were nominated because they were essentially free publicity for non-notable people and books. As evidence of this, I suggest that readers examine the AfD discussions linked to at the page in question. You'll see that 46 of about 55 AfDs were deleted or merged and many of the nominations were not challenged. We are not "squelching" anything by nominating an article about a book that appears in fewer than 40 libraries in the world for deletion. Furthermore, I explicitly state at the top of my page that articles can only be listed if the nominator believes the article inherently violates some policy such as notability guidelines. Finally, the page is completely transparent - anyone can add to it or comment on a listing. GabrielF 03:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

User:GabrielF, maybe it is a bad example, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and moved it from the main question. I hesitated to use examples, and maybe I shouldn't have. The reason why I probably should't have including examples is because I don't want to get in an argument here about which pages should be deleted and which should not. I have simply noticed that some editors will vote for a page's deletion regardless of the content. With some editors you can guess how they will vote in an AfD before even seeing the AfD. If your page, User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard does not fall into this catgory, my apologies. Travb (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but then I still wonder whether if the elephant is really in the room. Groups of editors have indeed, at times, acted as a single block in a sequence of AfDs, regardless of content. This has happened for instance in the case of school AfDs (to cite but one example). But I don't know of a case that one can seriously consider as politically motivated. Pascal.Tesson 04:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe ideologically motivated would be a better description. Again, arguing whether or not 9/11 conspiracies should or should not be on wikipedia was not my intention in writing this talk page topic. It is clear now that it was definetly a mistake to use any examples at all. Thanks for your comments Pascal. Travb (talk) 11:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

While this appears a perfectly good example one needs to anayse things one has no access to. For example there appeared to be, but may not have been, a core of editors who wished the 9/11 Controlled demolition article to be deleted, and their rationale appeared to be able to be said to be "George Bush is right, so there". Agaknst the deletion arguments were a group of people who appeared to think that "It has to have been conspiracy, so the article must stand". In all probability each apparenty partisan grouping cancels the other out. A good closing admin will also be able to spot spurious arguments and discount them. It is not a ballot, after all.

In the middle ground are those who argue Wikipedia's corner. Put plain, a good, notable, verifiable, well sourced article shoudl stay and the rest shoudl either be improved to that standard duringthe AfD process or go. Taking the 9/11 article I mentioned, the closing admin did just that, and several editors have been battling with the article to make sure it can no longer be criticised. That is a valid outcome for a work of reference such as this. Also any ashortcomings in the article can be highlighted on its talk page and improved.

There are different results with Schools. For example it had long been held that a Primary School was not inherently notable and worthy of an article, but a secndary or high school was. There was a sudden rash of sub-stubs from a less than communicative yet prolific editor that generated many AfDs. The often used argument against deletion came from the same names and was on the basis that "Every school is worthy of an article". The deletion arguments came from others with the view that the long held view of deletion od primary schools (or better the non creatioon of the articles) was necessary unless there was inherent notability. Verifiability alone was not and should not be enough, for even the smallest school is verifiable The Elephant in the Room is probably not politics, but is dogma. And it appears that it is on each "side" of a deletion discussion. But it is also easy to see "cabals" where none exist. People have often shared the same opinions but have not even been loosely grouped together. Fiddle Faddle 12:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Facinating, excellent points. I can tell you have been an editor for sometime. Thanks User:Timtrent /Fiddle Faddle. Travb (talk) 16:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

"All" we need is what we have: sufficient Wikipedia oriented editors and Wikipedia oriented admins to be able to recognise the danger of Room Elephants of this nature, and to neutralise that danger when closing AfDs. It really does not matter if 10 people yell "Delete" or "Keep" with no rationale except "I want it to be (choose your action)", or "My brand of dogma says it must be (choose your action)" and only one presents a cogent argument for the reverse. The good admin will close it to meet the cogent argument coiupled with their understanding of the article and Wikipedia policies and guidlines. A good admin needs to see past spurious "but it passes WP:Invent a reason here, so it must stay" too.

This is one reason I do not wish to be an admin. So much rests on an admin's shoulders in terms of getting it right that the role is one that very few people are likely to do well. We're lucky that so many of our admins do not display bias. We have a few who appear to display it, which also makes us unlucky. But we do have community scrutiny. After all, if you show me an editor or an admin who has never made a mistake I think I can show you one who is new to the role.

I do believe that admins and only admins should close AfDs. And I believe that the admin who closes a heated AfD has a clear duty to explain the decision. An excellent example is the closing rationale here. It does not matter whether one agrees with or disagrees with the decision; that is a completely different discussion. What matters is that one can see the process clearly. In this case the discussion remained live until the point the admin froze it before closing it, because time was needed to consider the huge number of points made by the various contributors. It was a reasonable interval later that the results were published. And the rationale is clear to see for any subsequent review by us, the community. Fiddle Faddle 17:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Two responses:

• AfD is not a vote. Votes made with a biased justification, or without justification, would typically be disregarded.
• Only articles with severe, irreparable bias can be deleted on the basis of bias. More often, if an article has a bias, someone who opposes it can simultaneously improve the encyclopedia and promote their own POV by making it more neutral. This is the invisible hand of wiki at work. Deco 21:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Timtrent wrote: We're lucky that so many of our admins do not display bias.

User:Timtrent, you are either:

a) incredibly naive about wikipedia, which you obviously are not.

b) Someone aspiring to be an admin and kissing ass, which you say you are not,

c) you must be editing different articles than I do, or

d) you generally only see the glass half full and filter out the rest, whereas I see it half empty.

Russians say a pessimist is an informed optomist. Your statment, I am sorry, is absurd. Everyone has bias, cultural bias, religious bias, political bias. I guess maybe you meant to say We're lucky that so many of our admins do not display much bias. Which, I would respond, which ones? I would really like some names, because I want them to be judging me if I ever get in a content dispute.

For example, try bringing up the idea of copyright to many of these editors. They overwhelming believe in the capitalist/liberal economic mantra: that copyright is a good, and that fair use should be very narrowly constued. They are incredibly biased on this subject. Do you know how many times I was told by admins out of the blue that adding an image to wikipedia was "stealing"? Basically saying I was a theif? When someone says such strong words, you are not only dealing with bias, you are dealing with an ideology. It is pointless to argue anymore at that point.

Goodness, I am going off on tangents, human beings are hardwired and socially trained to not look at the big picture. When I go off on tangents (i.e. the bigger picture), I usually lose people...Anyway, back to the subject matter:

What matters is that one can see the process clearly.' here is bias right now. Your bias, "belief" as you call it, is that the process works, that wikipedia works. I am arguing, and my bias is that the policy sometimes doesn't work, and should be fixed. I am looking for suggestions to fix it, since you seem to clearly feel that wikipedia doesn't need to be fixed, "'All' we need is what we have" then I guess we will simply agree to disagree. I am looking for possible solutions to what I see as a problem, not more rationalizations, I have gotten a million of those before, and they are starting to lose their luster (value).

RE: AfD is not a vote If I had a nickel for everytime I heard this argument. AfD is a vote. Wikipedians decide whether or not they want to keep the article, that is a vote. An AfD is not a democracy though. A select group of wikipedians, who are admins decide whether to keep the article. It is a vote, and calling an AfD not a vote is absurd, wikipedia just calls it something else, but for all intensive purposes, it is a vote. Since the idea that an "AfD is not a democracy" is repulsive to most people who believe that democracy is the best form of government, and anything that has the word "democracy" in it must be good, and anything that is not a "democracy" is bad, wikipedians, the majority who are American and believe this "democracy" ideology, decide to make up a grammatical fiction (in law we call they call it a "legal fiction"):

"The AfD is not a vote"

....when in reality it is a vote, it just isn't a democracy. Again, I am going off on tangents.

I don't want to waste time arguing whether an "AfD is not a vote", unless you have some incredible insight which I never thought of.

Votes made with a biased justification, or without justification, would typically be disregarded. (I didn't read the rest of your comments)

Again, more the "system works" arguments, please see my statment above. I am not here to convince obidient wikipedians that the system is corrupt, nor argue whether the AfD system is or is not corrupt, I am here to garner suggestions of how to fix a corrupt system. I am also not here to argue the levels of corruption. Travb (talk) 04:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)