Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Asset voting

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[edit] About alleged canvassing for this AfD

I posted a message to the Election Methods mailing list about this AfD. I was careful to make it a neutral message, and my understanding is that what I did was legitimate. However, I disclosed the fact of the message in the AfD as a comment, in order to avoid the appearance of stealth canvassing. Because any canvassing and argument over that is not relevant to the proper status of the article, I'm opening up this Talk page for comment on it. The message itself is at [1]. I just noticed that I mispelled the name of the AfD.... I'll set up a temporary redirect for that. --Abd (talk) 23:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Since canvassing is a bad thing, why not skip the redirect, so that everything is more fair? rootology (T) 23:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Were I in Abd's shoes, I would not have written the message. Having read the message, though, I do not consider it any more "canvassing" than an equivalent notice to a WikiProject or even to adding the debate to a Deletion sorting list. But that's just my opinion. Rossami (talk) 00:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Rossami. Rootology proposed the redirect for deletion, which breaks it. I changed that. Don't know how that will go, never participated in a Redirects for Deletion issue before. I don't think the solution to the alleged canvassing problem is to frustrate someone who follows a link. Rootology and Calton assumed that this was canvassing without seeing the message, all they had in front of them was my disclosure.[2] Lotta ABF around here.
In the past, Yellowbeard was able to get articles deleted that did have reliable source, and it is a common problem with AfDs that nobody notices them who knows beans about the subject. So if sourcing is defective, and often articles written by experts are defectively sourced, the article gets deleted. Much better to tag the article, give it time, unless it is truly a hoax. On the project page, Rossami, you mention a vandal who created hoax articles on election methods. There are a fair number of unsourced articles in the voting systems field, or at least there used to be, but I've not seen any that were hoaxes, except possibly for Schentrup method, which was more a private joke than a hoax. Who was the user? Obviously, any contributions he made in creating hoax articles would be gone from my view, but I might ask for some copies. I'm fairly familiar with the field. What I've seen from Yellowbeard is the AfDing -- he *only* files AfDs or otherwise attempts to delete content -- of articles on real topics that were not sourced. For example, Proportional approval voting has some scholarly discussion, probably should be brought back. There used to be major cooperation between Wikipedia voting systems editors and the wiki at [3], and a lot of material was created by consensus rather than reliable source. There's a whole can of worms. Consensus of the knowledgeable in a field is more reliable than peer-reviewed publications, but it's hard to document. Personally, I simply ask the experts. And see the variety of responses. That is more or less what I did with this alleged "canvassing." Ask the experts (and others with interest in voting systems, anyone can subscribe to the Election Methods list) if they have anything to say about it. Experts may well have read some of the papers I can't see because you've got to pay for them.... I almost bought copies of the books about Carroll's voting stuff, but, instead, decided to wait, I've got one coming through interlibrary load. Might take some time. So, if the article is deleted, so what? I'm in no hurry. If better sourcing is found, the article could come back, though my opinion is that there is enough to justify a minimal article at this point. It's a real topic, but the notability is, as yet, marginal. What is in the article, though, is verifiable, and, if not, it should be made so. "According to.... blah blah."--Abd (talk) 01:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Abd's solicitation on the EM list was clearly canvassing and as a matter of policy and precedent should not be encouraged or repeated. The guideline has a 5-part test. All five parts must be met for notifications to be acceptable. Abd's notification failed two parts: being limited and being open. The EM list is not specifically geared towards Wikipedia editors. People on the list have not asked for such notifications, are not necessarily interested in Wikipedia editing, let alone RfD's, and the list does not support their selective exclusion from future such notifications. While the notification message content may have been well disclosed, a list of recipients of the notice and their correspondence to Wikipedia accounts is not publicly available information, as it would be if the notification had been made on-wiki. Some active participants on the list may not have received the notification if they use their email readers to filter out messages from certain authors, something that has been encouraged on the list in lieu of an active moderation feature. Also, the EM list is not neutral. It has no policy on neutrality and makes no attempt to practice it. The EM list has many election method advocates and inventors who might be interested in gaining access to a soap box based on a weakening of Wikipedia's policies to be more "inclusionist". In that regard it could be significantly biased in its response to a solicitation for an RfD. While Abd's message content might in isolation seem neutral, it should be evaluated in a larger context of attempts to recruit people in support of changing Wikipedia content and policies. DCary (talk) 23:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Cary has it backwards. What happens off-wiki is not relevant to certain parts of WP:CANVASS. And those are the parts. The EM list is indeed open, as is Wikipedia. However, its membership includes election experts who might be able to cast light on sources. The concept of "selective exclusion" is certainly weird. It seems to me that Cary is attempting to make up Wikipedia guidelines )WP:CANVASS isn't policy, and, frankly, a charge of canvassing against me for that notification doesn't have a snowballs' chance. Most of what Cary wrote about the list is totally irrelevant. The mere possibility of some bias is not enough. I wonder, how did Mr. Cary find this AfD? Was it through the posting to that list? If so, I'd rest my case! I'm not aware of any other editor who might have appeared here from that mail, though there might be some. Posting to that list was similar to posting to Wikiproject voting systems (which I also did). Both would include people interested in voting systems. Again, if what I did was wrong, RfC me. You want to see canvassing, look at what Yellowbeard did during my RfA. And, indeed, look at what the nominator did for the last AfD Yellowbeard voted in. He notified three people, not major editors of the article, whom he could have expected reasonably to be in favor of deletion, he mentioned me in the AfD itself but did not notify me, I only saw the AfD because he notified an editor, with about a third of the edits I had to the article, whose Talk page I follow.
As to the charges of "attempts to recruit people in support of changing Wikipedia content and policies," I'm puzzled. While I haven't done it (that is, I have not recruited people from outside, period, but I certainly do discuss possible changes on-wiki and on En-l, see current activity on my Talk page), is there something wrong with that? I.e., aside from meat puppetry? Something is seriously weird here, and I'm surprised to see it from Dcary, I would not have expected it from him. --Abd (talk) 05:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] EconomicsGuy's comment. Verdict first, trial afterwards.

This comment was made on the project page:

  • Delete Still not notable despite the campaign to pass it off as such. Where are the sources other than an article describing the basic idea without calling it asset voting. Try spending less time campaigning here and on ANI and more time adding sources. Also, support what Rootology said above. EconomicsGuy (talk) 01:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no campaign. There is a community considering the article, and I'm someone who has long been interested in the topic, but would not dream of using Wikipedia to promote it. In fact, there is reason to suspect that the AfD was created precisely because I mentioned it as an aside in article Talk for Instant-runoff voting. But to show that would take a lot of evidence presentation.... if it becomes important, I'll do it.

However, while I voted Keep, I'm not strongly attached to it. I *am* attached to having good AfD process, and much about it currently, in a word, sucks. I've been reading a lot of Carroll, lately, and the Queen, the one who is always saying "off with his head," talks about "verdict first, trial after." What we have in AfDs is a process whereby most editors "vote" before having seen all the evidence. This is a formula for bad decision. The saving grace is that the votes are supposed to be irrelevant, and the actual decision is made by the closer. But if they are irrelevant, why are we worried about canvassing? What I did, in any case, and EconomicsGuy seems to be joining Rootology and Calton in being concerned, was to attempt to solicit comment, in a rigorously neutral manner, from experts on voting systems. I did not violate WP:CANVASS even technically and certainly not in substance. The comments claiming violation, and the farrago of blame about wikilawyering when I said I didn't, came *before* the content of the email message I sent was made available, and the only "evidence" these critics had was my own disclosure (which right away rules out "stealth canvassing"). Verdict first, trial afterwards.

As to AN/I, there was block evasion, abusive socking going on here. I happen to think that more important than the keeping or deleting of this particular article. It would appear that some editors here don't join me in that concern. I guess you gotta choose sides.

However, even though this was not my article, I did not create it though I made one edit to it, I did, yesterday, put in maybe four hours researching this. I could not read the sources most likely to contain references needed, not available on the web, as far as I could find, I have one book coming through interlibrary loan and another I bought on Amazon. That will take time. That's why I asked the mailing list for comment. Someone may know something we need to know. "We." It appears that there are editors, too many of them, who do not see this as a collaborative project. Rather, it's "us" vs. "them." You know, those POV-pushers. I'll be quite happy, should it come to that, which I doubt, to stand before ArbComm with my edits. I've worked for this project, long and hard, and not to push some POV, but to help build the best encyclopedia ever known. NPOV is not found by eliminating POV, it is found through balance and completion. It may be a lost cause, there are forces tearing this place apart, poisoning its relationship with the larger community, and few active here are willing to really look at that, but I'm still trying. Sometimes I wonder why. --Abd (talk) 02:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

By the way, Rootology withdrew the RfD nomination,[4] with the comment that "There wasn't any disruption intended." Thanks, Rootology. --Abd (talk) 02:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Sigh... all you need are two reliable sources with non-trivial coverage. I never called you a POV pusher but if what is on the article is all four hours of research gave you I'm not convinced yet. What I'm saying here is that the energy you put into writing long statements like the above could be better spent adding the required sources. EconomicsGuy (talk) 02:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I spent much more working on sourcing than on writing a few words in Talk. And I did add source to the article. EconomicsGuy, I don't need anything here but some cooperation from other editors. My goal is not this particular article, but the project, and if this article is deleted, it doesn't ruin my day. However, you might note some Merge votes and my conclusion is that what may ultimately be needed is an article on the political work of Lewis Carroll, and there is lots of RS for that, and I have two books on their way to me for it. As to "non-trivial coverage," there is certainly non-trivial mention of the work of Carroll in this field, and asset voting was an idea that appeared as the apex of his thinking, his earlier work shows that he hadn't realized the possibility, probably not until the 1880s. If that article on his work were created, I'd support a Merge and Redirect, and there wouldn't be much merged, no more than sources could justify. (A quotation attributed to an expert doesn't take much to be fully verifiable.) The problem is that what indications I found of RS, I couldn't read the articles. I'm not going to pay $30 to read a review in a journal. As to AN/I reports, which EconomicsGuy did mention, problems here have continued. Yellowbeard re-added the comment of the blocked editor Fredrick day and didn't sign it. The bot did. And Fredrick day put in more comment.
As to the needed Carroll article, that is not a simple project. As I said, I have the books coming. I would not have created this article at this time, I dislike wasting time debating notability. Frankly, notability is the wrong policy. What we have now as notability debates should be debates over how to classify knowledge, and all verifiable knowledge that people add to the encyclopedia is notable in the sense of belonging to all human knowledge. If "notable" means that a million people know it, or even a hundred, Wikipedia is not "the sum of human knowledge," it is something less than that. We *already* keep all articles submitted, but we hide them so that only an elite can read them. I predict this will change with flagged revisions. Categorization is the encyclopedic project, not inclusion/deletion. Deleting knowledge is a form of anaesthesia. Enjoy.--Abd (talk) 11:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay let's start over here because we are talking past each other. If you want to create a fork of the Lewis Carroll article to focus on his political work then I have no problem with that at all. The Lewis Carroll article is long enough as it is. That would be a valuable and much treasured addition to the encyclopedia. The problem here is that this article is an unacceptable substitute for such an article. EconomicsGuy (talk) 12:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually (see talk for EconomicsGuy), I think we agree far more than we disagree. It takes thorough, cooperative discussion to find this agreement, sometimes. The *best* solution is precisely that longer, more notable article. This article is about one narrow part of it. It will take time to put together that article and, meanwhile, if you look at the current text for Asset voting, what is there is verifiable and will, indeed, become something like a section in the longer article. I suppose we could create the article and stick it there, but it would be unbalanced. Asset Voting would be redirected to the longer article. As I've noted, I have the books on order and could ultimately write that article based on them. What's on-line is limited, enough to know that there is indeed the material, but not to know about balance, etc. --Abd (talk) 13:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More Canvassing charges from Yellowbeard

I'm goint to move this from the project page, since it contains no new information relevant to the article, and the charges made by Yellowbeard cover actions already acknowledged in the project page itself. If I'm not correct about that, if there is something relevant to the AfD itself that is hereby moved, any editor may, of course, take it back.--Abd (talk) 19:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Moved from the project page:**************************************************

Thanks for your concern, Yellowbeard. None of those are violations of WP:CANVASS. All were disclosed, the last two prior to the actual notification. Notifying Wikiprojects about AfDs in their areas of concern is well-established. The essential requirement is that the notices must be neutral. Normally, if there is improper canvassing, the user canvassing is warned, and can be blocked if the alleged offense continues. (Yellowbeard surely knows this, he's been blocked for it.) I have not been warned. Other than objections from Yellowbeard (and now Dcary), there has been no credible claim that what I did was a violation of WP:CANVASS, sustained after people actually saw the notice, and there have been views from editors to the contrary.Rossami,Rootology. Enough, Yellowbeard. There is no evidence that this AfD has been improperly influenced, and at this point I suspect that more Delete may have come in from that outside email than Keep. I have never attempted to use my outside connections to improperly influence Wikipedia process. And I know for a fact that some of those opposing my work here have done exactly that, because the experienced editor they recruited to assist, when he realized what I was doing, changed "sides." And Yellowbeard attacked him. Coincidence? Maybe.--Abd (talk) 14:45, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Abd, you forgot to mention the following facts: Sarsaparilla used sock puppets for his request to block me. His strategy succeeded. However, shortly later he was blocked indefinitely just for this kind of sockpuppetry. Yellowbeard (talk) 15:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what violated WP:CANVASS in the second and third instances that Yellowbeard cites. Some explanation on the talk page might be helpful. DCary (talk) 17:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

end moved material*******************************************

Mr. Cary, this is typical Yellowbeard. He makes whatever charges he think might stick. He doesn't have a "Delete" in his vocabulary, it is always "Strong Delete," and, just so we don't miss his point, he repeats the "Strong Delete" with every edit, which looks a lot like multiple voting in History. Anyway, I moved this from the AfD page because I don't see any relevance. Each of these three alleged incidents of canvassing were disclosed, by me, not discovered by others first. You know about the email to Election Method list, which was disclosed by me with this. (and then I later supplied the promised URL with this. The first edit there, disclosing the email, also stated that if somebody else didn't get to it first, that I'd post a notice to WP:WikiProject Voting Systems, the second edit disclosed that I did. And then the third edit solicits comment on issues regarding the strict application of guidelines, as if letter-of-the-law was our standard. User:Kim Bruning is a very experienced and widely respected Wikipedian from whom I have learned much, I'd value his comments, not necessarily on the article, but on our process. Again, the notice was very carefully worded, and I have absolutely no idea how Kim Bruning would vote if he does decide to vote. What I'd more expect from him is either nothing (he's pretty busy) or just a comment on what I requested.

I understand and respect that most people don't have the time to look into this stuff, but when I became active here in September of last year, I eventually noticed that certain articles had been deleted, from redlinks here and there. Eventually, I learned enough to find the AfDs and most of them had been AfD'd by Yellowbeard. So I started looking at Special:Contributions/Yellowbeard. You can see what I found, then, at [sock puppets/Nrcprm2026 (4th)]. Checkuser did not confirm the suspected link with the sock master User:Nrcprm2026, but there was confirmation that suspicion was reasonable. Because he was now being watched, his former tactic of proposing an AfD, not notifying anyone active who might actually understand the topic, and simply wikilawyering the AfD with stock phrases he has known will work, he was often successful. Definitely, some of what he AfD'd did not meet current notability standards. However, as I pointed out yesterday, there is a lot of Wikipedia material that doesn't meet current standards, not so much true notability, but strict interpretation of RS. Schulze method is one such, and we can be pretty sure that many, many editors have read the article, since it is being used for the WikiMedia Foundation elections.

In any case, take a look at his contributions, and notice if, with all those AfDs, he notified editors, particularly the creators of articles or other obviously interested persons. He does not want people who are familiar with the topic, who have worked on the articles, to know about the AfD. So of course he is upset about notifications. He is an SPA, with an obvious agenda, which is assisting the other sock puppets and COI editors (most of whom are legitimate, they are not responsible for what he does, as far as I know) in promoting Instant-runoff voting by AfDing articles on topics inconvenient to that cause. The big red flag was his very first AfD.

12:57, 23 July 2006 Yellowbeard (Talk | contribs) New user account
13:10, 23 July 2006 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Schentrup method‎ (First deletion reason)

Now, "Schentrup" was Clay Shentrup's mispelling of his own name, the article was his own invention, the article absolutely not notable. Nowadays, if I saw an article like that, I might plop a speedy tag on it. It was, more or less, a prank. However, who is Clay Shentrup? He is a very prominent proponent of Range Voting, and a harsh critic of Instant-runoff voting. William Poundstone gives him some space in Gaming the vote. Yellowbeard went on to AfD Center for Range Voting, Bayesian regret (part of the theoretical basis for promoting Range voting), and many other articles on voting methods. Now, those articles were vulnerable, and what I'm saying here is not a claim that they should have been kept, though [Bayesian regret]] isn't a neologism and is notable and there is reliable source, and some of the other articles are likewise. But many AfDs don't attract anyone willing to do the research. And selective AfD, then, can result in a warped encyclopedia. Not good.

One of the ironic moves he made was:

13:41, 27 June 2007 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sequential proportional approval voting‎ (Creating deletion discussion page for Sequential proportional approval voting)

It's worth looking at that AfD. Reading this stuff was where I started to realize that applying WP:AGF to AfD nominations was problematic. That's because there is already an inherent conflict. We have article creators, and we should assume good faith with them as well, so if an editor says a method was proposed a hundred years ago, we should at least temporarily assume that it was and try to verify that, including contacting the author of the text involved. Newyorkbrad noted, "Comment: We really need an expert in the area to take a look at this. The creator's other contributions look legitimate, so I doubt very much that it's anything other than real. Newyorkbrad 23:01, 27 June 2007 (UTC)" That was the last comment in the AfD. Legitimate AfD process is heavily contaminated when there is a nominator who will only accuse, and not actually research, and not attempt to clearly discover the truth. Yellowbeard has an agenda, and it's clear, and it is highly improper and dangerous to the project.

Then, with SPAV out of the encyclopedia, he goes after PAV, even though an important argument in the SPAV deletion debate was that the topic was covered in the PAV article:

19:33, 20 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proportional approval voting‎ (strong delete)

I should probably just take that one to DRV. The close decision was incorrect. There was inadequate participation. I later did search for proportial approval voting and found RS. Essentially, the Delete voters simply believed Yellowbeard; in fact, see this: [8]

  • Strong Keep as quite notable and sourceable, see, e.g., Ghits: [9] and from my own memory, was championed by Anita Hill. I was tempted to close this debate myself with a keep, except for WP:AGF. Bearian 16:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Read the AfD and weep. Anyway, I've pretty well convinced myself that that one, in particular, was closed incorrectly. Yellowbeard doesn't see AfD as a collaborative process. It's not a discussion, it's a debate with a point, and he never presents evidence that might weaken his declared and dedicated position. There is presently a stub, copies exist elsewhere of what was the Wikipedia article. PAV has been discussed widely, more widely than Asset voting. And see this post to, yes, the Election Methods mailing list.[10] That's a reference to and a translation of a printed source. I'm sure that with some patience we could confirm that source. Sources exist, but it can be quite a bit of work to find them! It takes a couple of minutes to pop up an AfD and undo what may have been hours of work for an author....

Now, as to the original email. WP:CANVASS is a rather complicated guideline, the complications caused because "friendly notices" are acceptable. The most pernicious canvassing is "stealth canvassing," which simply means that people communicate with each other off-wiki and not on a public list. However, my own view is that canvassing should actually be irrelevant, at worst, or extremely helpful, at best. In theory, an AfD is not a vote, the result isn't controlled by votes. (Given that the default is Keep, the PAV AfD, were it a vote, would have been a Keep, deletion is supposed to be a matter of rough consensus.) Rather, the closing admin looks at the arguments, in theory. If we encouraged canvassing, we might get better AfD's. I.e., if people who actually understand the subject and who might be familiar with the literature are invited to comment, we'd have better evidence and presumably better conclusions. That's what I was doing with the EM post, looking for more information. And that's what Newyorkbrad, until recently a member of ArbComm, thought was needed in the AfD for Sequential proportional approval voting. How would we get that if we can't ask? --Abd (talk) 21:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Okay, Yellowbeard wants to invent a private history, let's look at the real one. With diffs and all the modern conveniences.

Yellowbeard wrote, above, quoted again here: Abd, you forgot to mention the following facts: Sarsaparilla used sock puppets for his request to block me. His strategy succeeded. However, shortly later he was blocked indefinitely just for this kind of sockpuppetry. Yellowbeard (talk) 15:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

This kind of argument is, again, vintage Yellowbeard. "You forgot to mention" is a classic debate tactic that then incorporates a false statement. Since this is a Talk page, and it may be useful to collect the evidence, what actually happened? Years ago, in the 1980s, when I was a moderator on the The WELL, I first noticed the fact that even though there is a complete history that anyone can look at, few do, so people who lie and distort, and -- charitably -- misinterpret, are sometimes believed, even though anyone could uncover the deception in a few minutes.

First of all, setting aside the creation of new accounts while he was blocked, which is not classic sock puppetry, classic socking being about presenting the appearance of many users when there is only one, Sarsaparilla didn't use socks. He did abandon accounts and start new ones, and, once, recently, he failed to explicitly link the next account to the previous, though it was totally obvious from following his contributions and he openly acknowledged it, both before and after it was questioned. If Yellowbeard has evidence of sock puppetry that had an effect on his block for canvassing, I'd love to know about it.

Secondly, Yellowbeard was blocked for canvassing oppose votes for my RfA, picking people that he would, having followed my contributions, have thought would oppose. See Special:Contributions/Yellowbeard and, in particular, Feb 10, Tbouricius RRichie Tomruen Ned Scott Scuro

He was warned by El C [11], but the next day, he continued with two more notices: Miamomimi Clockback

He was accordingly blocked by User:MastCell[12]

Yellowbeard in his unblock request gave a story that he was soliciting experts. Well, two of the people he solicited qualify as experts in a topic: User:RRichie is Rob Richie, the Executive Director of FairVote and User:Tbouricius is Terrill Bouricius, a FairVote consultant and former Vermont legislator. Both of them could be considered political opponents, though Mr. Bouricius and I have mostly been able to cooperate. User:Tomruen isn't an expert, he is moderately knowledgeable and he has also stated his affiliation with FairVote. Richie and Bouricius were blocked, earlier, Richie due to IP edit warring in concert with sock puppets of Nrcprm2026, and Bouricius due to being an SPA allied with Richie. Ruen managed to keep his nose clean, and is a relatively cautious Wikipedian. Who often thinks I'm full of beans, and anyone reading the comments would see that. In any case, the contingent from Instant-runoff voting were all easily considered and viewed as opponents of my activities.

Then there were four editors notified because of connection with Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. User:Scuro, User:Miamomimi were allied generally in opposition to User:Scuro, who was a long-term editor of the article, practically an SPA, and with a very strong point of view. I attempted to find some common ground between those sides, and ended up, for a time, being a target of both. Scuro commiserated, as I recall, with User:Ned Scott; otherwise, I have no idea how he'd even be connected. None of these are experts. The only expert working on the article, bitterly opposed by Scuro, is User:Ss06470, a published psychiatrist. If he had been notified, I'm pretty sure that I'd have gotten another support vote!

Yellowbeard picked seven editors who could reasonably have been expected to oppose, from, for example, warnings placed by me. (I warned Scuro several times, and also Clockback, as I recall, I also warned RRichie and Tbouricius for edit warring as COI editors.) My conclusion is that he was lying in his unblock request, plain and simple.

Here's something that Yellowbeard "forgot" to mention: MastCell's comment to admins who might possibly review the unblock request:[13], worth quoting:

Note to reviewing admin re "friendly notices": the issue is the "partisan audience" = "votestacking" portion of WP:CANVASS. Also relevant is that this user appears to have a long-standing dispute with User:Abd (see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/LossIsNotMore, for instance), which hardly squares with "friendly notices" to a general audience. MastCell Talk 18:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Declining the unblock request, Hut 8.5 wrote:[14]

You asked people to participate in an RfA on a user you had a long-standing dispute with, which itself is suspicious, and you only ask people who have commented on a select group of pages and been in disputes with this user before. Simply viewing their talk pages reveals they have been in arguments with the subject of the RfA. This violates the "partisan audience" section of WP:CANVASS, and you continued with this behaviour after an admin asked you to stop. The block is valid. — Hut 8.5 19:42, 11 February 2008 (UTC)}}

Yet Yellowbeard still claims that sock puppetry by Sarsaparilla was behind his block? Cheeky, eh?

One more distortion in what he wrote (Yellowbeard manages to pack a lot into a few words. I suppose I could learn from him!): Sarsaparilla was never blocked for sock puppetry. Period. He has sometimes evaded blocks -- to make useful edits! -- and, of course, those socks were blocked when discovered, but outside of that, what he was blocked for is rather mysterious. I have pretty much concluded it is for violating a very serious rule, a rule that trumps Wikipedia Rule Number One: Rule 0. Of course, the block summary would never say "Rule 0," because it is part of Rule 0 that it can't be mentioned, except, of course, when people think you are joking. Rather, it will say, "Corrupting the youth," or "Defiant jaywalking." The key is that the response is way out of proportion to the stated offense. His last indef block was for creating a non-notable article. Not a hoax, verifiable. Go figure. He never violated a legitimate warning. He was never given a short block (entire block history: three indef blocks, all of them for offenses that would normally result in a warning or maybe, at most, a 24-hour block). I am deeply indebted to Sarsaparilla. Besides being a brilliant writer, in a few short months, he showed me the ropes, the underpinnings of this place. I can't say what he's up to now, because it could reveal his real-world identity, but, let's say, he's gone on to better things. --Abd (talk) 00:42, 3 June 2008 (UTC)