- Category:Wikipedians by contact information (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (restore|cache|CFD 1|CFD 2)
Also:
- Category:Wikipedians available through AIM
- Category:Wikipedians available through Jabber
These categories were deleted as being "recreated deleted content" (from this CfD) by User:After Midnight after User:Black Falcon left him a message on his talk page. [2] Process wankery. Not knowing about the first CfD, I created the two categories and a parent category. As I was editing another userbox, I saw the link to the old CfD, and I immediately stopped creating them and posted a message to the Village Pump.[3] This message was also posted to WT:CFD#Wikipedians by contact information. The original CFD discussion was commented on by a total of four users, and was likely unnoticed by most. My own rationale for having these categories was to promote additional contact information for collaboration. The categories were based on IM protocol, instead of client, and only included userboxes that actually indicated a user ID for these services.
Four users makes for a very weak consensus, and other arguments were not given a fair chance to be represented. I would have much rather tried to simulate the existing discussions to get better feedback from the community before taking any further action, but since they've now been deleted, I'd like for these categories to be undeleted and relisted in a new CfD. -- Ned Scott 19:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
- Overturn: Although I have complete faith that User:After Midnight and User:Black Falcon are acting in good faith, this is a problem in general with WP:UCFD. Specifically, most people don't add user categories to their watchlist so they don't realize when user categories they care about are being discussed. There's no doubt that it was the consensus in July, but as the Wikipedia mantra goes, consensus changes—especially when the consensus involves a relatively small group of editors. (Also, I think you make an excellent argument as to why this category can be useful for collaboration. Without this argument, I likely would have voted to delete the user category myself.) Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 20:09, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse. Consensus was reached in three separate discussions for user categories for instant messengers:
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- With regard to the technical issues:
- The three CFD discussions involved a total of 9 unique participants and two closing admins.
- All categories were tagged for the appropriate period of time, so due notice was given.
- Although there have been repeated assertions that the categories could be useful for collaboration, there has been no explanation of how this would take place. Being able to contact a specific user via IM may be useful, but that's completely diffferent from browsing through a category of everyone who uses a particular IM. I can understand wanting alternate means to contact particular users, but that function is filled by userpage notices and userboxes. A category is needed only if one specifically seeks out editors who use a particular IM. – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
- Here was the main gist of Ned's arugment for how they could be useful for collaboration:
- "There are many times where I jump on #wikipedia to ask a quick silly question, like a naming convention, or to see if anyone remembered where a template was that could be used for format some external link. I've listed my own AIM screen name on my userpage and user talk page also as a method of collaboration."
- To me this sounds like a novel argument that warrants a thoughtful discussion, instead of a speedy delete. (Note: Although I support overturning the speedy delete, I'm not criticizing the speedy delete itself, as User:After Midnight made a valid decision based on the knowledge available to him.) Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 20:33, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
- Again, the issue is that you wouldn't want to contact just any random Wikipedian who uses AIM, as chances are that they do not have the answer to your question. You'd want to contact someone who knows about naming conventions or knows about the template you're seeking, and for that you'd go to the userpages of individual editors and not a category. (Another option is Wikipedia:Help desk, which is a good place for both general and specific inquiries.) I don't really think there's a novel argument that justifies another CFD, because that argument was considered in the prior discussions (after all: that is the most obvious argument one could offer in defense of the categories). – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
- I just want to stress that this is not a hypothetical "it could contribute to collaboration" argument that Ned is making, but an actual "this is how it would contribute to collaboration". That in itself makes it noteworthy. In order for the delete opinion to prevail it is not sufficient to produce a hypothetical "here's how it might harm the encyclopedia" argument, but an actual "here's how it did or will harm the encyclopedia" argument.
- Note: I'm not saying that hypothetical arguments are no good. I'm just saying that one or more actual arguments on one side should be counter-balanced by at least one actual on the other side for the other side to prevail. Well, unless I agree with the other side, of course. ;) Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 13:35, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
- Couldn't help but notice that one of the listed CfD was nothing more than a single cat that wasn't tagged by one of the other two. -- Ned Scott 22:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
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- If it had been speedily closed, that'd be one thing... But the discussion was left open for more than 10 days, so it can be considered separate from (even if not unaffected by) the others. – Black Falcon (Talk) 17:51, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
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- I'm forced to say this: So what? No body cared at that time, and that's all. Don't put undue weight on a discussion simply because it was formalized. Even though I struck it out in my first comment, I might have been right that time, that's just process wankery, and not a reflection of community consensus. You nominated it because it was left out of the first CfD, and a single user commented on it other than you, and only to say that it should be speedied because of the other CfD. There's no value in that discussion at all. Silence is not consensus. "-- Ned Scott 06:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Actually, silence often is a sign of consent. Every deletion discussion page is patrolled by editors, and if they object to a certain proposal, they will voice their objections (I was told something to this effect when I once relisted a fairly uncontroversial CFD nomination merely because it had failed to gather any comments). But, that's a broader issue best left out of this DRV ...
- I readily admit that the "Adium" discussion was, for all intents and purposes, a continuation of the "Wikipedians by instant messenger" discussion. I do not wish to place undue weight on it. However, you should not entirely dismiss it, as it was a separate nomination that was open for 10 days, and anyone who disagreed with the first result could have voiced their objections. It's not what might be called a precedent-setting discussion, but it's a weak precedent-confirming one. – Black Falcon (Talk) 07:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. I have notified the
two closing admins other closing admin affected by this deletion review. – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
- Comment http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php . Hopefully we'll have such a feature more embedded into MediaWiki, but it is a function that is available to us now. I can cross reference a contact category with a WikiProject Participants category, instead of making a specific category for that WikiProject (far more preferable to having such categories). -- Ned Scott 22:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
- Overturn as worth a re-arguement at CfD at the very least, after much more general notice.. i do not like making decisions that affect others without their actual knowledge. I know UCfD does this all the time, but that does not make it right. It is not actually prohibited by our guidelines, but politeness is recommended. I look forward to the time when it will be actually required. DGG (talk) 23:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
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- "I know UCfD does this all the time, but that does not make it right." All CfDs do this when the authors of or contributors to articles in a category are not notified about the deletion, merging, or renaming of a category. What is the rationale behind overturning a closure merely due to the lack of such mass notification, especially since no new argument has been offered as to why a category (not a userbox or userpage notice) is necessary? – Black Falcon (Talk) 00:42, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- We have given good reason, more than enough, to re-evaluate the situation. Multiple users in good standing see the benefits of such categories for collaboration, while you and After Midnight cling to a few flimsy discussions with some irrational fear of being a social network. I have to ask, why are you being such a stick in the mud about this? With no evidence, whatsoever, that not being a social network even applies to this situation, or that it was even being used that way, why do you care? Not being a social network does not mean we forbid categories that note how to contact other users off-wiki, plain and simple. -- Ned Scott 06:40, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Do you really think that the participants in the discussion did not consider this possible collaborative value? Given the titles and nature of the categories, it would be the first pro-retention argument that comes to mind. Also, though I do not dispute that multiple users in good standing (three, to be precise) see the benefit of these categories, please do not ignore the fact that the users who supported deletion in the discussions listed above also were/are in good standing. It is not right to suggest that this situation is a disagreement between "users in good standing" and users "with some irrational fear" (and presumably not in good standing?). I do not believe that you actually intended to suggest that, but that's how the above paragraph reads. – Black Falcon (Talk) 08:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Four users on-wiki, if you count Wikidemo's comments at the village pump, and at least two more off wiki via #wikipedia. I would try to gather more attention to this, but people like to scream "WP:CANVASS" when you do that. And I am not saying that the other users are not in good standing, but none of you are perfect. Had it been me I would have had no reason to object if a number of people wanted to rediscuss the issue, getting more attention from the community. You've made an assumption that this category can only be used for social networking, and deleted it on those grounds, but you only have vague speculation and fear to back that up. Meanwhile, I've provided several good reasons to have such a category, and you're forcing me to fight tooth and nail just to be able to discuss it with more people. -- Ned Scott 20:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Wikidemo's comments at the village pump included an admission that he's not sure why or how the categories would be useful. In any case, please do not attempt to portray me as attempting to restrict discussion on the issue. Since the original CFD closures were procedurally correct, novel arguments should be presented and the level of their novelty evaluated in this deletion review. Rather than discuss whether we should have another discussion, let's just discuss the issue here. – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- DRV is not the appropriate venue for such a discussion. -- Ned Scott 20:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Quoted from WP:DRV: "This page exists to correct errors in the deletion process, but that may also involve reviewing content in some cases." Since there were no errors in process in the previous discussions, this review should involve discussion about issues of content (i.e. arguments about the merit of the categories). – Black Falcon (Talk) 21:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- My argument is that this has not received adequate community comment, and that not all arguments were represented (how many of the 8 users you talk about thought of using CatScan with these categories?). In other words, there were errors in the process of the previous discussions. Your response to that is to force discussion on an even more hidden page than CfD, here on DRV. Whatever happened to not being a jerk and saying "hey, here's a Wikipedian who has an idea and would like to get more feedback on it. Even though I don't completely agree with him, I'm just a user like he is and feel it is only fair to give this situation more exposure". But no, you have to act like some stick in the mud because you've got some irrational and laughable fear that these categories make Wikipedia a social networking site. You take a couple of poorly exposed discussions and have made them THE LAW, when they were nothing more than flimsy discussions that do not reflect community consensus. Had the same people who know about this discussion known about those CfDs when they happened, I have no doubt the CfDs would have, at the very least, ended in no-consensus to delete, and would have had a fair shot at having a consensus to keep.
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- But hey, whatever, no hard feelings, right? Just make me waste a few hours jumping through hoops and I come up with a way to use CatScan without a second category, but still being able to filter out users who don't provide an ID. For example this. So hooray, you've won, you've saved us from becoming myspace, and managed to strong arm a deletion that should have never been an issue in the first place. -- Ned Scott 21:36, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- I can't help but note the irony of the fact that not a week ago I was told that CFD is too obscure a place to make deletion decisions. By the way, as DRVs generally get more participants than UCFD discussions, your claim about a "more hidden page" is inaccurate.
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- Perhaps if you'd stop spending so much effort trying to determine how much of a jerk or "stick in the mud" I and others are being, perhaps you'd notice that I've outright offered to engage in the community discussion which you apparently seek right here. Certainly that would have been more productive than trying to keep track of who won or lost, debating whether 4 or 5 or 7 or 9 users participated in the previous discussions, arguing whether it's 2 previous discussions or 3, or questioning the good standing of 2-10 editors (depends on how you count it). In the end, none of that matters. A single good argument made here, and on which people can agree, could, should, and would override the prior agreement of 50 users in 10 discussions. You seem to have focused only on the fact that I endorsed the CSD G4 deletion, ignoring the fact that this endorsement is conditional on a continued absence of a convincing argument for collaborative value. Now, granted, we might disagree on whether an argument is convincing, but it would be a disagreement as any other, and could be approached and resolved as appropriate.
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- If you are interested in discussing the categories, then I am both ready and willing to do so (here, on a talk page, via e-mail, etc.). However, there is no point in continuing this particular thread of discourse. – Black Falcon (Talk) 22:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Except that DRV requires a consensus to undelete, despite the lack of consensus to delete in the first place. Forcing this to DRV like you are places an unfair burden on the editors who do want these categories. There is a reason why we work with a consensus to delete, and not a consensus to create. Not to mention that most people come to DRV with the mentality that undoing actions is some kind of hassle, and would rather endorse previous actions not based on the merits of the discussion at hand, but because they are not personally interested what is being discussed.
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For example, both you and After Midnight assumed I created the categories knowing about the past CfDs, and neither of you even contacted me or left a message in the active discussions about the matter. Who the hell do you think you are? Get off your high horse, because you are no more qualified to judge these categories than the next user. Is it not possible for you to just stop and think about what is actually happening? A complete lack of any evidence whatsoever of these categories being problematic or that they somehow promote Wikipedia as a social network (which doesn't make a damn bit of sense. Really now, who the hell goes to a massive category to drum up some random discussion unrelated to Wikipedia?) being faced with plain and simple facts on how a category is useful, not just in theory, but in actual, practical, use.
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- Not being a social networking site does not involve being paranoid and fighting your fellow editors tooth and nail when they wish to use something for legitimate reasons. The categories I created have far more collaborative usefulness than categories such as Category:Wikipedians who use Mozilla Firefox. Even if only a minority uses these categories like this, that is not a valid reason to delete them. -- Ned Scott 00:16, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
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- It is really unfair of me to blame the shortcomings of DRV on you, and I can't honestly believe that you are trying to force anything. You're doing what you think is right, and I'm yelling at the wrong person. -- Ned Scott 00:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
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- The consensus to delete was already achieved in the previous discussions. As for the second part of your paragraph, suffice it to say that I do not share your view of DRV participants. I believe that most DRV regulars try, in good faith, to evaluate the merits of a review request and decide on that basis, and do not endorse simply for the sake of avoiding a hassle which they won't have to perform in any case (it's the closer that's hassled, not the participants).
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"For example, ..."? I don't know about AM, but I'm not a DRV regular, so please find another example. As for the fact that you weren't contacted, I explained that to you on my talk page: you had at least one of the templates watchlisted, so you'd know about any change to them, and I assumed you would contact the deleting admin, which is standard procedure in cases of contested deletions. (As a matter of fact, you should have done that once you found out that the categories had previously been deleted.) And what "active discussion" are you referring to? Surely it's not the thread at WT:CFD that consists of your comment, a neutral comment that admits to not knowing what the category could be useful for, and two comments suggesting that the issue be discussed elsewhere?
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Finally, while I do not dispute that I am "no more qualified to judge these categories than the next user", I wonder why you feel that the same statement doesn't apply to you... My offer to discuss the categories still stands; however, please note that I will no longer respond to any comments (irrespective of the subject) that continue to insult me and other editors. – Black Falcon (Talk) 01:00, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Do struck lines not render on your browser? (I'm actually going to unstrike some that were not meant to be personal, although they would have been better presented as a general comment) If it was not clear, I have already admitted to letting my frustration get the better of me, and directing comments to you that you did not deserve. While I do think you are off the mark on the categories being applied to WP:NOT social network, and that line of reasoning to not hold much water, the "high horse" comments were made in haste, and I don't believe that was your mentality. I believe that all of this is needless red tape, but I was wrong to blame you for following policy how you felt it should be followed. -- Ned Scott 01:40, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
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- For some reason, I was not edit-conflicted when I clicked "save", and so did not notice your change. I have stricken those portions of my comment which were made in response to the paragraph you've stricken, and would like to extend my apologies for the various bits of sarcasm present in the text (all now stricken). Even though I do not agree with you about the categories, I think I see where you're coming from and can understand your frustration with the process and my persistent support for and/or insistence on it.
:-) – Black Falcon (Talk) 02:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse - this is a simple case of recreation. Whether or not > 100 users were notified about it several months ago is not a valid reason for un-deleting it at this time. The prior deletion was valid and the category should not be restored unless it can be proven that consensus has changed in the interim. --After Midnight 0001 02:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- This is not clearly a simple case of redirection as I noted I was not aware of the first CfD. Regardless, other valid points were not represented in the CfD, and you can't judge if consensus has changed by not allowing another CfD. Four users make for a very weak consensus, and it stands to very good reason to re-evaluate the situation. I've already shown how this category can be directly used to find specific users from a WikiProject who have a specific contact method using CategoryIntersect (a feature that en.wiki will hopefully have built in once they have the bugs worked out. IIRC, other Wikipedias already do have this feature.) and I doubt that was even considered in the CfD. -- Ned Scott 06:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- A few points: First, as I noted above, 9 editors (not four) and two administrators were involved in the related series of discussions. Second, when it comes to consensus, the quality and strength of arguments should matter more than raw numbers. Third, if you want to contact "specific users from a WikiProject", you'd want to go to their userpages, not to a user category, which doesn't even tell you if the user is still editing. I did a quick sample of the first 10 userpages listed at Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:User aim: 5 of 10 haven't edited in 3 weeks or more, and 2 have made only 1-2 edits in the past 3 weeks. – Black Falcon (Talk) 06:53, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- So you're including the editor who wanted to delete a category because someone was indicating brand preference, and had nothing to do with the social networking argument? Or the user who thought that another category that was left out of another CfD could just be speedied as no big deal?
- Just because you use other methods of contacting people doesn't mean these categories should be deleted, or at the very least, that we shouldn't be allowed to even rediscuss the issue. Out of no where I get IMs from people about quick wiki questions, and just today someone sent me an e-mail asking me about a citation question for an article I've never edited. We don't always know the method people will use to contact us, but that's no reason to limit how they can find us. I really don't understand why you have such a strong objection to this, nor can I understand why feel that you have anything near a strong consensus to keep these categories deleted. -- Ned Scott 07:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- The argument that "Wikipedia is not a soapbox for expressing consumer preferences" is essentially a WP:MYSPACE argument, not a WP:SOAP argument. So, yes, I'm counting him. I'm also counting the user who thought that the Adium category could be speedied should also be included - it was a separate discussion and he could have objected to the deletion if he had so desired; instead, he chose to voice his support for it.
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- Before suggesting that we rediscuss the issue, I'd need to be convinced that there is a need to rediscuss. The reason I object to these categories that I fail to find the reasons for restoration compelling: the usefulness argument for these categories requires one to make assumptions about the manner in which these types of categories are used that I consider to be unrealistic. The reason I feel that there is a consensus to keep them deleted is due to the fact that three separate discussion produced the same result. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Black Falcon (talk • contribs) 07:36, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- If you bullshit me one more time about three discussions I swear I'm going to lose it. -- Ned Scott 20:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Two, three ... who cares? It doesn't make a qualitative difference, and I never claimed that it did. – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- If you don't care then why is it a main part of your argument to endorse deletion? -- Ned Scott 00:16, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
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- It's not. There is no qualitiative difference between "Consensus was reached in two separate discussions" and "Consensus was reached in three separate discussions". – Black Falcon (Talk) 01:00, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
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- And when someone hasn't edited recently, that makes alternative contact methods even more valuable. -- Ned Scott 07:24, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Again, a category is not needed when the goal is to contact a specific user. Deleting the category does not remove the alternate contact method(s) - the userbox - from their userpage. – Black Falcon (Talk) 07:36, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- "when the goal is to contact a specific user" That's not the goal. Again, this is a much preferred alternative to creating "by contact information" for individual WikiProjects and groupings of editors who have special interests. Right there, staring at you in the face, is a perfectly legitimate and extremely useful method. You not being able to understand how some editors, even if only a few, could use it that way, does not forbid such tools from being available. -- Ned Scott 20:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse Deletion - Do we want alternate ways to "get ahold of" another editor? IRC is already controversial enough. That aside, AOL was straight G4, and the other followed that precedent. The rest is just a question of whether consensus has changed, so whether a WP:BOLD action in recreating is fairly speedily deleted. To me it sounds like "speedy bold" was met with "speedy delete". WP:BRD , anyone? : ) - And I think that this recent nomination/discussion was a great idea. Though I would oppose requiring it, it's a nice proactive alternative to BRD. - jc37 10:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Methods of contacting other users is not up for discussion here. Personally, I do want users to have alternative ways to get ahold of each other, and see nothing wrong with that. This DRV is not the place to be making such arguments, CfD is. -- Ned Scott 20:18, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- And at least one of these has been deleted before based on CfD/UCfD. I think the best I can suggest is to please find consensus before recreation again. - jc37 16:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
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- I created three categories without knowing about the previous discussions, and stopped as soon as I became aware of one (while looking at the edit history of a userbox for MSN messenger, which was going to be the fourth category). Specifically because I wanted to seek consensus before continuing, I attempted a discussion at the village pump that unfortunately never took off. So thank you for the advice, but I'm already ahead of you there. -- Ned Scott 02:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- And the ironic part of your WP:BRD mention is that discussion is specifically being suppressed in this situation. -- Ned Scott 20:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Looking up over the long threads above, and also considering that categories can be discussed without them actually existing... Where exactly is discussion being "supressed"? - jc37 16:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Suppressed was probably the wrong word. Exposed discussion is more accurate. I do see your point about the categories not having to actually exist, and there is nothing stopping me from trying to further stimulate discussions elsewhere. However, it's not really necessary anymore, as a template back-link is able to work with CatScan as well. -- Ned Scott 02:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- Sheesh, do we need a WP:DRVU now? >Radiant< 22:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse deletion these do not help build the project. Categories that are social in nature don't belong here. Carlossuarez46 20:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
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- They are just as valid as the project's own built-in e-mail support, or irc link formatting and interwiki link markup for Wikipedia IRC channels. ([[irc: and [[freenode:]]). As a collaborative tool they do help build the project, so you can't say that it doesn't. (You're welcome to say that the pros don't outweigh the cons, or that any help is not of sufficient value, but to say that it does not help the project at all is just absurd and proven false.) Nor would it make sense to use these categories for social networking, as people are not going to be looking for people to talk to at random via Wikipedia. (unless they're very stupid and have not learned about the concept of public chat rooms) I'm social in nature, do I not help the project? My talk page is social in nature, does it not help the project? The guy I helped with a citation tag over AIM the other day, did that not help the project? -- Ned Scott 03:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
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