Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Delegable proxy

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. It's pretty straightforward that this is a terrible proposal, but even bad proposals are kept for historical reasons and to keep consensus-forming processes transparent. I would think that only attack, unnecessary, or vandalism pages in the project namespaces should be deleted. Since the proposal is failed (that's pretty much decided from this MFD), the tag should stay and thus all pages nominated in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Delegable proxy/Table should be deleted. Singularity 05:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Delegable proxy

This "proposal" is an unbelievably bad idea. Proxy voting works fine when you have a body with a finite, well-defined membership - e.g. the board of a corporation or a state legislature. In such a case, all or substantially all of the membership votes on every proposal. But on Wikipedia, a quorum is whoever happens to show up and having proxy voting would simply lead to !vote stacking. This proposal is being pushed by a ring of sockpuppets who want to move it forward even though nobody has actually agreed with it. There's no good reason to leave it here, even in its rejected state, as it is merely an invitation to vote stack under the guise of an "experiment". B (talk) 18:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

  • NB: This MfD was restarted after a non-admin closure and subsequent discussion at this DRV. The eventual closing admin may wish to consider comments there, at his/her discretion. Xoloz (talk) 18:34, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


Delete AFD debates are NOT A VOTE. There is no possible benefit from having larger numbers of people who support your position. This entire idea is a fundementally BAD idea. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
That is correct. AfD debates are not a vote. However, something puzzles me. If they are not a vote, why is vote-stacking or canvassing a problem? What harm does it do? Shouldn't the "votes" generated simply be ignored? --Abd (talk) 02:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Delete - terrible idea, and given the circumstances under which this was created, nothing short of disruptive. Risker (talk) 19:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Who was disruptive? Any diffs involving the creation of this proposal? Is it disruptive to consider new ideas? What, exactly is the disruption? --Abd (talk) 02:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Delete - Completely mutually exclusive with Wikipedia policy.--WaltCip (talk) 19:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Given that about every assertion here about what the proposal involves is incorrect, a comparison with policy would seem to be impossible. --Abd (talk) 02:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Delete - per lots and lots of reasons I've given at Wikipedia talk:Delegable proxy, this is a very bad idea and completely against WP:NOT, and represents an experiment, in my opinion, carried out by the proponents of this type of system without the best interests of Wikipedia in mind. I would be okay with an Esperanza-like solution where the rejected page is kept around, but I prefer deletion because leaving this up implies that the idea had some level of support while this basically has none. Whether the page is rejected or deleted in the end, we should certainly delete Wikipedia:Delegable proxy/Table and Wikipedia:Delegable proxy/Table/Actual table as the existence of that page is pretty much akin to the end goal of the proposal. Mangojuicetalk 20:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
While it turns out to be irrelevant here, Mangojuice did his part to ensure that the proposer isn't around to defend it. Maybe that's just fine, he was a little excitable anyway, and needs a wikirest. Mangojuice did his best, all through the few days this was considered, to let us know that it was a bad idea. A really bad idea. Why? Voting. Bad idea. But this isn't about voting. Bad idea, sock puppets. But sock puppets naming proxies is calling attention to the relationship. Bad idea, Esperanza. But Esperanza was rejected because of bureaucracy and closed meetings, this has neither. But it is a bad idea, it's been rejected, why are we even considering this? Good question, with Wikipedia security in hands like this, who needs any method for discovering broad community consensus? --Abd (talk)
  • Delete I'm normally against MFD for proposals, but IMO this is a terrible idea for Wikipedia and the proponents of it (who are apparently mostly the same person as part of some massive WP:POINT experiment) seem to be dead set on pushing through as a proposal, brainstorming, or an experiment without any regard to the opposition, even to the point of calling good faith criticism disruptive as a way to ignore it. Mr.Z-man 20:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Look above, at the preface response I made, for contribution histories, showing the proposer, who did shift accounts, never using more than one, never returning to use an old one. And then there was me, and Mr.Z-man seems to have missed that I'm clearly not connected. That's two people, with some help, actually, from Mangojuice, which should be acknowledged with appreciation, in spite of the rest of his behavior, working on a very modest proposal to create some files and see if people use them. The diff above is for an edit of mine, where I noted that constant repititious criticism with no substance and specificity was, in fact, a kind of disruption. And I write everything that I write with the consciousness that ArbComm might be looking over my shoulder. Perhaps we will find out. Was there something offensive about my comment? Should I be warned? You know, I've never actually been warned for anything here, by anyone who knew what they were doing, except by sock puppets. Real ones. Actually disruptive, edit warring, etc.--Abd (talk) 02:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for proving my point. Despite the fact that no one has said something like "Keep, possibly a good idea" and only you have suggested something other than deletion or marking immediately as rejected, you are still pushing it. And (in reference to a below comment) yes, for this to have any real effect, it would need changes to policy. Mr.Z-man 17:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Keep and mark as Essay. At the risk of being accused of trotting out the "Other stuff exists" argument... the precident for rejected proposals is to change them to Essay status, not to delete them whole cloth. I agree that the proposal was a spectacularly bad idea, but if slightly rewritten so as to be an essay reflecting the thoughts of its creator, I see nothing wrong with keeping it. That said, the associated table pages should go... or at least be merged into the essay. Blueboar (talk) 21:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Addendum - I would probably add Wikipedia:Experiment/Current experiments to the list of associated pages to be deleted. Blueboar (talk) 21:31, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
An essay is supposed to be helpful or neutral, even without having the enforceability of a policy or guideline. This is directly contrary to multiple policies and established consensuses and as some have said would actually be harmful to Wikipedia. Mr.Z-man 22:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Why bother with precedent when a whole series of precedents have already been disregarded here? Surely, if the proposal is contrary to policy, that should have been discussed and shown in Talk. Surely that should have come up on the Village Pump. In fact, though, all we saw were objections based on a complete misunderstanding of the proposal. You could possibly consider that Rejection, to be sure. People can reject based on ignorance, it is still rejection. However, what policy? This didn't change or violate any stated policy. But it does violate an apparent unstated one. The Policy Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken. You know. That one. Esperanza. AMA. Delegable proxy, all nefarious attempts to violate TPWNSNBS, under the sinister guise of courtesy and kindness, helping the clueless to navigate the arcane passages of Wikipedia, entangling everyone in mountains of red tape and needless bureaucracy..... oh? No red tape and bureaucracy with Delegable Proxy? Voting! That's it. This is about voting, that nefarious attempt to destroy all that is good and Wikipedian. Maybe I need a wikibreak, I'm starting to envy Absidy. --Abd (talk) 03:25, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy delete as trolling and disruption per the last several contributions of User:Absidy before being blocked indefinitely for disruptive sockpuppetry and trolling. I would be glad to do the deletions myself but would want to get the views of some more admins before doing it. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Does not meet any criteria of WP:CSD. -- Ned Scott 07:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Ahem. Newyorkbrad. I'd suggest you take a deep breath. There was no sock puppetry. Trolling is not clear here. Have you actually looked at the record? We will, you know. There is a lot at stake here. For you, as well as for the whole community. You've worked hard to do what you have done, I've watched your work for quite a while. In this case, you've blown it. I'd be happy to communicate with you privately, but you have been very public here. It might not be possible to undo the damage, as the process proceeds. There are forces here bigger than both of us.--Abd (talk) 03:25, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I would happily endorse a speedy delete per Newyorkbrad. Daniel (talk) 00:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete This would never have a WP:SNOW chance of ever being adopted in any remotely similar form. MBisanz talk 02:33, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete!; A proposal to take the worst thing about Wikipedia (blind voting in discussions), formalize it, enshrine it and increase its influence? Surely thou jestest! — Coren (talk) 04:37, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. Nothing in this proposal involved anything like what Coren describes. I've talked with Absidy on the phone. He's really shaking his head. He's a long-time, very experienced Wikipedian, literally a serial accountant, vastly more experienced than I, and he's never seen anything like this come down. (And if he's been disruptive, it hasn't been in the last three years, the period for which I've reviewed his contributions. It's not rocket science to figure it out.)
  • Delete This is a terrible proposal. I don't think the creators--who dismissed or even sneered at [1] every attempt by a number of editors to tell them this--are going to get it unless this gets deleted. Consider deleting this proposal a sensible, prudent measure. Darkspots (talk) 05:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, the actual underlying concept doesn't require community consent; the nature of it is such that to actually stop it, if enough of the community wants to use the concepts -- which could be quite a small number --, would be fantastically disruptive. I did not approve of Absidy going ahead as he did, but he did demonstrate, with his trolling (if we think of it that way), that there are some very dark forces here. I told Absidy before the S hit the F that if serious attempts were made to stop this, it would spread it. The enemy of Free Association/Delegable Proxy technology is apathy, not attempts to crush it. It isn't crushable. Don't try it! I'm much prefer to see everything out in the open, with no hostility, and only cooperation and voluntary participation and AGF and all the rest, the best of Wikipedia. But I don't always get what I want. *People* don't like being crushed. They tend to resent it. And what Delegable Proxy is, is nothing other than people trusting people and working together. The linkages will be public and identifiable, with a public proxy table, or they won't be. That's the only choice being made here and in the months to come.--Abd (talk) 03:25, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Abd, what we have here is failure to communicate. Seriously. You don't understand what we're saying, and we don't understand what you're saying. The enormous blocks of text are impenetrable. All your abstraction is equally impenetrable. And, you do not understand what people are saying to you. I'm not an administrator, and I doubt most of the people in this discussion know who I am. But one look at your proposal, and I knew that you had fundamentally misunderstood Wikipedia. Everyone here who has looked at the proposal knows this.
Let me try again. It's not about do we vote or do we not vote. It's about stake. I have no stake in anything on Wikipedia that I do not personally participate in. As an example, I don't participate in Arbcom elections, so I have no stake, no vote, no interest in them whatsoever. Nothing to delegate, nothing to assign a proxy for. I am not a citizen or a shareholder of Wikipedia. Your system implies that I do have a stake, an interest that I would want to protect. I do not. The only things I have a stake in are the articles I edit and the discussions I personally participate in.
You feel like there is a procedure that has been violated in a rush to stifle your proposal. Not in the slightest. The {{rejected}} tag can be placed at any time. Edit war? Prodego, Kim Bruning (leaving aside the time she reverted herself), Mangojuice and I each placed the tag on the article once. You took it off twice, Abd. Did it occur to you that this was communication? That users in good standing, who knew that this was a serious decision and that they would (at least possibly) lose respect if they misunderstood the situation, were putting this tag on the proposal to tell you that there was no chance of this being accepted by the community? Darkspots (talk) 04:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
First of all, the user who created the proposal is a long-time Wikipedian with an extensive knowledge of policy and how this place works. It's tempting to write in detail, but this project page really isn't the important issue here, and what is important is going to be addressed in detail, step by step. Yes, long-time users were saying, "No way." And, given what they understood, which was very little, I'd agree with them. This MfD presents a highly distorted and blatantly inaccurate summary of the proposal, and someone reading it, and then reading the proposal itself, is highly likely to leave with the same distorted view. There are assumptions repeated by almost every voter here that are, quite simply, false. So is the community going to reject this proposal? Of course it is: but the proposal it is rejecting is not the proposal that was made. Enough. The real proposal doesn't require community consent, any more than it requires community consent to drop a note on a user's talk page. Post-facto, if the note is abusive, there can be consequences, but we don't ask for permission before doing it. So what is going to happen, when the smoke clears, is that those who want to do it will do it and those who don't, won't. In the beginning, only a few will participate. There are no known policy issues. And MfD won't touch this, it doesn't depend on central files. That was a flaw in Absidy's implementation, and it wasn't necessary. I told him that it would be a problem. As to what has happened that I've described, there is established process for dealing with the issues, and it will take time. I'm now communicating with Absidy off-wiki, but everything was open until he was blocked. The wheels of wikijustice may grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine. As for the actions of Prodego and Bruning, or yourself, I have no complaint -- at least as far as I've been able to see. But Mangojuice blocked user accounts where he was involved in a dispute, the block of Absidy was similarly a policy violation, and Newyorkbrad, a member of ArbComm, has apparently signed off on it all, yet shows here that he is seriously misinformed about what happened. There is no sock puppetry involved, for example. Absidy thinks that the blocks may be justified on the basis of trolling, but I know him fairly well, and have read WP:TROLL a few times over, and it doesn't match what he did, as to the core meaning of trolling. But the real issue here isn't whether or not the block was justified. There are four account blocks involved and all might have some justification. But an indef block, with specific request for no unblock without consultation, because a user responds to a warning administrator with a finger? It wasn't disruptive, there was no hazard of continued harm, there was an upset user who did what upset users often do, get angry. Getting angry isn't grounds for being blocked. Disruptive behavior is, but what he did that was allegedly disruptive was correctly answered with a warning. He did not disregard the warning. He did not continue to "canvass," the alleged offense. His behavior was certainly not ideal, and I've severely criticized his "stunts" before. But they always turned out to have some utility for the project, and none of them were mean-spirited or actually disruptive. It will all come out, that's one thing that happens around here with reasonable reliability.--Abd (talk) 06:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Why do you have to write a novel every time you want to make a point? It's very difficult to read.--WaltCip (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
In the past, Abd has said that he has ADHD and it's difficult for him to be concise. (See here, response to oppose #16, for instance.) Mangojuicetalk 19:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per reasons given by Newyorkbrad and Mangojuice. Midorihana~iidesune? 06:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy delete I agree with the comments made by Newyorkbrad--VS talk 10:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy delete An absurd idea, totally unworkable and unnecessary. Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 12:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep and mark as extremely rejected. We generally don't delete policy proposals unless keeping them would be entirely meritless, but keeping this one has merit - it would document the community's (basically complete) rejection of the principles expressed here. If the objection to this is that the {{rejected}} tag isn't strong enough to convey this, then just cook up a stronger rejection tag. — Gavia immer (talk) 14:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
    • I think the deletion log entry would serve the same purpose... Mr.Z-man 18:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. While I would normally suggest simply tagging a failed policy proposal as {rejected}, there are additional factors here that weigh against retaining any of this material on Wikipedia. One of this process' strongest proponents (Absidy et al.) was pushing it using a ring of sockpuppets, and there's no reason to leave a memorial to his trolling. The other key proponent (Abd) has been pushing this concept because of his own interest in the topic as his own personal experiment in democracy. He has spent a significant amount of time on- and off-wiki Wikipedia promoting this idea, and has identified himself as coining the term 'delegable proxy'. (His earlier attempts to create an article on this topic under the alternate name 'liquid democracy' were rebuffed.) Again, Wikipedia isn't the place to push his novel voting schemes. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:41, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep and mark as rejected. Charles Stewart (talk) 15:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete pe rmany above, especially User:Newyorkbrad and User:TenOfAllTrades. Though, I must say I like the efficiency this would create in allowing one sockpuppeteer to !vote once in an XfD rather than several times... ;o) Resolute 15:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps Reso thinks this is a joke. He's actually onto something. If people here stopped to think for a bit about what DP would actually do, it's quite the opposite of all the expectations here. First of all, forget about sock puppets being used to amplify votes of the puppet master (or of some lead sock). One look at contributions, unless this was a very clever and very dedicated puppet master, and it would be checkuser time with all the usernames lined up for ready access. It already happened to me, based on the false suspicion mentioned above. Absidy had named me as his proxy, and I him. But one anticipated effect of DP would be some kind of shift in how AfDs, etc., are run. I'd expect to see fewer votes. Why add another vote if votes don't count anyway; instead, the DP process would actually discourage voting, i.e., additional comments that don't add anything. To the extent that votes count, they would be there through proxies. But, fundamentally, this is Wikipedia. Votes are not supposed to count. Really. They don't count. We don't vote, ever. Oh, okay, once in a while, RfAs, ArbComm elections. Those aren't votes? That's right, they aren't votes. They are just like everything else, community advice to a servant or bureaucrat, who uses independent judgement. Which may or may not consider vote counts. It's pretty obvious, though, that those counts do have some effect in some cases. Is there ever WP:SNOW with one dissenting argument? If votes don't count at all, how come?
  • keep per Gavia. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep and tag as rejected. The disadvantage of deletion might be that others, or maybe the same party, might come up with a similar idea or variation on same later. Keeping it and indicating that it was rejected, possibly with a link to this discussion, might help prevent anyone else coming up with a similar idea later. John Carter (talk) 20:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. It's not only a rejected Wikipedia policy. It's a rejected Wikipedia policy whose founders are trying to use it to promote the policy in general. If it comes up again, we can point to this page to show it's rejected. Superm401 - Talk 21:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Perhaps the page in question could redirect here? If that happens, I support deletion. Charles Stewart (talk) 22:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • If it's deleted, the deletion log would point here. If there does end up being a problem with recreation or something, we could always create a "rejected" explanation. Mangojuicetalk 01:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. There is no precedent for deleting this page this quickly. However, before this proposal is rejected, I'd suggest, there should actually be consideration of it, how about some discussion, maybe an actual RfC? The immediate placement of a tag (based on a some imagined similarity with Esperanza and AMA, the alleged basis for prior rejection), without discussion, without examination of what the proposal actually was, all this was astonishingly rapid. If someone wants a Rejected tag, though, fine, I certainly would not edit war over it. There was, in fact, no proposal here for the community to consider, nothing that actually required community approval. that's what I was claiming in Talk, and I asked on Village Pump/Policy what the policy issue was. There was no answer to this, and the discussion was closed abruptly. --Abd (talk) 02:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
To make it clear, my keep vote here would leave the Rejected tag in place, and I have no plans at all to contest that tag; it was replaced some time ago and I chose not to remove it, plus, it is completely clear that the present status is Rejected, regardless of the wisdom or foolishness of that. If, however, the community wants to incinerate this proposal, hey, be my guest. Be careful about sparks, though, they can cause fires. There are reasons why we don't delete proposals, starting with it requiring far more fuss than an ordinary edit placing a Reject tag.--Abd (talk) 04:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. This confusing policy is completely at odds with the way Wikipedia works. Best to delete it so that nobody comes up with the bright idea to revisit it. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 03:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
It wasn't a policy, it wasn't a guideline, and it had no implications with respect to policy or guidelines, and any opinion that it does -- as far as I've seen -- is based on imagining that the proposal is something it isn't. No wonder its confusing. It will be much easier to understand when you see a demonstration. Oh. You don't want to see a demonstration? Fine. Keep your eyes closed. You aren't obligated to watch, and it's not going to take anything away from you, or from Wikipedia.--Abd (talk) 06:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Let it go now Abd please - you've made your point and then made your point and then .... - how about we leave it to all the other commentators and interested parties to see what sort of consensus arises?--VS talk 06:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete please and speedy preferably, per the reasons given by Brad and Mango. Sarah 12:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete or Speedy delete - the whole thing appears to be unnecessary self-promoting drama. See the diff at [2] for just one example. Orderinchaos 14:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep and mark as extremely rejected, very rejected, utterly rejected, whatever emphatic adverb you like. We don't delete policy suggestions when they are rejected, not least because the continued presence of the page (especially if there are a number of "rejected" boxes at the top in a panoply of pleasing shades) prevents anyone suggesting this absurd, remarkably un-wiki policy in the future. Sam Korn (smoddy) 14:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete This goes against the very essence of Wikipedia. As ideas go for improving WP, this ranks up there with nominating Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il for the WMF board. Ronnotel (talk) 00:03, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Surprisingly, at least two of those characters would probably make it, knowing the way the world is now.--WaltCip (talk) 03:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete This proposal is patently ridiculous. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 17:03, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per the discussion above. Yellowbeard (talk) 17:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per above arguments for deletion. Appears to be an attempt to troll rather than a serious proposal, this should not be kept. --Coredesat 05:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Being a bad idea is not a reason to delete a page, and can be a very good reason to keep it. This is not some zomg DENY situation. Anything that can stir this kind of reaction should get documented properly, and it would likely help out those who believe it is the worst thing in the world. I don't know if it is a totally bad idea, but I'm secure enough that I don't fear an essay/rejected page from ending the world. -- Ned Scott 07:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • How about redirecting to Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates? This was a similar idea. I must be missing a point here, but there are a lot of failed proposal that remain visible, at least to show that this was a bad idea. I don't think the project will be hurt by marking (and protecting, if necessary) it as rejected. I alternatively propose redirecting, since both ideas were very similar. -- lucasbfr talk 10:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
This was not WP:AMA at all,' nor was it WP:Esperanza, which was a false claim made from the beginning. This created no organization, no burueaucracy, no secret meetings, no privileges, no changes in policy, and no proxy voting. All it did was to set up a file format and a table, which users could experiment with, having no effect on those not interested. Why such vigorous opposition, requiring Delete instead of mere Reject? I do, in fact, know. It's a Rule 0 violation, not directly, but it might make it possible to explain and even change Rule 0, which, of course, would be a Rule 0 violation, and which could cause disruption, it's feared. Nothing else I can think of explains the extended wikidrama over what should have been routine: a Rejected tag was placed on the article and nobody (including myself) thought it worth reverting. But, of course, with Rule 0 violations, public rejection isn't enough, an example must be set so that nobody dares to violate Rule 0 again. It doesn't work, but that has not tried societies from doing it, for thousands of years. The similarity with AMA and Esperanza is purely in that they all violated Rule 0, and, of course, it would violate Rule 0 to actually explain how they are similar, instead there is reliance on some presumed obvious similarity. (This is how societies enforce Rule 0 without stating it, "He should have known not to do that, from AMA and Esperanza."). Wikipedia does have formal process with increasingly cautious review, where it can become difficult to sweep arguments under the table, and it's possible all this will come to that. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail.--Abd (talk) 22:19, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Strike that, delete with prejudice then. -- lucasbfr talk 13:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Look at the record: no simultaneous usage of accounts. I.e., one account used, abandoned -- no further edits, another used. Only error not showing explicit name change. Edit histories showed abrupt switch, same arguments, same work on templates, etc. from new account. Immediate acknowledgement by user when questioned. Then user name change again, after accusations of sock puppetry this time explicitly acknowledged in the account creation summary and on the user page. No sock puppet abuse. Ever. Jehochman blocked this user improperly, and sock puppetry was not a cause, it was irrelevant. By the time the above was written, Jehochman knew that there were at least two users working on this, Absidy (last account name) and myself. Now, if !votes don't count, neither do edit histories showing, to someone who shouldn't really care, three users instead of two. (the new name Absidy arose after charges of stacking were made, and, at that point, I was checkusered. There are two users actively in favor of this idea and a few others who have expressed sympathy in various fora. One of the two is blocked, but, because it's not an emergency, this hasn't been appealed. I'm the other. Now, go ahead, accuse me of sock puppetry. Absidy was blocked for showing a finger on Jehochman's Talk page, it's blatantly obvious and will come out clearly in future process, assuming this can't be resolved directly. The proposal was sincere, from a very sincere Wikipedian, one of the sincerest I've had the honor to meet. And the way he's been treated is disgusting. Now, where were we? How about we discuss the proposal, and make decisions based on whether or not the proposal is disruptive, entirely aside from who proposed it. What a concept! --Abd (talk) 19:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep as rejected There seems to have been some mass hypnotism or something here. This MFD is only about whether the page on which the policy discussion resides should be kept or deleted, or merged, or redacted, or redirected, or blanked and protected; and what subsequently happens to the contribution history of said page. This is not a place to discuss the merits or demerits of the proposed policy. That is what the page was for. The policy failed, and has been marked as such. So all arguments above, which refer to the proposal as good or bad or great or evil or superb or incredibly awful are all MOOT. What we do around here with policy proposals that fail, is we keep them. We keep them so that our consensus-forming processes are transparent. We keep them so that those few poor unknowing fellows who show up in 4 years and have an idea one day, can find out that their idea might be controversial, because it has already been proposed. We keep it so that when many of us start saying "Hey, we already decided that wass a bad idea a long time ago", can point to the discussion ans say "See?" Many organizations have a proxy system associated with their decision-making processes, so it is entirely reasonable that a group of well-intentioned people might think "hey, let's do that here, too." That our community has already considered it and decided overwhelmingly against it is historically important, as are the reasons for doing so, including all of the stuff you can find on this page that we are considering deleting. Clearly the thing to do it to Keep it. It does not matter that bad dirty socks made the proposal and evil slimy puppets voiced falsly opined. It is a failed proposal. Failure is a good enough protection from what those bad people tried to do to us. We don't have to burn it and send the ashes to the moon. Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 21:12, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Issues as to the merits of the proposed policy is not completely moot. Since the only policy supported reason for deletion would be that the proposed policy in itself is disruptive. Taemyr (talk) 00:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
That is plain silly. No matter how disruptive the proposed policy is/was, the page should be kept like all other failed proposals. There is nothing in the page that can continue to cause any kind of disruption by just existing there as a failed policy archive. It is not decomposing meat... it's just a bunch of text which clearly says something to the effect of this is crap; ignore it at the top. Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 03:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
And helps us to learn from the past, as well. Deletion is not a form of rejection, and a record of rejection can be very helpful. -- Ned Scott 06:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
In this case, though, the mere existence of the page, even in rejected form, is a continuing source of self-promotion for the proposers. The two users are closely linked, and one of them invented the DP voting system and wanted to experiment with Wikipedia to learn about DP. This is not a proposal likely to ever be brought up in the future, unless the same small group pushes the same idea again. Mangojuicetalk 06:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
It still does not matter who proposed it or why. It still does not matter how bad a proposal it was. It still does not matter how harmful to wikipedia this proposal would have been if it had been adopted. None of that matters. It is a just a failed policy proposal. Nothing more. It can not promote anything or disrupt anybody. It does not jump up and down and say "look at me!" It just sits there as an assemblage of bits on a harddrive somewhere, and only those people who go out of their way to look at it, ever see it. We should not preemptively assume that those people will try to do bad things with it, and that we therefore must protect ourselves from the harm that they will do. We all know this proposal does not stand any chance of passing, now or ever... so why worry about it? Leave it there, ignore it, and let anyone who has any inkling of rekindling the idea or trying any similar foolish thing see what happens to bad proposal ideas. This whole MfD seems to be some sort of effort to dole out a punishment of sorts.... "If you propose something patently unwikipedian, we will fail your proposal, block you, and delete it... So there!" We just don't need to sell-out the integrity of our consensus-forming processes in order to make such a punishment. Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 14:51, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Without stating any opinion as to what should be the outcome of this MFD, might I simply broach the possibility of renaming it, if one desired to keep the page without advertising the neologistic term "delegable proxy"? PersonWhoseIdentityDoesn'tMatter 23:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.91.68 (talk) Stricken. This is User:Absidy, who is currently blocked. Jehochman Talk 04:50, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. Please note the Delegable proxy's AfD has been closed as delete. WP:PRX appears to be a transparent attempt at an end-run around this decision - i.e. use MfD's prohibition on policy deletion as a loophole around AfD. Ronnotel (talk) 13:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
This record keeps generating more wikistuff for later piles of diffs ... The AfD was filed after WP:PRX was created, and not in expectation of it. The article Delegable proxy was an actual article, created by me as a stub on Liquid democracy, in 2005, as a brand-new user, and not edited by me after that. The proposal here, by Absidy, was to apply principles that researchers all around the world are working on, on Wikipedia. Not to promote delegable proxy, though a successful result of the experiment would, in fact, do that, if it solved certain tenacious problems here that will continue to get worse if they are not addressed. It was not about voting. Much of the confusion about that arose from the use of the term "proxy," which was, unfortunately, misleading here. What was established was a very, very limited "proxy," one with no powers. Useless then? No. But to understand just how useful it might be, the astonishing set of administrators who have weighed in here would have to drop the constant presumption of bad faith. I've started the process of cleaning up this mess, Jehochman has agreed to unblock Absidy if he promises to keep only one account and be nice. There never was any sock puppetry, if one actually looks at the record. As to promotion, though, if you are devious and would like to promote delegable proxy, please delete the proposal. I'm not. Keep it. It makes it harder for us as a rejected proposal, though not much. Oh, as to the article, Absidy found some academically published RS. I'd not seen it before. I'm an inventor, yes, but only one of many; others published before me. Until now, only on the web. However, we don't need Delegable proxy which is just one name for something elsewhere called Delegated voting, and what is relevant from the DP article, and the new source, will go there. Wikipedia works, and doesn't require all this fuss. I see that we need some redirects.--Abd (talk) 15:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Abd, I don't doubt your sincerity in this matter. I believe that you believe you are acting in the best interest of WP. However, various policies apply, particularly WP:COI (per your intent to write book on the subject) and WP:NOT#SOAPBOX. Whatever the timing of how the article and the policy were created, the fact remains that they both serve to promote a fringe idea. I see no basis for holding onto the policy now that the article has been deleted. Ronnotel (talk) 16:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Uh, long-standing precedent and absence of necessity? A concocted claim of COI proposal, preceded by one excuse after another, each time shifting, and thus clearly proceeding from some underlying, unstated motive, isn't enough. Or at least it shouldn't be. Sometimes here, because we do sometimes actually vote, quite improperly, by the way, a majority of a minority prevails. But it's pretty hard to break Wikipedia with a single wrong decision. A series of them, though....--Abd (talk) 21:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Concocted claim? Here are your own words: Absidy has . . . offered to help edit a book [on Delegable Proxy] and that will be taking up most of my time & Wikipedia's loss may be my gain.. Seems like a pretty clear case of COI to me. Out of curiosity, do you expect this book to make mention of Delegable Proxy at WP? Ronnotel (talk) 22:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, concocted claim. The book is post-facto, not pre-. Prior to this proposal, there was no book project. Ronnotel is continuing massive AGF failure, and I'd urge anyone tempted to swallow his distortion to read the full cited text of mine; however, if you must, skip to the last section which he extracted his quote from. If future possibilities create a COI.... well, try to enforce that rule! This was not proposed to further a book project, but it, quite simply, is having that effect. Delete is the vote that most effectively helps the book. Otherwise it is kind of boring, don't you think? "Proposal was promptly marked as Rejected," vs. "Proposer was blocked, proposal was incinerated with extreme prejudice." This affair would have been over, as far as the proposal is concerned, prior to this MfD, when the Rejected tag was replaced on the article and I did not contest that. But, apparently, that wasn't enough. With liberal portions of assumptions of bad faith, an MfD was begun with deceptive presentation of the evidence and thus tainted from start to finish, and AGF failure is almost always disruptive. (I corrected the nomination errors in a section I placed immediately after the nominating statement, but we have a deletion debate tradition which mixes evidence with conclusions, encouraging knee-jerk !voting (talk about Bad Ideas), and my correction was moved to Talk for this MfD by a very involved editor.) --Abd (talk) 03:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep as rejected. To anyone who understands that Wikipedia is governed by rough consensus, where arguments count more than votes (with a few specific counter examples subject only to binary yes/no decisions), and users are not required to verify identity and use only one account, it is clear that the proposal is not viable. But the proposers didn't know this. And once rejected, there will not be ongoing disruption from this. Heck, when and if we ever do switch to editors who edit under real identities only, this might actually merit consideration - but even then sockpuppetry will probably make it unworkable. GRBerry 02:41, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
While I agree with GRBerry as to action at this time, the proposer of this is a long-time, very experienced Wikipedian (over 2 years that I can verify, and that account was obviously not the first), and he -- and I, with far less experience -- know what is described here; however, opponents of this proposal have consistently mischaracterized it as being about voting. The sock puppetry problem is a common initial response; however, actually, trying to manipulate this trial by sock puppets would be wiki-suicide. Absidy actually proved that, even before an general trial was attempted. Just from the initial assignments, done at first for testing purposes, he and I were the target of an SSP report, because of our mutual choices. Sock puppets and puppet masters do not provide explicit pointers to each other. The proposal was not to change WP:NOTAVOTE, and, sheesh, numerous times in this debate I've pointed out that I'd be opposed if it involved voting. So ... there is an extension of WP:AGF that really should be policy: WP:ANS: Assume Not Stupid. Just like AGF can be assuming something false, so can ANS, but it's not where we should start. As I've written, the status quo (Rejected) is the least disruptive outcome of this MfD; God Kim Bruning was correct, right as rain, and -- he placed the Rejected tag promptly on the proposal initially.--Abd (talk) 03:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.