Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Administrators' noticeboard

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany 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 Delete. The keep commenters are a numerical minority, and have not substantially rebutted in argument the notion that this sets a bad precedent. Xoloz 15:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Administrators' noticeboard

I created this page. I wanted to get the community opinion on having a page such as this. I felt a page is needed to get attention of administrators interested in India-related content. Currently editors looking for attention are spamming all the Indian admin talk pages to see who will help them. This page will give them one place to post and get attention. If everyone feels it should go, I will not object it. Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 17:57, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletions. -- Ganeshk (talk) 18:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - This is a discussion whether to keep rather than a discussion to delete. - Ganeshk (talk) 02:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - The history verifies that Ganeshk created this page, qualifying it for speedy deletion. Badbilltucker 21:09, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I want a discussion here. I do not want a speedy deletion. - Ganeshk (talk) 21:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I think this noticeboard could be of assistance in reducing instances of editors spamming admins in the hope of getting admin attention. I also would have more confidence that an admin who is familiar with India related articles would notice an issue if it were brought to such a noticeboard, than if it were brought to the general Administrators' Noticeboard, because it would not be admixed with a plethora of issues with which the admin is not familiar. Of course, I have not yet heard any opposing arguments, so I am not committed to my position. --BostonMA 02:06, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: Recently, a user spammed many pages of administrators from India. India is a country of one billion people, and has enormous diversity. A page dedicated to the India-specific matters to the attention of Indian administrators are most welcome as this would spare the users to roam from page to page to present their problems requiring admin attention. At the same time, all users shall be free to explore other avenues as hitherto. --Bhadani 04:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Note - the user in question also saw that I had received a message from User:Sango123, a Chinese American, and decided to spam her as well! Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 04:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - Well, at the moment, we have WT:INWNB for general unified content discussion. I'm guessing that the round of spamming and counterspamming were due to certain editors hoping for a favourable ruling from the administrators or that the administrators were not attending to them, so they decided to confront them personally to implore an administrator to intervene. I think happened (Mahawiki and Sarvagnya most recently) because I was lightening of and wasn't taking care of the Kannada vs Marathi debate as I had done previously. So there is a bit of disgruntlement amongst some of those battling it out on religious pages like Bajrang Dal, Babri mosque, Shiv Sena, Upanishad and Karnataka vs Maharashtra pages like Belgaum, Rashtrakuta, Solapur, Akkalkot, Marathi people, etc, that the administrators are intransigent and won't get involved. With reference to Boston's comments about, I am very sure that the vast majority of the Indian administrators were aware of the massive activity and battles that were being played out on my userpage (7 full archives at around 300kb total), so I think the main problem was due to a reluctance to intervene in the mess as people knew I was taking a wiki-break (sort of...). Needless to say, with the Indian economy growing at 8-10%, massive growth in the middle class, we will get a disproportionately higher growth in the Indian arena, and that means more regionalism battles and more relgious battles. Needless to say, even if I spent 6 hours a day on wikipedia I would not be able to control all the battling alone. I think the main problem is a lack of assertiveness. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 04:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Further comment - It looks like User_talk:Ikonoblast (see there) has decided that he will send me to WP:RFARB so there is doubt as to whether I would be able to moderate the place much longer...so someone else would have to replace me. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 04:18, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

    I feel that (in the short run, and definitely in the long run) several India related pages are going to become highly unreliable and useless, if certain people continue to treat the privilege to edit wikipedia as a license to make edits at their whims and fancy. In fact, I feel overwhelmed as the content moderation and verification require not only deep knowledge but also time at one’s disposal. --Bhadani 08:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

  It seems no Indian administrators seem to be interested in politics. I think this is a problem, as many pages on Prime Ministers such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Rajiv Gandhi, Manmohan Singh seem terrible, as are L K Advani, Sonia Gandhi and probably many others are in very bad condition. Someone with knowledge of Indian current affairs needs to stand up. Unfortunately I know nothing of these matters aside from the names of these PMs - I don't even know the names of any other politicians. To be frank, we need a collaboration to make a good base of an article, and then we can simply revert bad edits. I am trying to work to get a good version of User:Blnguyen/Rahul Dravid that I can revert to, because everyday someone comes along and puts personal POV into it (Same for Ganguly and Tendulkar).Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 08:46, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

  I do agree with you. However, the processes and procedures of wikipedia are more favourable to vandals, white-collar vandals marauding as legitimate editors and new editors than to trusted ones, including the administrators, whom any one can drag to the "courts" of the wiki-community like RfC, ArbCom & so on. Many may not be inclined to waste their time and wiki-reputation, and ultimately the net effect is that many India related pages of wikipedia are becoming like practical jokes, and like unreliable blogs. It is a saddening and shocking experience indeed: I still remember the garbage which the community heaped on me when I was reported by a user with screen name or real name of Anwar. From that moment onward, my association with wikipedia perhaps became cosmetic only, and I stopped value addition in the true sense. --Bhadani 09:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

  BTW, a small work for hardly few weeks could get me a better recognition in Simple English Wikipedia: [1] - [2] - [3], three barnstars in 3 weeks. On the other hand, wiki-politics at English wikipedia ensure that good editors and administrators get marginalised. --Bhadani 09:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: It'll be useful only if we ensure that it's in every Indian admin's watchlist. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 09:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep - if it isn't useful {{prod}} it in few weeks. No need to come here. Yomangani^talk 12:18, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Interesting... I can see the use for refactoring the heavy-traffic Admin Noticeboard, but I don't really think splitting it by region is such a useful idea. I would recommend merging this to WP:AN simply because if you are looking for an admin's attention, you are far more likely to get it there. >Radiant< 16:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• DeleteIndian articles are in no way different from others and this may put them out of full public glare which some wikipedians obviously want to keep.One may also see veiled attempt to tamper with wikipedia policies on this noticeboard which will be handled by Indian admins mostly, a sort of now defunct Fundywatch List becoming active in new avtar. Ikon |no-blast 11:53, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Defer. I don't see any evidence on the admin noticeboards of any particular problem with India-related articles, but I could be persuaded of the need due to the requirement for specialist knowledge. Let's see how busy it is. Guy 20:52, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete We already have numerous areas to gain admin attention, from the general WP:AN through WP:PAIN, WP:RFPP etc. Trying to divide the project along national/cultural/subject lines is IMO a bad idea, we could end up with 1000's of these with each convinced their cause is somehow being under represented generally and in need of specialist help, which could actually create a greater uneveness in dealing with issues. If there are problems with the current system better to face those head on than try to resolve them by creating forks. --pgk 21:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Uneccisary POV fork. --InShaneee 22:34, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• delete risk of devisions along national lines.Geni 00:23, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - India related pages have tooooo many disputes.Bakaman _Bakatalk 01:08, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. There are no American, Russian, British, French or Indian administrators. All administrators are Wikipedia administrators. Zocky | picture popups 01:38, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
  • From what I can make out, this isn't a board for whining about Indian administrators. Rather, this board is for whining to administrators about situations on India-related articles that would make requesting an admin the best action. —this is messedrocker (talk) 01:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Looking at what's at the page now, it's already used for issues unconnected to India-related articles. Zocky | picture popups 02:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
      • How so? --BostonMA 02:30, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
        • Bhadani's request on the page doesn't require an admin familiar with India-related topics. I'm not berating Bhadani for making it there, because this is to be expected if such pages exist. This effect will not by itself cause harmful factionalizing of admins by country lines, but is one of the things that will make it more likely. Zocky | picture popups 02:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
          • I'm sorry, I don't understand. Bhadani is an admin. He reported his own action of protecting his user page. --BostonMA 02:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
            • I appologize for misreading that, but it just makes the point more obvious: the page has barely started, and we already have an admin asking for review of his administrative actions which are unrelated to articles about India. Zocky | picture popups 03:03, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - per Bhadani .Shyamsunder ,15.03 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - this page is not needed. The normal Administrators noticeboard is enough. BhaiSaab ^talk 02:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Rename Other projects have noticeboards. Recommend just a plain noticeboard for requests. Hbdragon88 08:23, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Bad precedent. --Woohookitty^(meow) 08:38, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete There is a huge risk that splitting up incidents by topic may result in different standards being applied. I can imagine that incidents reported about maligning India to the India board will get more response that reporting them to anywhere else. But would issues involving maligning of Pakistan in a contentious article about India get as much response on this page? One has to wonder human nature being what it is. I think this is unnecessary and it sets a horrible precedent. (I am not saying that pro-India bias is unique, but anything where there is a country specific page for complaints it will act as a rallying point or coordination point for people who are especially concerned about that topic.) --Ben 14:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - Unless you can demonstrate some reason why articles about Indian-related topics are somehow more special and more deserving of attention than non-Indian-related topics. -- Ξxtreme Unction 14:16, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• delete - it would set a bad precedent, all sorts of other "Project ANs" would spring up. Also, it aids the tendency to fragment the community into orthogonal topical sub-wikis. This sort of thing may be a good idea at some point in the future when the workload and posting frequency at AN becomes absolutely unbearable. This is not the case yet. Any admin can watch project pages and AN and react to queries posted on either. No need for Yet Another WP: board. dab (ᛏ) 17:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete un-needed and would cause a mess if this became a trend for other projects. -- Ned Scott 05:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - Unnecessary and sets a bad precedent. Not that I'm an admin myself (I'm not), but I would think that just a regular project noticeboard could fulfill the same function, without the inherent singling out of admins as "special", which would set a bad precedent in and of itself. Badbilltucker 17:10, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I can see that there is a lot of support for delete, and I doubt that my comment will alter the outcome. I was a bit surprised by the degree of opposition to the notice board, so I did some searching of my soul to try to better understand why I voted keep, and why I am bothered by the delete arguments. Like many people, I seek out the advice, counsel and assistance of people I trust. It may be regrettable, but it is the truth, that while I trust a great number of admins at Wikipedia, I do not trust them all, and that is one of the reasons why, if I need advice or assistance from an admin, I am much more likely to ask for help directly from someone I trust, by leaving a message on their talk page, than to post a notice on WP:AN/I. I do not believe I am alone in this, as I have seen many instances of editors asking for help on admin talk pages. As I understand it, the Wikiproject/India/Administrators' noticeboard was created to help solve a problem. Like myself, there are editors who prefer the assistance of admins they trust. However (unlike myself), some editors choose to "spam" the admins participating in Wikiproject/India by leaving messages on multiple admin talk pages. The noticeboard would allow editors to request help from the exact same set of admins, but without spamming. The convenience provided is not terribly great, and that is why I am not particularly wedded to the noticeboard. If it is deleted, it is only a minor bump in the road. However, I am somewhat dismayed by the arguments raised for deletion. Deletion will not change the fact that many editors will have varying degrees of trust in one or another admin. Thus, some admins will continue to have a "special status" with certain editors, i.e. they will be trusted. But that is the only way in which they are "special". Such admins will continue to be sought out. However, rather than this happening in an organized way, it will happen in an ad-hoc way, and at times it will happen with "spam". Perhaps I do not truly understand what is feared. I have said my bit. --BostonMA ^talk 20:10, 11 October 2006 (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.