Wikipedia:Requests for comment/ForbiddenWord

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In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 20:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 19:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC).

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Contents

[edit] Statement of the dispute

This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.

[edit] Description

{Add summary here, but you must use the section below to certify or endorse it. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries, other than to endorse them.}

ForbiddenWord has been disruptive on both AfDs and articles. He has repeatedly deprodded school articles and school related articles with minimal explanation, many which later have had unanimous decisions to delete. His reasons for keeping articles have been borderline incoherent or arguing that they should be kept because there will be a flood of keep votes. Similarly, the editor has endorsed using schoolwatch as an AfD votestacking mechanism. He has furthermore been uncivil in repeatedly attacking nominations as "pointless." The user furthermore makes almost no edits aside from school related AfDs and has made almost no edits to article space in the last two months aside from the removal of prod tags on school-related articles. Whenever he makes these removals he makes no effort to improve the articles in any sustantial fashion.

[edit] Evidence of disputed behavior

(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)

Deprodding:

  1. [1] deprods article about a single organization at a school as a "school-related article, subject is notable to community and members" even though it is clear that small organizations within schools do not get their own articles.
  2. [2] Removes {{notability}} with the assertion "is assuredly notable to students attending or attended" and changes the article from reading "ArrowSmith Academy was a private school in Berkeley, California." to "ArrowSmith Academy was a pupular and notable private school in Berkeley, California." This is disruptive and seems to also violate WP:POINT and includes the insertion of unsourced POV by claiming it was "popular" which if anything the tiny amount of detail in the article would seem to refute.
  3. [3] again deprods with summary "deprod, subject is notable to attending student" and makes no attempt at all to clean up the article (which was at the time of the deprodding poorly written and had easily fixable grammatical errors).
  4. [4] deprods with the summary "subject is notable to its editors and scientific community??" Note that a simple glance at the article would have told him that there is no importance to the scientific community in this whatsoever.
  5. [5] another example where his edit summary indicates that he has not read the article.
  6. He also deprodded List of High School Colors with the edit summary "deprod lovely school related article" (article is now deleted per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of High School Colors so one needs to be an admin to see it).
  7. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gaydo Cup where FW deprodded an article about a minor soccer match which even self-identified school inclusionists agreed should be deleted.

AfD behavior: FW's behavior on AfDs has been almost uniformily disruptive, often keeping for reasons having little or nothing to do with the articles in question.

  1. [6] declares that the articles should be kept since all schools are notable while not even noticing that the articles in question are disambiguation pages not schools.
  2. [7] Accuses editors who nominate non-notable school articles of "not understanding consensus on Wikipedia". Then futher defames those editors stating "I don't think the nominators should be forced to apologize or any malice held against them,".

The user has repeatedly insisted on keeping school articles calling school articles the "most precious" articles on Wikipedia. Examples include

  1. [8] here calls for "allowed room for expansion and organic growth" of a article that was posted as a hoax / joke.
  2. [9] :# (which also seems to be an attempt to stifle discussion) :# [10] (repeated the assertion without giving any evidence to back it up - note does not then reply in that AfD when others ask him why this would be true).
  3. [11] Similar language also here and note the combative/borderline uncivil statement about what "we must not..." let happen.
  4. [12] and [13]
  5. [14] and [15] Seems to imply that all the matters is the "consensus" of schoolwatch not of Wikipedia as a whole.
  6. [16]Claims an unverifiable, unverified article should be kept and note that later in the AfD still insists on keeping the article despite it failing the critical WP:V.
  7. [17] Endorses votestacking claiming that "the consensus that matters is the one that can turn out the most editors, and that is the group at Schoolwatch" part of a general pattern of claiming consensus exists where none does such as [18] In a related fashion, calls nominations "pointless" because of "the votes Schoolwatch can turn out" [19] See also [20] [21] and [22] among many similar difs.

[edit] Applicable policies and guidelines

{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}

  1. WP:POINT, WP:CIVIL, WP:NOT, WP:GAFD, WP:CONSENSUS

[edit] Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links) Many of the above AfDs contain attempts to reason with FW. Therefore, only edits to his talk page are included in this section.

  1. [23]
  2. [24]
  3. [25]
  4. [26]
  5. [27]

[edit] Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

  1. JoshuaZ 20:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  2. Akradecki 20:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other users who endorse this summary

  1. The above is, as far as I can tell from my own review of ForbiddenWord's contributions, an accurate and fair representation of the problem. Guy 21:07, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  2. Addhoc 21:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  3. TheRanger 21:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}

Users who endorse this summary:

[edit] Views by other involved parties

These are a summaries written by other users directly involved with the dispute but who are not certifying this RFC. Users editing other sections should not edit this section, except to endorse a view by an involved party.

[edit] View by involved party Uncle G

I really hope that this RFC does not become a proxy for the perennial school articles debate. That is not, in my view, the problem here. There are plenty of people who have strong beliefs on the inclusion of schools that I don't think that any editor involved in this dispute has a problem with. Speaking for myself, whilst I may disagree with certain editors on the subject of schools, and think that their arguments are fallacious and ill-founded, I certainly have no dispute with them as editors.

The problem with ForbiddenWord is xyr actions, which have gone far astray from writing an encyclopaedia. The absolute best way to make an argument to keep a school article is something like this (Silensor's edits to St Chad's R.C Primary School), this (Silensor's edits to Lapal Primary School), or this (Silensor's edits to Whitstone school). I've even been known to cite sources myself in order to demonstrate that the WP:SCHOOL criteria are satisfied (example example). I've done a couple of rewrites, also. Citing copious sources that are non-trivial and independent of the subject, and producing decent sourced stubs based upon them, is an argument for keeping that works (I've lost count of the number of rewrites citing sources, or simple additions of sources to articles, at AFD that I've done.); that doesn't rely upon factionalism or upon any subjective assertions of what an editor personally thinks to be notable, which degenerate into the same old "stuck record" arguments; and that doesn't involve addressing editors instead of addressing articles, in any way.

Unfortunately, ForbiddenWord isn't doing any of this. Xe is instead employing some of the same approach that GRider employed. (See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/GRider, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/GRider2, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/GRider for where that ended up.) Xe is clearly regarding AFD as an exercise in vote stacking, patronizing nominators, and declaring consensus by unilateral fiat. Every article that even mentions the word "school" in its title (such as School House (AfD discussion)) is treated as if it were a school, no matter what the actual subject of the article is, no matter what the content of the article is (Portage path elementary (AfD discussion) was a 9 word sub-stub.), no matter even that the article is unverifiable and there is clear evidence that the school doesn't even exist.

In stark contrast to the Silensor diffs hyperlinked to above, Special:Contributions/ForbiddenWord reveals a contribution of actual content and improvement to the encyclopaedia, in an area that this editor claims to be passionate about, that is practically nil. All that proclaimed passion, and yet there is zero actual work towards the betterment of the encyclopaedia in furtherance of it. ForbiddenWord might as well not be here for all of the effect that xe has had on improving the content of the encyclopaedia. All that ForbiddenWord has contributed is empty votes. Xe has stated that xe is "unwilling to sit idly by", but by merely voting, doing no research, and contributing no content that is exactly what xe actually is doing.

And in several areas xe is even actively working to retain bad content. We don't want bad schools articles. We don't want stuff like this version of Sidney Stringer School. We don't want semi-libellous non-articles, full of things that happened in school one day and no real information. Given the Skutt suit, it should be clear that no content is better than bad content when it comes to schools articles, too. In stark contrast to ForbiddenWord's mere votes with no actions to make bad content better, making a strong AFD argument by citing sources, in order to satisfy the WP:SCHOOL criteria, and rewriting articles citing sources, actually helps the encyclopaedia, by replacing (or at the very least assisting in the replacement of) the bad content with good content.

I'd like this to change. I'd like ForbiddenWord to imitate the aforementioned examples, stop voting, do research, and start actually making a tangible contribution. I'd like xem to stop sitting idly by. I've encouraged xem several times to do the research, to find and to cite sources to show that any school article that xe wants to keep satisfies the WP:SCHOOL criteria (which has the additional benefits of improving the encyclopaedia and providing future editors with sources to employ). But xe has refused. Perhaps, if it turns out as a result of this RFC that I am not alone in wanting to see xem adopt a positive approach that actually involves making the encyclopaedia better and clearing out bad content that we most definitely do not want, xe will actually begin contributing content and improvements to the encyclopaedia, rather than just sitting idly by and voting.

If xe does change, and starts imitating the above good examples of how to make one's case for keeping an article at AFD, I'm confident that this dispute will be resolved, and that other editors, even those with wholly different views on schools, will no longer have any problem.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Uncle G 17:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
  2. JoshuaZ 20:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
  3. TheRanger 20:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC) This very clearly states the concern of the actions.
  4. Wise words. Guy 09:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
  5. Addhoc 13:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
  6. Akradecki 15:48, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
  7. W.marsh 12:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
  8. Isotope23 17:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outside view

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

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I am an outside party not involved in any of the articles or AFDs noted above. After reviewing this users edits, I see lots of questionable Point making (The NBA 2029-2030 season article strikes me, as well as all of the school related edits) and very little attempt to provide actual content to any article. It would be helpful if this editor had some actual CONTENT to come to their defense. If they were frequently involved in editing school-related articles, providing resources, involved in relevent WikiProjects, etc. etc. we could take their actions as having more weight. In fact, almost their ENTRIRE edit history consists of Deprods. An occasional deprod is OK, but only if you then substantially improve the article in question. Make some edits. Do some research. Write something. So far, I have seen little evidence of this. --Jayron32 04:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. --Jayron32 04:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.