- New Life Children’s Refuge case (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)
The page was speedy deleted by John Vandenberg (talk · contribs) as G5 (i.e. "Pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their ban or block, and which have no substantial edits by others."). I'm not sure who the banned user in question is but I do know that I (and others) invested time in fixing the article, improving references and making sure it didn't get too speculative and confusing. I think my edits (for one) qualify as substantial. In any case, the project isn't served by the deletion of this page. Pichpich (talk) 01:57, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- However, you're comparing the wrong versions. My first edits have time stamp 20100316213729. Pichpich (talk) 02:54, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I can see your first edit; you definitely improved the article before my first diff, however the vast majority is written by the banned user. John Vandenberg (chat) 03:10, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Undelete. If a user in good standing can vouch for the material, it should be allowed notwithstanding actions by a banned editor. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:55, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- John Vandenberg, do I understand correctly that you deleted the material in question because you were enforcing an Arbcom decision that was taken in private session? And do I understand correctly that Arbcom have made that decision, within Arbcom's normal remit, on the basis of information that is not available to the public? If my understanding is right, then my position is that DRV has no jurisdiction to overturn Arbcom in this matter. I think that Arbcom is the "highest court in the land" for conduct disputes. To the extent that there's a "highest court in the land" for content disputes, it's DRV, but Arbcom is the higher authority. My position is that DRV could decide to permit recreation of the deleted material by a user in good standing, and that might be the best course here, but I think the user in good standing should use their own words, not the words from the deleted content.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 11:21, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In other words: the user in good standing who already spent his volunteer time working on the article shall now spend his volunteer time rewriting an article that already exists but shall do so carefully because, hey, CC-BY-SA and everything. How about ArbCom rewrites the article? Pichpich (talk) 12:39, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- That's too bitter in tone. Still, if ArbCom or John (or any other admin) is really set on deleting the article because it was started by Satan or some moral equivalent, it seems to me that they should be responsible for rewriting a basic article to take its place. It's a boring hour of work but that should be part of mitigating the effect of a banned user. Pichpich (talk) 13:44, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Chill. If it comes to that, I'll personally write the stub.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 15:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- My deletion of this specific article is not at the direction of Arbcom. However, the underlying decision to enforce the banning policy strictly with regards to this specific banned person has been upheld by successive Arbcoms over the years, and its enforcement has only been patchy at times where it has gone undetected or resources stretched.
As you will know, I am usually at DRV trying to undelete articles, so I don't enjoy deleting them. My deletion doesn't prohibit someone else recreating the article, and I am happy to rewrite the article from scratch.
I deleted this article because I consider it to be primarily written by one banned person, however I can understand Qrsdogg (talk · contribs) or Pichpich (talk · contribs) believing that their edits to this article would count as "substantial". Given the specifics of this case, I don't think their edits to this article are substantial enough to warrant this article being retained, but that is something the community will need to review. Arbcom or myself can give more details privately. John Vandenberg (chat) 08:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- There are a lot of tangential words below. John, please rewrite the article from scratch, and then I think we'll be done here. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:36, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Conditional procedral overturn. While I am willing to trust arbcom and the admin involved in the decision as the situation currently stands no accountability is there what so ever. From the evidence above this was clearly not a normal G5 and something more substantial should have been put in the deletion logs. I am also amazed that there appears to be no arbcom motion that describes the very basics so that there can be some accountabaility, even if it's as simple as something like "There is a complex case which we feel unable to make any details publicly avaliable. Deletions and reversions may be done by (insert editors here - presumbly arbcom, ex-arbcom and others in trusted posiitons and privy to the case) because of this and should not be reversed. Such deletions and reversions should reference this motion". To me the issue here is not trusting arbcom to do the job we elected them for but rather accountabality - at the very least editors should be able to know that it's because it of something that can't be made public that actions have been taken. At the moment it looks far too much like a rogue admin. Therefore I'm currently saying procedural overturn as I think it's important that the whole of wikipedia not only acts correctly but is seen to act correctly and that is not currently the case. If a 'paper' trail, even a very minimal one, is put in place then I'd change my vote to endorse. (At the moment I can think if no reason why the minimal trail I discuss above is likely to cause problems. If it is then I'd apprecaite a private message explaining, in very broad term, why). I realise that I've strayed out of the remit of DRV a but here but it explains my reasoning and I'm not quite sure where else to put it. Dpmuk (talk) 12:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Having thought about this a bit more I think my biggest concern is this: Wikipedia works on consensus. Actions are either taken after consensus or or open to review (e.g. reversion / talk page discussion in the case of edits, DRV in the case of deletions, the unblock template in the case of blocks). This helps ensure that a rogue editor / admin / bureaucrat can't do too much damage without it coming to people's attention. In this case an admin has deleted a page and there is now discussion over whether this is a DRV issue due to the ArbCom involvement. If it's not a DRV issue where's this review going to take place? There's no arbcom information about allowing such deletions in the first place, let alone details of how to query one (which would presumably be answered by another arbitrator or similar checking the firsts actions). Until such procedures are in place I think DRV has to handle this as there is no other venue (although a speedy close by an arbitrator with an appropiate comment may be the way to go). Dpmuk (talk) 14:33, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- This DRV is a paper trail. ;-) I think that is the crux of your second comment. CSD G5 is part of the banning policy (see Wikipedia:Banning_policy#Enforcement_by_reverting). It is more typically seen with recently created pages when the sock is identified easily and early, and it is daft to apply it articles that have been well developed by the community. In between those extremes, .. is lots of room for discussion[1], admin discretion, and community review. As a result, I doubt that Arbcom would step in here. It isn't the end of the world if the deletion is overturned; if that happens, we'll just need to rewrite it from scratch. btw, I have added a few cases of overturned G5 to Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Overturned_speedy_deletions#G5_-_Created_by_banned_user. John Vandenberg (chat) 08:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- My comments above (certainly the second comment and the 'paper trail' comment) were mainly aimed at explaining why I thought DRV had to have jurisdiction in reply to S Marshall's comments, something with which you seem to agree. If this is to be treated as a normal G5 then those comments are largely moot. However some of my concerns, are I believe, still valid. My understanding of the philosophy behind speedy deletion is that they should only be applied when an article would certainly be deleted at AfD. Obviously an administrator has to make a call as to whether an article meets the criteria but in cases such as this where established editors question an admins judgement on one of the subjective parts of the criteria (in this case "substantial edits") it is my opinion that the article should pretty much automatically be restored. Above you write "Given the specifics of this case, I don't think their edits to this article are substantial enough to warrant this article being retained, but that is something the community will need to review." However this is something we can't do as we don't know the specifics of the case - therefore either the specifics needs to be made publicly available (which seems unliekly) or we need comments from people that do know the specifics (hence my arbitrators comments above even, I wasn't expecting ArbCom action as such but rather comments from arbitrators as some of the few knowledgeable people). Sorry for the length my comments - I really need to get better at writing succinctly. Dpmuk (talk) 09:28, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- This specifics arn't related to the content of this article; they are related to this banned user who created. As a result, I don't object to an admin undeleting the article in order for non-admins to better participate in this DRV.
I wouldn't be deleting articles if the creator was merely banned for "wiki-sins". OTOH, there is no dispute among anyone who is familiar with this banned person that their continued involvement in the project is not wanted. i.e. in this case, I did lean more towards deleting due to which banned user created the article, and would consider an AfD to be a guaranteed delete decision if I was at liberty to provide a detailed justification publicly. This person has been in WP:RBI territory for a long time. I can show you thousands of reverts, performed by many functionaries and arbitrators spanning half a decade (gosh that sounds weird), and anyone reviewing the edits would consider most of the edits to be "good". I cant quickly grab links for the thousands, but here are 500 of mine from the Christmas/New Year period[2] and 130+ over the last few days[3]. In addition, I have done quite a few G5's related to this banned user.[4] You can see a few comments from a current arbitrator, two ex-arbitrators (excluding me) & one functionary at the last discussion.
However the deleted article did contain contributions from other Wikipedians that went beyond mere new-page-patrol & gnoming, so I can understand this deletion decision being dragged to DRV. --John Vandenberg (chat) 10:44, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- What I take from John Vandenberg's response is that he is enforcing Arbcom-approved sanctions against a specific person. It follows that DRV has no jurisdiction in this matter and this DRV should be closed without result. However, I do see where Pichpich is coming from and have some sympathy with him. In the interests of FairProcess, I offer to rewrite this article or to collaborate with others in the rewriting of this article, such that Pichpich will not feel that he needs to repeat work he has already done.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 11:18, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Sensible indeed. How about this. You rewrite a basic short article but keep all the references so that I can eventually rebuild a more thorough account without too much of a headache. Writing all the <ref> gazillion parameters </ref> is an absolute time waster but copy/pasting them from the deleted article shouldn't pose a problem from a copyright standpoint. Pichpich (talk) 11:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I've pulled all the refs out and dropped them into User:John Vandenberg/HORM. John Vandenberg (chat) 23:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I'd also just like to disagree with Dpmuk about whether it's appropriate for DRV to review Arbcom decisions. I'm quite confident that it is not. DRV is about content and process, not about the conduct matters that occupy Arbcom so much of the time. Maybe there is a need to have a body that reviews Arbcom decisions—I'm agnostic about that—but if so, that body should be one with a mandate to address conduct matters.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 11:24, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I think you've miss understand my concerns. I'm not saying that DRV (or indeed anywhere) should review ArbCom decisions but there should be somewhere that reviews whether editors / admins etc have followed their decisions correctly when subjective decisions have to be made. Blocks etc made as a reuslt of ArbCom decisions are logged on the relevant page and the editor has a defined 'appeal' process. In the case of a subjectove deletion because of an arbcom decision I know of no way for that to be appealed, and especially in this case where there is not even an arbcom page on the issue, it seems to me that DRV is the only possible place to go. (If Arbcom says that page y should be deleted then I don't think there should be an appeal route. If arbcom were to say for example that "all pages meeting criteria x should be deleted" the I do think there should be some sort of place for a discussion as to whether the pages actually meet criteria x, which is different from challenging abrcom's actual decision). Dpmuk (talk) 12:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, there's some discussion about the relationship between the various places to appeal (particularly DRV, AN, and Arbcom) here. It seems well established that in a matter of content, DRV is the "highest court" and an appeal against DRV would be heard here, except in rare cases where AN would be more appropriate. It also seems to be well established that in matters of conduct, Arbcom is the highest court.
I think that DRV views itself as a low-drama zone, and a place with no jurisdiction over conduct matters. I also think we don't want jurisdiction over conduct. I think that if DRV is ever seen to overrule admins on enforcement of bans, or on matters of conduct, we'll immediately start to attract interest from people whose cases we aren't equipped, or properly constituted, to examine. I suppose I'm saying that where an admin is enforcing a conduct-related sanction, DRV really can't undermine them.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 13:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- In principal I probably agree with you. The problem appears to me to be that deleting the contributions of a banned user falls into both the conduct and content arenas (the former due to conduct of a banned user, the latter due to deleting content) and at the moment it seems such deletions might fall through the cracks as it's not clear where they should be appealed to. In the lack of any clear place to appeal at ArbCom there appears to, currently, be no other choice but here, no matter how far from ideal that is. I'm tempted to start an RfC or two on these issues as this isn't really the proper forum but given the comments above and else where I'm wary that would be straying very far from WP:RBI and so may cause problems so at the moment I'm continuing to comment here. Dpmuk (talk) 23:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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