Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kainaw

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, 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: 10:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 05:45, 22 May 2024 (UTC).

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• Kainaw (talk · contribs · logs)

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Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute

User:Kainaw has accused User:Philcha of "attempting to bypass the deletion process for a page he knows will not pass any scrutiny", and stated that User:Philcha's motivation for this is that "Philcha is closely related to the author of the page (if not the author)". Later in the discussion he has made bizarre accusations against the chess contributors to Wikipedia, e.g. "Apparently, the chess world of Wikipedia is separate from the rest of Wikipedia" and "the chess world obviously doesn't care as long as they get their warm fuzzy feeling from twisting Wikipedia into their own little cozy corner of the web." Kainaw has reamined unapologetic of these accusations.

Desired outcome

Kainaw is instructed to apologise to me, and more importantly to the whole of Wikiproject Chess, for incivility, to read articles and their refs before commenting on them, and to avoid broadbrush smears.

Evidence of disputed behavior

Kainaw's first post at Talk:Chessmetrics said "My impression is that Philcha is closely related to the author of the page (if not the author) and is attempting to bypass the deletion process for a page he knows will not pass any scrutiny. So, unless Philcha can provide some citations from someone who did not create the chessmetrics process, I suggest it be nominated for speedy deletion, not just non-notable deletion." I had already pointed out (top of the thread) that the article contained a relevant citation.

Another editor shares my opinion that Kainaw's remarks are a smear on the whole of Wikiproject Chess.

Applicable policies and guidelines

WP:CIVIL WP:AGF

Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute

My next post summarised the reasons for considering Chessmetrics notable, pointed out Kainaw's incivility and asked for an apology, and invited the person who originally raised the issue to clarify a statement that looked like a possible violation of WP:AGF against Wikiproject Chess collectivley.

Kainaw's next contribution was a blanket smear against Wikiproject Chess, with no sign that he head read Chessmetrics or any of the citations.

A few minutes later I pointed out that he'd already been told where the third-party sources are and that I really did expect an apology.

Another editor supported my reasons for considering that Chessmetrics is notable, my removal of the "notability" template and my request for an apology for Kainaw.

Kainaw's response was this at my Talk page.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

• Philcha (talk) 10:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
• I am moving from mere "endorse" to certify. I wrote on Kainaw's talkpage my concern of his approach, and his attack on Wikipedia's chess writers at large, the reply I got is here. My impression is that Kainaw is focusing on the fact that Philcha didn't add a source, therefore Kainaw is "right". I don't feel that this is what this dispute is about anymore. He has completely ignored the concern I made over civility, in particular his accusation of us "twisting" Wikipedia into our own "cozy little corner", which is a serious allegation which contravenes WP:AGF. Indeed, I feel that he compounds the incivility by referring to good faith comments as "random garbage". To make it clear: I don't care whether it was Philcha or Kainaw who was "right" in the Chessmetrics dispute, but I do care that Kainaw uses the dispute to fire off vicious attacks on the members of the chess WikiProject. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:56, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
  • One caveat: I cannot endorse the "desired outcome" that Kainaw be "instructed" to apologize. Forced apologies like that are meaningless. However, I strongly endorse the caveat that Kainaw avoid smears. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:15, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I also support that. I stated that I was obviously wrong about the smear on the Chessmetrics talk page. This RFC is about an apology to Philcha for claiming that it appeared to me that he was either the author of the Chessmetrics page or closely related to the author. -- kainaw™ 18:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
      • I just finished writing a 2 part post to philca here, which I think partly belongs here, but I've never been part of a RFC before, so I'll leave the format/layout/protocol stuff up to you guys. Also, the 48 hours has elapsed, but I haven't seen anyone write to the bottom section, so I guess this page is still active? Oh well, sorry if this is the wrong section, I'll learn. Sentriclecub (talk) 23:44, 19 September 2008 (UTC) switching my endorsement to User:WhatamIdoing's excellent summary Sentriclecub (talk) 19:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary

• I was partially involved in this, but was not as involved as the main participants. The user definitely did smear the Chess Wikiproject, of which I am a member, etc. However, if it doesn't continue I would just drop it with a warning to the user about incivility and about AGF. Bubba73 (talk), 18:15, 18 September 2008 (UTC) Note: I did not try to resolve the dispute. Bubba73 (talk), 02:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
• Like Bubba73, I have not engaged in any attempts with Kainaw to resolve the dispute and can therefore not place myself in the "certify" box. However, I endorse the RFC's main point that Kainaw's comment about the chess WikiProject was completely inappropriate, and that Philcha's cite of my comment is appropriate. I also endorse Bubba73's note that let this dispute drop unless the problem continues. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC) Moved to "certify", see above.

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.

There are two RFC's here. The original RFC was:

Statement of dispute

User:Kainaw has accused User:Philcha of "attempting to bypass the deletion process for a page he knows will not pass any scrutiny", and stated that User:Philcha's motivation for this is that "Philcha is closely related to the author of the page (if not the author)".

Desired outcome

Kainaw is instructed to apologise to me for incivility and to read articles and their refs before commenting on them.

The statement is false. The actual comment was a reaction to Philcha's apparent refusal to allow discussion of notability about the article Chessmetrics. It is as follows:

As the article stands, it should be up for deletion as non-notable. The tag was added properly. Removing it was done absolutely improperly. Once up for deletion, a discussion must take place before removal of the tag. My impression is that Philcha is closely related to the author of the page (if not the author) and is attempting to bypass the deletion process for a page he knows will not pass any scrutiny. So, unless Philcha can provide some citations from someone who did not create the chessmetrics process, I suggest it be nominated for speedy deletion, not just non-notable deletion. It is very simple, refusal to follow the rules indicates that your article is less notable, not more notable.

Philcha has repeatedly condensed my comment about my impression of the situation as a personal attack against him. My comment is a verifiable fact. Philcha's actions did, in fact, give me the impression that he was closely related to the author of the page (if not the author) and that he was, in fact, attempting to bypass the deletion process for a page he knew would not pass any scrutiny.

Philcha has claimed that he provided notability in his comments and in a reference. The reference provided did not in any way show notability - as was explained by others later in the conversation. His comments do not matter. As I pointed out, it isn't notable simply because Philcha says it is notable. This entire situation was the result of Philcha's absolute refusal to discuss adding a reference to the article to indicate to anyone not familiar with the topic that the topic is notable and should not be deleted.

This RFC was created after I ignored Philcha's demand that I apologize for insulting him. He attempted to get others to join, but failed. Then, this RFC was altered to include a separate incident in which I made a terrible complaint about the chess community as a whole. I stated shortly afterwards that I was obviously wrong. My statement about being wrong was omitted. Instead, only the insult was added to this RFC in a weak attempt to get others to support Philcha's demand for an apology.

It is my opinion that altering this RFC after all comments had been made about the original RFC were done in bad faith. The alteration makes it appear that my consideration of the RFC as a joke is directed at the amended RFC. I have repeatedly stated that my comments about the chess community were obviously wrong. My comments about this RFC being a joke were directed at the original RFC - Philcha's demand for an apology. In the end, the alteration of the RFC was clearly designed specifically to bolster support from others who would not support the RFC as it was originally stated.

Because there was no support for Philcha's demand of an apology, this RFC should have been deleted. By altering it after discussion took place, this RFC is now tainted and has little meaning. I do not see any reason for it to exist other than as a pathetic attempt for Philcha to mend his bruised ego. In my opinion, that is all this RFC has been - a calculated attempt to get back at me for exposing Philcha's inability to properly add a notability reference to his article. Therefore, I cannot take it seriously and any discussion is useless.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Kainaw (talk) 01:42, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Outside view by User:WhatamIdoing

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.

I have carried on an extensive discussion on the talk page of this RFC to better understand the situation. I have reviewed much of the Chessmetrics' page and talk page history. I have read the relevant sections of a source that is at the bottom of the notability dispute.

I have superficially reviewed userspace pages and contributions for both User:Philcha and User:Kainaw. Both are active and experienced editors, with hundreds of edits each month recently; Philcha mostly edits articles in his favorite subject areas, and Kainaw mostly answers questions at the reference desk. Neither of them have a reputation for being especially friendly or promoting WikiLove during disputes -- nor do they cause so many problems that they have ever been blocked. Philcha in particular announces on his user page that he is perfectly willing to disrupt Wikipedia to pick fights with people that he perceives as bullies. Kainaw can be abrasive and tends to let his temper show in his remarks.

Frankly, when I began looking at this RFC on the day it was approved, I was willing enough to believe Philcha's story: Kainaw said something that offended Philcha, and Philcha demanded an apology. Kainaw's response did not satisfy Philcha entirely. It's not an uncommon problem, although it rarely makes it to RFC/U -- and that difference, I think, is the key to understanding this dispute.

Notability

A dispute over the notability precipitated the encounter. At that time, the article cited three references. Two were from Chessmetrics.com and its author. The single third-party source was a scholarly paper that used the Chessmetrics dataset (see page 11 of the source) and explained why they chose it over other options (see page 12).

IMO this paper (by itself) is insufficient proof of notability. Similar descriptions abound in the scholarly literature; the mere fact that researchers describe or explain research methodology does not make each piece of laboratory equipment, software, dataset, etc. notable in its own right. Methodology, is, after all, a mandatory section in any paper that has any scientific pretensions, and if you make a non-standard choice, you are expected (and in some peer-reviewed journals, required) to justify your choice.

In terms of the article, its regular editors apparently came to the same conclusion that I did, because they have since added additional reliable sources to demonstrate notability. There are still no independent, third-party reliable sources directly about the actual subject of the article, but the minor refs are probably just sufficient to avoid a merge at AfD to Methods for comparing top chess players throughout history.

Kainaw made some mistakes

Kainaw's first message at Talk:Chessmetrics included some problems. For example, Kainaw had clearly confused the {{prod}} process with WP:Articles for Deletion, and he was clearly upset that what he thought were the "correct" procedures were not being followed. Particularly since this is not his usual area of activity on Wikipedia, I suggest to Kainaw that in the future he double-check the actual procedures before making assertions about them. More relevantly for the stated dispute, his message was not phrased to show WikiLove and admiration for Philcha's efforts to improve Chessmetrics.

Kainaw's second message made an inappropriate generalization about members of WikiProject Chess (a group that includes Philcha) being willing to ignore Wikipedia policies, which he has since retracted. His other three messages appear to be basically civil (although not necessarily friendly) and on point, and were largely efforts to prod the pro-notability editors into actually adding their sources to the article.

On the other hand, the main content-related point behind his first message -- that whatever Philcha might say, the refs were not adequate to support WP:Notability requirements -- turned out to be absolutely accurate. It was not Kainaw's job to know that other third-party, independent reliable sources existed, nor was it (contrary to Philcha's repeated assertions) Kainaw's duty to detail Kainaw's methodology for reviewing the sources in the article.

On the whole, I believe that it's good to be nice to people, and Kainaw might be well advised to make significant efforts in that direction. However, in the end, it's better to write a good encyclopedia. Wikipedia does not exist so that we can make friends and honor editors. The sole purpose of WP:CIVIL is to make it possible to improve the encyclopedia. Kainaw's blunt language and unfortunate procedural misconceptions are IMO partly (but only partly) redeemed by the wretched state of the article's references at that time and the fact that the conversation ultimately led to the article being improved.

Philcha exacerbated the problems

Normally, I would expect this situation to be trivially solved at the first exchange of comments: someone with an obviously weak grasp of the Wikipedia Way posts a -- we'll call it a "difficult" message, and the good, experienced editors at the article would normally look past the emotional content and respond with an effort to educate the newcomer to the article about the actual procedures and to defuse the situation with a calm, open response. Our better Wikipedia editors aren't thin-skinned or quick to take offense. They don't try to use Wikipedia as a a place for punishing perceived bullies. They do not feed the trolls. A good editor would have explained the merits of the existing sources, or even promptly produced more or better ones (which the article clearly needed) -- and stopped there.

But this isn't what Philcha did: He chose to immediately demand an apology for Kainaw's candid opinion that since Philcha had done so much to improve the article, then Philcha might not be completely unbiased when it came to assessing the subject's notability. Philcha has since expanded his complaint to include a demand for a formal apology on behalf of WikiProject Chess and to repeatedly whinge that Kainaw did not transparently explain every step that Kainaw took in assessing the likely notability of the article in Kainaw's first message (I assume it hampered Philcha's knee-jerk effort to rebutt Kainaw's conclusions, which the timeline indicates Philcha prioritized over actually addressing the weak sourcing).

Current status

Kainaw has indicated that his remarks about WikiProject Chess were wrong (see I stated that I was obviously wrong about the smear on the Chessmetrics talk page on this page, as well as elsewhere). I hope in the future he will be more careful of such remarks, and I consider that matter closed. It is unseemly to demand repeated apologies, especially on grounds such as the apology not being posted to the page Philcha preferred, or not including the word "sorry" or "apologize".

As for the other "insults", Kainaw does not seem inclined to issue a formal apology either for having been right about the article's weak sourcing or for his opinion that involved editors are not always unbiased. Frankly, Kainaw was right about the weak sourcing and is probably right about the potential for bias: We are none of us perfectly unbiased, and those of us that make the effort to substantially expand an stub are firmly convinced of its notability (else we wouldn't have bothered). If editors were never wrong about notability, then AfD would be a much quieter place. Consequently, even if this RFC could force Kainaw to issue an apology for being aware of the potential for bias among WP:OWNers (and it can't), I would not be inclined to ask for such an apology.

Again, if we had good, mature editors involved, then this dispute would have gotten no further than the article's talk page. This was a short-term, self-limiting problem. The actual problems in the article were already resolved when Philcha started this RFC/U; the talk page discussion was clearly winding down, and Kainaw's previous message had been reasonably civil. A good editor in Philcha's position would have silently invoked WP:SHUN (which is to say, would have mentally written Kainaw off as a jerk) and consoled himself with the supportive messages from other editors at the article -- and that would have been the end of it. Nobody would have gotten up on their high horses and armed for battle. Given the differences in their usual work, the two might editors not have crossed paths again for months to come, if ever. Both would have gone back to their usual, productive work, to the benefit of all.

But here we have a standoff: Kainaw does not want to apologize for being bluntly correct about the state of the references or about the potential for bias among involved editors, and Philcha seems to find his inability to force Kainaw into making this apology rather embarrassing. I suspect that Philcha opened this RFC thinking that the entire community would come down on Kainaw like a thousand of bricks for obvious incivility: Kainaw would be shamed, and Philcha would triumphantly receive the formal apology he demanded. Philcha could then feel like he'd scored against the bullies and go home like a hero.

But frankly, this reads whole thing reads a lot more like a playground dispute: an offended editor has run off to tattle to the community because a somewhat confused editor wasn't nice enough to him. Over a single, short-term incident that resulted in no harm to any article.

Suggested conclusion

My primary recommendation is for both editors to get back to work already. We have wasted more than enough time and energy on this trivial, unimportant exchange. Do something useful. We have an encyclopedia to write. You don't have to play together if you can't play nicely, but do not waste any more time on this dispute.

• Do good work. I suggest that Kainaw be encouraged to continue his work at the Reference Desk. I recommend that he keep track of the editor's index to Wikipedia rules so that he can find and review relevant procedures.
• Be nice. I suggest that Kainaw be encouraged to carefully remember that the egos of some otherwise good editors are distinctly more fragile than his own. Kainaw may wish to take meta:Don't be a dick to heart. I suggest to Kainaw that in the future he consider the advantages -- not to himself, but to the overall working of the encyclopedia -- of carefully commenting on the content instead of the editor. Wikipedia is best served by having as many civil editors as possible.
• Do something useful. I suggest that Philcha be encouraged to get back to work instead of wasting his, and the community's, time on minor incidents. Since he prides himself on being technically polite while he's wasting time on pushing his point, he may wish to consider this principle: Civility is not limited to superficial politeness but includes the overall behavior of the user. Superficially polite behaviors still may be uncivil. Some examples are politely phrased baiting, frivolous or vexatious use of process, ill-considered but politely phrased accusations...
• End the crusade. I suggest that Philcha be reminded that RFC/Us are not a badge of shame. They are part of the dispute resolution process. Since I expect that Philcha will be disappointed with the outcome of this RFC, I suspect that he will not (mis)use the RFC/U process for minor incidents in the future, but it may be well to suggest to him that in the future he not escalate isolated incidents to RFC, especially not when they are naturally winding down anyway (i.e., when there is no more dispute resolving left to be done). Philcha's job is to improve articles, not to rid Wikipedia of people that occasionally make rude remarks.

This RFC has been open for about 15 days. It has attracted essentially no attention from outsiders. I suggest that this RFC be closed if there are no more outside views posted in the next few days.

Users that endorse this view:

1. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
2. This is a good summary, like I said in the certification I don't think it is fruitful to forcibly extract any apologies (such apologies are pretty much useless anyway.) I have seen Philcha's work on chess pages, and he is a very productive editor. (He can sometimes get into arguments, but does so in good faith). Kainaw I have seen less of; I obviously objected strongly to his remarks on the chess writers in general, and I objected to the way he was handling the complaint, but from reviewing his contributions, I think he is a good editor as well. For the time being, it may be best for them to avoid each other, and since they focus on different topics, that shouldn't be too hard to do. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:21, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
3. Averell (talk) 17:43, 6 October 2008 (UTC) without reading up on the whole original conflict, I endorse this view on the grounds that this should be put to rest ASAP. While Kainaw may have been rude, the RFC process doesn't exist to extract public apologies from people. By all accounts the underlying editing conflict has since been resolved. Thus, even if Kainaw has been uncivil, I see no reason or indication that this will carry on in the future.
4. Cyclopia (talk) 15:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC) Excellent summary; agreeing completely with Averell. The editing conflict is resolved or in resolution and Kainaw incivility was minor. It seems settled.
5. Sentriclecub Very wise judgment, WhatamIdoing, excellently written. Thanks for your input. Sentriclecub (talk) 19:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

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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Users who endorse this summary:

Discussion

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