Case clerk:
Callanecc (
Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Risker (before
8 Jan 2014), then:
Worm That Turned (
Talk) &
NativeForeigner (
Talk)
Wikipedia Arbitration |
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Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute. You must submit evidence in your own section. Editors who change other users' evidence may be blocked without warning; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the committee by e-mail or on the talk page. The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Wikipedia in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.
You must use the prescribed format in your evidence. Evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable. Please make sure any page section links are permanent, and read the simple diff and link guide if you are not sure how to create a page diff.
The Arbitration Committee expects you to make rebuttals of other evidence submissions in your own section, and for such rebuttals to explain how or why the evidence in question is incorrect; do not engage in tit-for-tat on this page. Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop, which is open for comment by parties, Arbitrators, and others. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact, or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and Clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.
Per their "evidence" below and
this posting on their talk page it should be clear that Kafziel is more interested in laying blame anywhere but at their own feet, therefore I propose that this case be dispensed with by motion to desysop Kafziel under the "Under a Cloud" principle as they still indicate that they feel their actions and judgement as an administrator are more important than established policy and consensus by the subject matter expertes for the field of Articles for Creation submissions.
I feel that while Kafziel's actions are somewhat unorthodox, his attempt to engage with the article's creator was reasonable and that the submission (which has since been restored) has been declined as non-notable by another editor since then.
While I don't believe any admin is obliged to email the text of deleted articles, convention I have seen elsewhere is that unless there are legal problems (eg: G10s, G12s), other admins will send the text with a warning not to resubmit until someone with no COI has checked it.
By this point, after all this discussion, if nobody has been able to point to a specific policy that says I'm wrong (while I've pointed to several which say I'm right) then there isn't one. So this is just going to end up a more formal version of the AN/I discussion, with Hasteur foaming at the mouth and getting nowhere, and me responding to his threats and demands with much the same results. But there's nothing anyone here can say or do to make me apologize for anything I did, or agree to do anything differently, and there's nothing short of that that will please people like him. So I don't guess there's any point in my sticking around to listen to any more of it.
AGK is right, in a way. At some point over the last several years, it was decided that Wikipedia administrators should act like a bunch of navel-gazing, mewling little bitches. I don't know if it was a gradual thing, or a sudden change and I just missed the memo. So he may be wrong about the reason—I've never deleted anything simply for being "not encyclopedic"—but he's right about my failure to adapt to this new Wikipedia culture. I never agreed to help spammers game the system, that's for damn sure.
I truly appreciate the widespread support I've received over this, both on and off site, but I'm the first to tell people that no individual editor is actually important to the project, so it would be hypocritical of me not to take my own advice and show myself out. I don't make any claim that Wikipedia will be worse off without me, and I'm still very proud of what we built here over the last decade. Despite its many flaws, Wikipedia is still the best damn thing on the Internet. But I don't need it, and it doesn't need me.
I'm not saying this to try to end this ArbCom discussion. By all means, please see it through, because these issues—in particular, whether the demands of a Wikiproject can trump the core policy of IAR—is in dire need of attention from the wider community. I just won't be watching or participating. The question is not whether I'm an asshole. The question is whether a badly mismanaged project has the right to force its guidelines on other users who are following policy (even if making occasional mistakes) and trying to improve the encyclopedia. I'm glad I stood my ground at AN/I, even though it means I'm now leaving Wikipedia, because if AfC is allowed to tell editors who can edit what, and when, and how, and which articles are "ready" for the main namespace, and which are immune from deletion, all according to their own private set of rules, then this has become The Encyclopedia Some People Can Edit. And I hate to think we've worked all these years just to end up with that. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 15:13, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Kafziel writes
I tried Googling several snippets from AfC pages ( example from this) and didn't find any AfC submissions in the results. Using "view source" on the submitted drafts shows the tag
near the top of the HTML sources. This is a robot exclusion meta tag requesting search engines to not index the page, and Google appears to respect it. Could Kafziel's whole rampage have been over a misunderstanding? 50.0.121.102 ( talk) 02:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC) Update: a request on 17 December to Kafziel for clarification in this matter has gone (so far) unanswered. [18] 50.0.121.102 ( talk) 23:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
He has too many G11 deletions of AfC submissions for me to list, but if you see User_talk:Kafziel#Submission:_IgnitionDeck and User_talk:Kafziel#Submission:_OrderUp, you'll see he just deletes anything at all that someone with a self-declared COI, who is trying to follow the policies, has edited, and responds uncivilly when they inquire about his actions. For just one example, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skimlinks. Kafziel deleted this as G11 in the WT namespace and it was not only closed as speedy keep at AfD, but it was moved to the mainspace as an article. For the rest, see Special:Log/Kafziel.
First we have to admit...WP:AN/I is more often the last resort course someone chooses when they're on the losing side of a spat. What we have in this WP:AN/I is someone complained because they still disagreed and would have continued disagreeing even after someone explained themselves no matter what the facts. Hey, Wikipedia editors in the wild tend to be rather territorial. WP:AN/I tends to be the extension of that.
Second. AfC has problems that have been complained of for a long time. When you ask why those problems don't get addressed, you can point back to the same editors who have been at AfC for a long time and see how "they" do it. When you ask why new AfC editors don't stay around for a while, or end up at WP:AN/I, it's because "they" chase them off. Sounds like a personal fiefdom.
Because Kafziel asked Newyorkbrad to recuse himself over a discussion he's had regarding me, I should probably preface with my comments with this: I've known Kafziel for several years. I've always respected his judgment, opinion, and reliability, and above all his integrity. He has been one of the project's best contributors and has a significant body of high quality work as a contributor and as one of the better admins that I, and many others I work with, have encountered. Coincidentally, he was one of the major reasons that convinced me to come back to Wikipedia after a long hiatus. He blocked me once (something that is the root of his request for Newyorkbrad's recusal). I was blocked for 24 hours while engaging in edit-warring/reverting while protecting an article I worked up to TFA--I disagreed with the block and said a few hostile things, but I saw and still see the reasoning for it, and he was "by the book". Kafziel even stated that he gave me sufficient warning (a few of them), and exhibited considerably patience...and stupid me did it once again and deserved it. But he's always been "by the book"--something that the parties complaining likely can't deal with. Sometimes it's hard to like when someone acts "by the book" when we disagree with them. Anger blinds us from reason.
To see Kafziel put up a "retired" banner on his user talk page is a sign that something is horribly wrong, and I having known him for years, I'm rather sure his behavior isn't the root of the problem. Just the battle of two alpha males--one defending the status quo, problems and all, the other with a way of effectively addressing some of the problems and workload but it wasn't the status quo.
Respectfully submitted,-- ColonelHenry ( talk) 17:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
User:Kafziel commented that AfC isn't working. I took a look at some of the backlog, [21].
If you look at the backlog, it is indeed discouraging editors. If AfC is supposed to be helping new editors, its failing and is actually deterring them. None of his actions have violated policy, instead we have a group of editors displaying WP:OWN complaining loudly that he isn't doing it their way. Stampeding straight from ANI to Arbcom shows a distinct WP:BATTLE mentality. In truth, I think it was a mistake to open this case, Arbcom is the last resort in dispute resolution. Instead, it has been the first resort; there has been no RFC and no RFC/U. Wee Curry Monster talk 10:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
In the already-described ANI thread, I became particularly concerned following:
The back and forth that followed:
Case clerk:
Callanecc (
Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Risker (before
8 Jan 2014), then:
Worm That Turned (
Talk) &
NativeForeigner (
Talk)
Wikipedia Arbitration |
---|
![]() |
|
Track related changes |
Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute. You must submit evidence in your own section. Editors who change other users' evidence may be blocked without warning; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the committee by e-mail or on the talk page. The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Wikipedia in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.
You must use the prescribed format in your evidence. Evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable. Please make sure any page section links are permanent, and read the simple diff and link guide if you are not sure how to create a page diff.
The Arbitration Committee expects you to make rebuttals of other evidence submissions in your own section, and for such rebuttals to explain how or why the evidence in question is incorrect; do not engage in tit-for-tat on this page. Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop, which is open for comment by parties, Arbitrators, and others. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact, or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and Clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.
Per their "evidence" below and
this posting on their talk page it should be clear that Kafziel is more interested in laying blame anywhere but at their own feet, therefore I propose that this case be dispensed with by motion to desysop Kafziel under the "Under a Cloud" principle as they still indicate that they feel their actions and judgement as an administrator are more important than established policy and consensus by the subject matter expertes for the field of Articles for Creation submissions.
I feel that while Kafziel's actions are somewhat unorthodox, his attempt to engage with the article's creator was reasonable and that the submission (which has since been restored) has been declined as non-notable by another editor since then.
While I don't believe any admin is obliged to email the text of deleted articles, convention I have seen elsewhere is that unless there are legal problems (eg: G10s, G12s), other admins will send the text with a warning not to resubmit until someone with no COI has checked it.
By this point, after all this discussion, if nobody has been able to point to a specific policy that says I'm wrong (while I've pointed to several which say I'm right) then there isn't one. So this is just going to end up a more formal version of the AN/I discussion, with Hasteur foaming at the mouth and getting nowhere, and me responding to his threats and demands with much the same results. But there's nothing anyone here can say or do to make me apologize for anything I did, or agree to do anything differently, and there's nothing short of that that will please people like him. So I don't guess there's any point in my sticking around to listen to any more of it.
AGK is right, in a way. At some point over the last several years, it was decided that Wikipedia administrators should act like a bunch of navel-gazing, mewling little bitches. I don't know if it was a gradual thing, or a sudden change and I just missed the memo. So he may be wrong about the reason—I've never deleted anything simply for being "not encyclopedic"—but he's right about my failure to adapt to this new Wikipedia culture. I never agreed to help spammers game the system, that's for damn sure.
I truly appreciate the widespread support I've received over this, both on and off site, but I'm the first to tell people that no individual editor is actually important to the project, so it would be hypocritical of me not to take my own advice and show myself out. I don't make any claim that Wikipedia will be worse off without me, and I'm still very proud of what we built here over the last decade. Despite its many flaws, Wikipedia is still the best damn thing on the Internet. But I don't need it, and it doesn't need me.
I'm not saying this to try to end this ArbCom discussion. By all means, please see it through, because these issues—in particular, whether the demands of a Wikiproject can trump the core policy of IAR—is in dire need of attention from the wider community. I just won't be watching or participating. The question is not whether I'm an asshole. The question is whether a badly mismanaged project has the right to force its guidelines on other users who are following policy (even if making occasional mistakes) and trying to improve the encyclopedia. I'm glad I stood my ground at AN/I, even though it means I'm now leaving Wikipedia, because if AfC is allowed to tell editors who can edit what, and when, and how, and which articles are "ready" for the main namespace, and which are immune from deletion, all according to their own private set of rules, then this has become The Encyclopedia Some People Can Edit. And I hate to think we've worked all these years just to end up with that. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 15:13, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Kafziel writes
I tried Googling several snippets from AfC pages ( example from this) and didn't find any AfC submissions in the results. Using "view source" on the submitted drafts shows the tag
near the top of the HTML sources. This is a robot exclusion meta tag requesting search engines to not index the page, and Google appears to respect it. Could Kafziel's whole rampage have been over a misunderstanding? 50.0.121.102 ( talk) 02:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC) Update: a request on 17 December to Kafziel for clarification in this matter has gone (so far) unanswered. [18] 50.0.121.102 ( talk) 23:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
He has too many G11 deletions of AfC submissions for me to list, but if you see User_talk:Kafziel#Submission:_IgnitionDeck and User_talk:Kafziel#Submission:_OrderUp, you'll see he just deletes anything at all that someone with a self-declared COI, who is trying to follow the policies, has edited, and responds uncivilly when they inquire about his actions. For just one example, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skimlinks. Kafziel deleted this as G11 in the WT namespace and it was not only closed as speedy keep at AfD, but it was moved to the mainspace as an article. For the rest, see Special:Log/Kafziel.
First we have to admit...WP:AN/I is more often the last resort course someone chooses when they're on the losing side of a spat. What we have in this WP:AN/I is someone complained because they still disagreed and would have continued disagreeing even after someone explained themselves no matter what the facts. Hey, Wikipedia editors in the wild tend to be rather territorial. WP:AN/I tends to be the extension of that.
Second. AfC has problems that have been complained of for a long time. When you ask why those problems don't get addressed, you can point back to the same editors who have been at AfC for a long time and see how "they" do it. When you ask why new AfC editors don't stay around for a while, or end up at WP:AN/I, it's because "they" chase them off. Sounds like a personal fiefdom.
Because Kafziel asked Newyorkbrad to recuse himself over a discussion he's had regarding me, I should probably preface with my comments with this: I've known Kafziel for several years. I've always respected his judgment, opinion, and reliability, and above all his integrity. He has been one of the project's best contributors and has a significant body of high quality work as a contributor and as one of the better admins that I, and many others I work with, have encountered. Coincidentally, he was one of the major reasons that convinced me to come back to Wikipedia after a long hiatus. He blocked me once (something that is the root of his request for Newyorkbrad's recusal). I was blocked for 24 hours while engaging in edit-warring/reverting while protecting an article I worked up to TFA--I disagreed with the block and said a few hostile things, but I saw and still see the reasoning for it, and he was "by the book". Kafziel even stated that he gave me sufficient warning (a few of them), and exhibited considerably patience...and stupid me did it once again and deserved it. But he's always been "by the book"--something that the parties complaining likely can't deal with. Sometimes it's hard to like when someone acts "by the book" when we disagree with them. Anger blinds us from reason.
To see Kafziel put up a "retired" banner on his user talk page is a sign that something is horribly wrong, and I having known him for years, I'm rather sure his behavior isn't the root of the problem. Just the battle of two alpha males--one defending the status quo, problems and all, the other with a way of effectively addressing some of the problems and workload but it wasn't the status quo.
Respectfully submitted,-- ColonelHenry ( talk) 17:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
User:Kafziel commented that AfC isn't working. I took a look at some of the backlog, [21].
If you look at the backlog, it is indeed discouraging editors. If AfC is supposed to be helping new editors, its failing and is actually deterring them. None of his actions have violated policy, instead we have a group of editors displaying WP:OWN complaining loudly that he isn't doing it their way. Stampeding straight from ANI to Arbcom shows a distinct WP:BATTLE mentality. In truth, I think it was a mistake to open this case, Arbcom is the last resort in dispute resolution. Instead, it has been the first resort; there has been no RFC and no RFC/U. Wee Curry Monster talk 10:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
In the already-described ANI thread, I became particularly concerned following:
The back and forth that followed: