The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous 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 discussion was delete.  Reaper Eternal ( talk) 18:53, 28 August 2012 (UTC) reply

User:POVbrigand/list

User:POVbrigand/list ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

The page looks like a BLP violation: a badly sourced list of purported cold fusion researchers on a user subpage. The owner of the subpage is topic banned from this topic. IRWolfie- ( talk) 12:16, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• Delete: There is no valid reason that a topic-banned user should have anything at all about the topic in their user space. Agree that there are serious BLP issues. Dominus Vobisdu ( talk) 12:20, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Perhaps the deletion should be extended to all Cold Fusion related content on this editors subpages: User:POVbrigand/ICCF, User:POVbrigand/papers, User:POVbrigand/material, User:POVbrigand/Noticeboards. IRWolfie- ( talk) 12:30, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• I could not find any link showing User:POVbrigand topic banned from the cold fusion topic. Please post a link so that we can read about the topic ban. Thank you. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 12:51, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

[1]. IRWolfie- ( talk) 12:54, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Per Arbitration Enforcement, T. Canens proposed a topic ban, from anything to do with CF or fringe science, for POVbrigand. [2] MastCell then agreed to trigger discretionary sanctions (without specifying anything specific). NW (NuclearWarfare) agreeded with T. Canes ("If a 3 month topic ban can be supported (as per T. Canens), I propose that we make it indefinite instead."). Fut.Perf agreed with T. Canes, and The Blade of the Northern Lights said "I'll close this implementing NuclearWarfare's solution" (which presumably meant T. Canens' solution since NW agreeded with T. Canens). So, they all seemed to be in agreement and that would support your request above. The problem I'm having is that the link you provided, [3] says "POVbrigand indefinitely banned from all articles and discussions related to cold fusion or fringe sciences." Now, that doesn't appear to be what arbcom agreed to (T. Canens' proposal being indefinite), but that is the scope of the topic ban. User:POVbrigand/list is not an article. The ban started on 14:37, 25 June 2012 [4] and I don't see anything after that date and time relative to the User:POVbrigand/list page that shows POVbrigand engaging in a discussion on the topic. If you can get The Blade of the Northern Lights to change the topic ban to cover anything to do with CF or fringe science (or at least POVbrigand's user pages), then we can delete the above user page. However, without that change, we may need a reason other than the topic ban to delete the page. (Also, you may want to add the other CF user pages to this MfD before such addition becomes untimely.) -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 13:21, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

The principal reason is the BLP violation. I will also ask the blade for confirmation of the scope of the topic ban. IRWolfie- ( talk) 13:44, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Per the request on my talkpage, yes this would be covered under the topic ban in place. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 16:55, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

As far as I understand the sanctions read "The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project." - clearly editing - please explain why you believe this is covered under the topic ban when I haven't edited the page ! -- POVbrigand ( talk) 20:14, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• Delete Just two months ago, a researcher asked to be removed from the cold fusion article, saying that it was misrepresenting his research. His name has been removed from the article, but not from this userspace draft. There is no official lists of researchers of this field, this is just a hand-picked compilation of sources, at the discretion of a wikipedia editor that has been topic banned from the topic. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 14:14, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

I had email contact with that researcher, his reply to whether he considers himself a LENR researcher was: "yes and no". Your representation of said researchers wishes regarding his mentioning in the wiki article are wrong, he did not want to get deleted, he wanted to be represented with different wording. -- POVbrigand ( talk) 14:35, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

He gave two options: changing the wording so it doesn't mention cold fusion, or removing his name completely. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 13:06, 6 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes, he gave two options. As I am topic banned, there is no point in further explanation. -- POVbrigand ( talk) 19:57, 6 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Looks like your above posts are contributing to discussions related to cold fusion or fringe sciences, even though the ban reads "POVbrigand indefinitely banned from all discussions related to cold fusion or fringe sciences." -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 01:11, 8 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• Also see [5] for IRWolfie's original attempt to get this "work in progress" deleted. Since the topic ban I have not edited this list at all, what will happen if the topic ban is lifted and I want to continue work on this list ? I will blank the page, maybe that solves the issue. -- POVbrigand ( talk) 14:25, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

  Do you use a computer to access Wikipedia? Try using it to store the page as a local file. You can edit and preview it to your heart's content. Franamax ( talk) 14:38, 5 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• Delete. Topic banned user should not have this material in userspace. Binksternet ( talk) 00:29, 8 August 2012 (UTC) reply
• Delete - Per the topic ban extending to the user pages of POVbrigand per The Blade of the Northern Lights' post above. WP:UP allows editors to include work in progress in their user pages for a limited time (about three months). Even without the topic ban extending into the user pages of POVbrigand, banning POVbrigand from contributing to articles having anything to do with CF or fringe science means that CF or fringe science content within his user pages cannot be work in progress (due to the ban). That means that CF or fringe science content within his user pages would amount to nothing more than a personal website and there is no time grace period for WP:NOTWEBHOST. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 01:06, 8 August 2012 (UTC) reply

  I can not find the "limited time (about three months)" you are referring to on WP:UP -- POVbrigand ( talk) 15:07, 8 August 2012 (UTC) reply

  I responded below. Also, I'm adding that the page should be deleted per WP:BLP in view of the other posts in addition to WP:NOTWEBHOST. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 09:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep I have not edited anything on this list since I was topic banned. I cannot find any time-limit regarding work-in-progress pages. I cannot find any guidelines regarding deleting UP for indefinite topic banned users. The BLP issue was raised before on the dedicated BLP noticeboard and no action was taken then. -- POVbrigand ( talk) 15:07, 8 August 2012 (UTC) reply

  UP Pages that look like articles, copy pages, project pages notes a few time limits: 1. Userspace ... should not be used to indefinitely host pages ... . Private copies of pages that are being used solely for long-term archival purposes may be subject to deletion. Short-term hosting ... is usually acceptable. Based on this, I use three months as a way of judging whether to take a delete or keep position on such user pages. The three months I use comes from my participating in many MfD discussions on user pages. Since you are topic banned, your user pages on topics for which you are banned cannot be "content under development or in active use" noted in UP Pages that look like articles, copy pages, project pages since that would violate your ban. That means the pages fall under WP:NOTWEBHOST and, since there is no time grace period for personal web pages in user space, the only outcome would be to delete the user pages. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 09:01, 11 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep for the reasons clearly exposed by POVbrigand. Concerning that page, he did not violate any rule IMHO. In any case, there are two things which are very different: 1) the topic ban, clearly not violated by POVbrigand, and 2) the "lawfulness" about the list itself accordingly to the "Wikipeadian law". Concerning this second issue, please inform me because I have a similar page too: User:NUMB3RN7NE/list. Thanks. -- NUMB3RN7NE ( talk) 20:15, 8 August 2012 (UTC) reply

And now we have two BLP violations. I think it is a bad idea duplicating a page which is being discussed as a BLP violation. IRWolfie- ( talk) 21:20, 8 August 2012 (UTC) reply

If you think my list is a BLP violation, you should bring it up at BLP noticeboard where the BLP experts will gladly look into it. You actually already did that a last year and no action resulted ! Trying to get your right at different forums is called WP:FORUMSHOP. -- POVbrigand ( talk) 21:47, 8 August 2012 (UTC) reply

There was one reply. They agreed it was a BLP violation. I'll post to BLPN and notify them if you like. IRWolfie- ( talk) 21:55, 8 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia's licensing requires that attribution be given to the original author. You might want to request that your cut and paste move of the page be fixed. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 09:13, 11 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• Delete - The math here is pretty easy, in all honesty. WP:STALEDRAFT says it's inappropriate to "indefinitely host" works-in-progress. POVbrigand cannot work on this list, "indefinitely". It's pretty clear that this, and all of hir other Cold Fusion/Fringe Science subpages should be deleted per that rationale. Achowat ( talk) 14:11, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply
• Delete. Indeed, this stuff does look pretty stale given its BLP implications. There were only two small edits to the page since the end of March, and POVbrigand made no edits to it at all since 12 June (six weeks before he was topic-banned); even leaving aside the topic ban, and even assuming for the sake of argument that creating this list temporarily might be appropriate under BLP, there's no need for this BLP minefield to be lurking around in userspace for months on end. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 15:56, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

  If you think my list is a BLP violation, you should bring it up at BLP noticeboard where the BLP experts will gladly look into it. It was actually already done last year and no action resulted ! -- POVbrigand ( talk) 17:05, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

  Right, because the people here aren't smart enough to understand the BLP policies? Achowat ( talk) 17:15, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Because a BLP noticeboard exists where BLP experienced and non-involved editors will be happy to assess the situation. When researchers are actively researching the field, how in the world can it be seen as BLP to put those researchers on a list ? -- POVbrigand ( talk) 17:38, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

And MFD is where non-involved editors with expertise on Userpage guidelines are happy to assess the situation. The very fact that a listed researcher asked to be no longer listed shows that it's a contentious label and, as such, inclusion on this list is an issue concerning the BLP policies. Now whether they run afoul to those policies is an issue of discussion. Achowat ( talk) 17:47, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

deleted

The issue is that, even if we agree with you that BLP is not an issue, you still have inherent WP:STALEDRAFT problems. Achowat ( talk) 17:55, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Sorry I should not go into detail because of my topic ban - i self reverted my previous comment. -- POVbrigand ( talk) 17:57, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

No it is not a stale draft. Currently many new sources become available and once I am no longer topic banned I will incorporate them into the draft and tidy everything up. -- POVbrigand ( talk) 18:00, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

It is a Stale Draft. The guideline is against "indefinitely hosting" pages. Since you can't edit the page until "indefinitely", it's inherently a Stale Draft. If you'd like a Webhost for the collection of these sources, I can propose a few. Unfortunately, a Wikipedia User:subpage isn't one of them. Achowat ( talk) 18:16, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

It is interesting to see how the goal of getting this page deleted steers the argumentation between "it's BLP", "this user is currently banned for this topic", "it stale draft", or whatever suits best. As the original requester thought is was a BLP case, he should bring it up at the BLP noticeboard where uninvolved editors will assess the situation. Thank you -- POVbrigand ( talk) 18:25, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Your argumentation was also 'The very fact that a listed researcher asked to be no longer listed shows that it's a contentious label and, as such, inclusion on this list is an issue concerning the BLP policies. '

Anyhow, per your "STALEDRAFT" rational every indefinite topic banned user should always have all his user space pages immediately deleted because of STALEDRAFT. I think that the guideline was written with something different in mind. -- POVbrigand ( talk) 18:44, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Deleted without prejudice for recreation (or even undeletion) when the ban is lifted, yes. That is my interpretation of STALEDAFT. Achowat ( talk) 19:00, 9 August 2012 (UTC) reply

That said, temporary deletion (or even just blanking) would only be an appropriate response if the only policy/procedural concern was a given user's topic ban. In this instance there are other problems that would tend to preclude the resurrection of this page even if POVbrigand's topic ban expired. As noted, WP:STALEDRAFT, WP:WEBHOST, and WP:CFORK all preclude the indefinite use of Wikipedia's non-article spaces for article-like content, particularly for article-like content that is potentially at odds with Wikipedia's core content policies. It's fine to employ one's user space to draft an article, but only with the expectation that the material will be transitioned to the encyclopedia.

In this instance, no such transfer of material seemed likely to take place. The POVbrigand/list page was created in November 2011. POVbrigand made roughly two hundred edits to it during that month, and a couple of dozen more edits in December. There were just seventeen further edits in the first four months of 2012. POVbrigand took a two month break from the page before making a minor edit in mid-June, and then left the page untouched for a further six weeks before he was topic-banned from the cold fusion area entirely. In other words, he had at least a four-month window when he was essentially 'finished' with this page (either because it was, by his lights, complete, or because he had lost interest; it doesn't really matter which). POVbrigand's topic ban doesn't even need to come into it; four months is enough time to move a draft into article space if it's ever going to happen.

Finally, in addition to the concerns about indefinite retention of non-neutral or content-forking article-like material in userspace, there are the much more immediate concerns about BLP. This draft purports to link a substantial number of living scientists to the fringe field of cold fusion. Not all such claims in this draft are sourced to a standard that would be appropriate for a Wikipedia article (let alone a biography); some have no sourcing whatsoever; again, even if POVbrigand were not topic-banned, this page would still fall down on its BLP problems.

To summarize, then, I hope that the closing administrator makes explicit note of all three points in his closing rationale, to avoid potential confusion later:

1. There is significant BLP-violating content (in all revisions of the page);
2. Userspace cannot and should not be used to indefinitely store drafts – particularly long-inactive drafts – of article-like content; and
3. While either of points 1 and 2 is sufficient reason to delete, it is particularly inappropriate for a user under an indefinite topic ban to retain such a page.

POVbrigand has attempted to distract attention from points 1 and 2 by pretending that this is all about 3, or sometimes from 1 and 3 by arguing about 2; such gambits should not be rewarded. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 14:53, 13 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Point 1 is why User:NUMB3RN7NE/list should also be deleted. NUMB3RN7NE copied the content to his page to try to keep the content despite it being a possible BLP violation (this seems completely reckless and WP:POINTY to me). IRWolfie- ( talk) 15:04, 13 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Once this discussion is closed, #9's pointy recreation will be speedy-deletable as a repost of deleted material user WP:CSD#G4; just put the {{ db-repost}} template on it. In the meantime, it probably ought to be blanked as a BLP and copyright violation. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 15:34, 13 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Brought it to the attention of the BLP Noticeboard:

http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard&pe=1&#Cold_Fusion_.2F_LERN_Userspace_BLP_issues

-- Insilvis ( talk) 00:27, 14 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• Delete I don't think it's a BLP violation per se. I think some of it might be problematic from a BLP standpoint, but it's a stretch to call well sourced, neutrally presented claims a BLP violation. I do, however, think that a topic ban should extend to userspace, and I resented when people in the past have skirted their topic bans by operating on user and user talk pages. This case isn't much different. I also differ from Ten of all Trades in that I do not believe previously deleted userspace content is speedyable. If this were the case, then we could speedy mainspace articles just because we MfDed a copy of them in userspace, a clear reductio ad absurdum. MfD isn't like AfD where we are categorically rejecting the content because of the nature of the content. We often delete stuff at MfD because of the context that surrounds it, such as the amount of time it has lingered unedited, or the (lack of) activity of the owner of the userspace. This is not the sort of thing that sets a "G4 precedent". Gigs ( talk) 13:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC) reply

  While I take your point about G4, it would also be absurd if material like this could be preserved for months on end – and never deleted without a week or more of MfD – simply by being copied from one user's userspace to another. Your example is a bit silly, too—an exact userspace duplicate of an article could be deleted under G6 (incorrect namespace, pagemove cleanup, etc.), G7 (author requests deletion), G12 (copyright violation, if it were a straight duplicate of an existing article), and/or U1 (user request), depending on the precise circumstances; there would never be a need to take such a thing to MfD, and even if someone did, it would be speedily closed. (Moreover, your argument assumes that the admin handling the G4 request was an idiot who would delete a mainspace article for a stupid reason – which is possible, I grant you – and that such an action wouldn't be immediately reversed by a lynch mob on AN/I.)

  I don't dispute that there are some claims on the page that are well-sourced, but there's a pretty substantial list of names there that are just people that POVbrigand would like to link to LENR but for whom he has provided no sources at all. Even among the heavily-footnoted sections at the top of the page there are some less-than-reliable sources for BLP claims; is it appropriate to label someone an "LENR researcher" because they were one of the authors of one paper related to LENR, or because they were named as such by one of the cold-fusion true believers? Over the years, I know that I have accumulated a number of one-off publications – arising out of unusual collaborations, curiosity, or serendipity – that fall well outside the area(s) where I or my colleagues would consider myself an active researcher. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 14:37, 15 August 2012 (UTC) reply

  We regularly have full MfDs for userspace copies of articles. Take a look around here sometime. We don't speedily close article drafts that have been copied from mainspace. It would never be a G12, G12 has a specific clause that mere lack of attribution is not speedyable. We usually give people several months before deleting article copies from userspace as well, in case they wanted to edit them further. So I guess it's "absurd", but we do give people wide latitude in their user space, and consider each case separately. If someone was gaming the system excessively by moving things between different userspaces, we'd deal with that as it arose, through SPI or through ANI. It doesn't come up very often, and people do usually give up after a few copies have been deleted. Gigs ( talk) 21:21, 16 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• Delete. I came here from BLPN. I disagree with the reasoning that the page cannot be a work in progress because the user has been banned indefinitely. We should treat this the same as a user who broke his hand and can't edit Wikipedia until his hand heals, which is also "indefinite"; common sense says if he is under a temporary disability that keeps him from working on it, that should not disqualify it from being a work in progress. In fact, any typical limits on how long a work may be in progress should be ignored because they are meant to apply to situations where the user doesn't want to edit and is using editing as an excuse to keep the page up--they aren't meant to apply to a user who's unable to edit. (Of course, if the user's ban is permanent, or if statistically, most indefinite bans ended up being permanent in practice, this wouldn't apply.)

That being said, the page is definitely a BLP violation and BLP does apply to userspace. The page needs to go. Ken Arromdee ( talk) 21:31, 17 August 2012 (UTC) reply

In order to solve the BLP issue, I changed the title:

from

List of LENR researchers (work in progress)

to

List of researchers who have investigated LENR related topics (work in progress)

which is more neutral.

-- NUMB3RN7NE ( talk) 02:26, 18 August 2012 (UTC) reply

That still contains the exact same implications as the former. IRWolfie- ( talk) 11:22, 18 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• Urgh. Don't forget to zap User:NUMB3RN7NE/list (one of the daftest "I'm Spartacus" stunts I've seen in ages on here) when closing this. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) ( talk) 12:13, 20 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you for remembering it, because I have already asked it.

There are two problems here: BLP violation, and it does not seem that a BLP violation is present, and whether a user can store this kind of data in his/her subpages. However, this second question appears to be a general question, ie a precedural question, and therefore it should not be ascribed to the specific behaviour of one single user.-- NUMB3RN7NE ( talk) 14:24, 20 August 2012 (UTC) reply

• I didn't know there are scientists actively working in this field. I checked several names and they are definitely not trying to hide their work, some even have research papers on their university pages. I can't see a BLP violation here. -- 92.68.170.185 ( talk) 07:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC) reply

This comment is this IPs first edit. IRWolfie- ( talk) 09:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC) reply

I belong to the group of "lenr" researchers. However, I do not share the vision that it is proven to be nuclear. My group presented a paper at the ICCF17 meeting this week in Korea that brought NRL out of the closet. The paper confirms that there is an anomalous, highly energetic effect in FP cells. We have worked on this fascinating problem for four years. What I do not want NRL associated with is claims that this effect is d-d fusion, or nuclear at all. We simply do not know at the moment. Furthermore I did not want my paper to be deleted from the cold fusion article. I stand by it. I do not object (at all) to being on a list of lenr researchers, but I prefer that my work is labeled as "anomalous heat effect" rather than "Low energy nuclear reaction", but it is, from wikipedia's perspective more or less the same field of research. Graham Hubler

I think this indicates how careful we should be about these sorts of lists because of the potential WP:BLP issues. IRWolfie- ( talk) 12:31, 25 August 2012 (UTC) reply

And all the people here follow this path aimed at being very careful indeed: there was a BLP issue raised by you (see here) regarding the inclusion of the name of Graham Hubler in the list.

You carefully informed us that Hubler wrote on the cold fusion page on Wikipedia about a similar issue (see here).

After you informed us about this issue concerning the inclusion of his name in the list, Graham Hubler writes on Wikipedia (see here) in order to specify that he has no problem with the inclusion of his name in the list.

Hence, the BLP issue raised by you concerning the inclusion of the name of Grahm Hubler in the list can now be considered as solved.-- NUMB3RN7NE ( talk) 03:43, 26 August 2012 (UTC) reply

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.