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 debate was no consensus; there were strong arguments to delete the page per WP:STALK but also strong arguments to keep the page as it was useful evidence in a sockpuppetry case GDonato (talk) 14:21, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Abd/Allemandtando[edit]

Abd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has created this page as an evidence file against User:Allemandtando. There isn't any evidence there as yet, but he encourages users to post to it should/when Allemantando screw up. This isn't fair on Allemantando having such a page documenting his every move in someone elses userspace, with little final goal (it's certainly not a draft RfC or anything like that). We've previously deleted laundry list of grievances, and this page is just that. It's an assumption of bad faith towards Allemantando by expecting him to do something wrong. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If he wants to (or any other editors) wish to post an RfC about me or my actions, I am happy for them to do and have no objections for them to do so - but I'll be honest, this feel more like stalking - like he's never going to do anything with it but wants me to know he's watching. If he has problems, he should comply his evidence and start a RfC. I will not vote in this MfD and will only make further comment at the request of fellow editors. --Allemandtando (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can you point to the grudge in that file, Chris? I must have missed it.--Abd (talk) 00:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Since I WP:AGF, I assume that for minimizing fuss, you will yourself request speedy deletion. I'll do it in a minute, close this MfD, fuss over. Furrfu! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And, by all means take a copy of it for your own use offline. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmmm.... no, thanks. Bad precedent. Page itself is harmless, it contains no content at all that anyone has objected to. It doesn't solicit attacks or even complaints, and no complaint would even be tolerated on the page, only diffs, neutrally presented. (But there might be comment in Talk.) (Though I've permitted myself some usage of bold, for example, to distinguish edit warring edits -- by a clear and neutral definition -- on User:Abd/GoRight from ordinary ones -- with no presumption that such edits were "wrong.") When I meant minimum wikifuss, I meant that I wouldn't raise a fuss, beyond my normal habit of commenting on what I see. I have a copy, thank you, but the Talk page has history, which might be better left in place, as well as the page itself, so that users can see what this MfD was about. Basically, I prefer the file left in place, but wouldn't be upset by deletion if that happens. That, however, could change (not my not being upset, but my planned action), depending on what happens here. The rest of you are welcome to make as much fuss as you like. Such as filing an MfD on a harmless user page, with three editors who have mysteriously gathered together rapidly, fresh from prior encounters with me, which could, of course, be total coincidence, it's just remarkable how quickly that happened. Somebody obviously cares about this file, empty of most content, a mere frame, a notebook into which evidence may be placed. I notice stuff like this.--Abd (talk) 22:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suggested that this might be speedied. It violates WP:UP#NOT/9. Such pages have been regularly deleted before. The claim that this is "neutral" is quite absurd. Does anybody seriously expect Abd to go over his collection and suggest Allemandtando for a Barnstar, or as a bureaucrat? And the argument that "the page is merely keeping track of things that already exist in the history files" is also without merit. Context and selection matter. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) That's right. Indeed they do. Now, given that no "selection" has been made -- none -- Stephan's comment stands out as pure assumption of bad faith, i.e., he assumes that I would distort the record through selection bias. In any case, I'd be interested to see some examples of "such pages" being deleted, tagged within two weeks of creation, before any substantive content was added. The page, as it is, is neutral, and I'll challenge Stephan to show otherwise with a quotation from it. There is no collection there. And thus a claim that this is harmful must only stem from the name of the page, which is just the user name. Now, if I were to create a page, Draft RfC/Allemandtando, and move the present page to Evidence under that page, what could be said about it? This present Allemandtando page is intended to look like a page I complied reviewing an RfC, User:Abd/GoRight, and the RfC comment itself is a different page, which is then summarized in the RfC itself. To be useful, such a page must be rigorously neutral, and nobody has so far pointed out any bias in connection with User:Abd/GoRight (It is incomplete, by the way.) If there were bias in the Allemandtando page, it would not serve its purpose, and it would be easily dismissed. So, Stephen, why do you think this page would be negative? Do you assume that if someone is uncivil toward me, I will necessarily be uncivil toward them? --Abd (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain how the content of the page in question could be construed as breaching the following from your link:
Material that can be construed as attacking other editors, including the recording of perceived flaws. An exception is made for evidence compiled within a reasonable time frame to prepare for a dispute resolution process. This exception is subject to common sense, but as a general rule, two weeks is a reasonable time to prepare such a page.
It might just be me, but I'm not seeing it at all. S. Dean Jameson 20:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"including the recording of perceived flaws" - what else do you think is the purpose of the page under discussion? The actual content does not matter (there only is some of Abd's usual verbiage), the topic is what makes this unsuitable for Wikipedia. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And now we have a wonderful new principle for deletion of pages, according to Stephen, Actual content does not matter. Now, this page was not intended at all to record "perceived flaws," but rather abstracted evidence, like snapshots, not conclusions, which "perceived flaws" would be, so that guideline doesn't apply. The commentary on it might do that, and, thus, this guideline would set a rough limit of two weeks for such POV content to stand. Yes, content does matter. If the file were the "recording of perceived flaws," then this guideline would apply. But it wasn't, isn't, and won't be. (Once a summary of editor activity has been prepared, it shouldn't take long to come to some conclusions about it. For the GoRight RfC, the hard part was collecting the evidence, once that was done, what was going on was pretty obvious, and the neutral editors who have commented seem to agree. Hint: looking only at isolated diffs made GoRight look pretty bad. Looking at those diffs in the context of what was going on around them made it clear that he wasn't the worst offender, by any means, and he had been pushed and provoked.) Stephan seems to be convinced that a cautious examination of the evidence, by me, is going to produce some sort of indictment. Does he know something I don't know? (Probably not, but that's another story.)--Abd (talk) 20:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing new about the principle. Content can be changed. We only delete pages which have no potential value for the project, not pages that currently are lousy. And yes, I'm fairly certain that I know quite some things that you do not know. How good are you with first-order logical calculi? ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:11, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we should petition to have wikipedia remove the user contribution pages based on the same arguments being set forth above?  :) After all, those pages really do track your every move ... --GoRight (talk) 21:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just because it's silly doesn't mean you should repeat it.... I've written an extensive comment on the history of this affair, which I decided to put in Wikipedia talk:Miscellany for deletion/User:Abd/Allemandtando, instead of here; some of it bears on the deletion issue, but most of that has been said above.--Abd (talk) 23:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It stands to reason that the on wiki collection of information about a user because you think he may or may not be disruptive, but you just don't know yet, is just not on. Stating that it isn't against policy is just lawyering, it falls within the spirit of a number of them, including STALK, HARRASS, AGF, DISPUTE, BATTLE, COURTESY, COMMON SENSE, USER etc etc. This exercise should have been done in private, or at an appropriate board/process. The thinking behind the solicitation of additions pseudo anonymously, just blows my mind. MickMacNee (talk) 04:27, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
MickMacNee has made a number of unwarranted assumptions here. There were no solicitations of anything from anyone. What is this "pseudoanonymously"? Sure, I could do it privately, but it was convenient to use my user space, and, in fact, it is specifically allowed to collect critical information, with a presumption that you can do it, civilly, for two weeks. But the evidence file had no critical information in it, ever, just raw evidence (diffs), without critical comment, and it was promptly used on a "board," i.e., WP:SSP and WP:RFCU. I think the interpretation of the guidelines above is preposterous, but the file's existence was taken to WP:AN/I and was seen to be proper. I knew the editor was disruptive, that was quite clear, not only to me but to quite a few others, but the question was, is there sufficient evidence to take action? Further, I've found, when collecting evidence, I sometimes find that the evidence exonerates the editor from an appearance of disruption. So the collection of evidence *must* take place before a conclusion is made. I think quite a few editors don't understand this, and so we see editors who !vote in AfDs who clearly haven't taken the time to review evidence. If they are the first !voters, and the nomination is very brief, it's obvious. They simply looked at it, said "sounds right to me," and !voted to support the nomination. In one RfA, the candidate had cast such a vote, so I voted Oppose, and said why. The candidate apparently looked at the vote, said it wasn't a good thing he had done, and wouldn't do it again. So I changed my vote. We need editors and administrators who can make mistakes and acknowledge them. We have too many of the other kind already. We need more tools that enable easy analysis of editor activity, not less, and this applies in spades to administrator activity. --Abd (talk) 05:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You're rewriting history, the page had no stated purpose before. And I fully read every aspect of this episode, so enough of the presumptions about commenting without knowledge. The fact you invited additions without signing is the pseudo anonymous part. What is the precise wording of this two week clause and where is it? Because I've never seen it. Frankly, sugar coating this as a neutral exercise is insulting everyone's intelligence here, your polemic comments elsewhere make it obvious there was a bigger point to this exercise than merely collecting evidence to prevent disruption. Fact is, you are spending more time and energy broadcasting and justifying what you did, rather than having just done it in private and properly filed a grievance when ready. The ANI thread showed no interest, because in true wikilawyer fashion, this technically breaks no rules enough for a block to stick, so no-one cares. If you can't see the applicability of the spirit of those policies here, something is seriously wrong. MickMacNee (talk) 12:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. Now I see. The main page is an evidence page. Do you sign your contributions to articles? The facts on the evidence page should be verifiable by anyone. Nothing on that page, except perhaps for instructions, should be signed, because it isn't personal opinion, rather it is sourced text. No source, or not faithful to source, it's out of there, should someone put it in. And I'd verify whatever was put in. Because the file has my name on it: User:Abd/etc, I'm responsible for it, if I knowingly left something improper there. But the contributions aren't "anonymous," because they are in History. If the page isn't a "neutral exercise," it is useless, at least to me, and inaccuracies in the facts would be devastating to the use of the file in some RfC or the like. The instructions were really moot, when they were written, I'm not sure why I bothered, because I didn't solicit contributions and contrary to what Mick writes, I didn't "broadcast" it, the "justifications" -- isn't that a slightly uncivil synonym for "explanations," implying some kind of guilt being covered up -- were made in response to, yes, ignorant impresions or inclined to assumptions of bad faith like that above, by various users, mostly here, where, of course, that is entirely the point, it's an MfD. It's not true that the purpose wasn't stated, and the original statement of purpose was quoted above, so while I must assume that Mick "fully read" what he wrote, he obviously didn't absorb it. The two week period has been referenced above, by numerous editors, so, again, I don't know how such a careful reading missed it. WP:UP#NOT #9, and, again, above, that's been discussed by others, correctly. There were actually two files taken to the attention of AN/I. The first was an essay about an incident, which has a definite purpose, but which also contains what could reasonably be called criticism, and that's how Allemandtando took it, in a big way. That was User:Abd/MKR incident, about a rapid renom AfD where Allemandtando edit warred with an administrator, who properly took it to AN/I, and which was successfully diverted by introduced debate over the article's notability, which wasn't the issue at all, and I was interested in how that could happen, because several aspects were and are very important. Allemandtando was the nominator, but was really only mentioned peripherally, he is not the one who originally caused the disruption of Noticeboard process. And that file was explicitly, by a number of editors, considered perfectly legitimate. The subject file here was mentioned toward the end of that AN/I section, and did not attract much notice. The only "attack" aspect of the page would be that it was named "Allemandtando."
I think that Mick doesn't have the foggiest idea of the "spirit of the policies." Wikipedia is self-policing, which means that we must pay attention to editor behavior. Isn't this MfD part of that process? But with complex issues, starting, say, an RfC/U, which can be extraordinarily disruptive, should not be done, in my opinion, until all the ducks are in a row. Getting them in a row is a process, and there should be drafts, and preceding that, there should be what I did, some collection of evidence *without* the conclusions (though there can be some possible problem with data selection, definitely). And if this is open to other users, particularly the subject involved, it's quite possible that a problem could be resolved, without RfC itself, and certifying that the attempts have been made and failed is required for an RfC. Thus that file could be seen as part of pre-RfC process. By "retiring," Allemandtando may have made it moot, we'll see. It's a lot of work to gather and prepare evidence, if he's gone, is it worth it? But, in the end, this is not about him, and Mick refers, I think, to what I wrote at the end of the RfCU, about why all this is worth doing, why it is important, and it is not about personalities, it's about principles and how Wikipedia works -- and doesn't work. But I didn't "go after" Allemandtando in order to make a point. That would be disruptive. I did it because he demanded it. Which was, of course, itself disruptive. People make uncivil comments about me frequently. But I don't pursue them to their Talk pages and insist that they "put up or shut up." Speaking of Talk pages, I took a look at Micks, and saw, there, the reason why it is so important that we watch each other. We make mistakes, and when an editor gives bad advice to the clueless, it damages the project. That's why we have History and why we have Watchlists, and if we see something off, we can sometimes fix it. See you there! --Abd (talk) 15:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, seeing as your replies are becoming essays in themselves, and I apparently don't have the foggiest, and now you've started poking your nose into my activities without cause, bar your need to 'police' others (do I have my own /evidence page now?), then I shall withdraw. Suffice to say, the Mfd started on the two week deadline, and you had done nothing with your evidence page, not that you had indicated what type of dispute resolution it was being compiled for. As for not signing user page content, when it's a multi-contributed evidence page, I suggest you get a clue about the relevant policies (listed above). Check out an arbcom evidence page once in a while too. Finally, the 'clueless' user on my page was copy-pasting whole sections of a company website to an article, claiming verbal permission. Even with your assesment of my competence, I think I'm justified in saying that's not allowed. Instead of wikilawyering and policing the project single handedly (or through posse pages), just go and absord the spirit of those policies, you will be a better person for it. MickMacNee (talk) 16:00, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (edit conflict) Allemandtando's checkuser request came back "Likely," as Fredrick day, which means, almost certainly, that he was colocated with Fredrick day, who used multiple ISPs, dynamic IP, proxies, and probably multiple computers to avoid checkuser detection, but with a high-traffic acccount like Allemandtando, he would be unlikely to be using proxies, and so his location was a giveaway. See Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Fredrick day (3rd) (which is as yet unresolved, but, I'd say, it's now quite obvious to anyone who looks. The subject page here was the basis of the primary evidence in the SSP report and RFCU, so this MfD should be speedy closed, it would be utterly inappropriate, now, with this development, to delete the page, even if every !vote was Delete. If anyone believes that I acted improperly, they are welcome to discuss it with me on my talk page, I doubt that I will comment here again.--Abd (talk) 16:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense argument. Wether Allemandtando is Frederick day or not has no more influence on the propriety of your page than the question of wether a suspect is guilty or not can decide if illegal wiretaps or extorted confessions are valid. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:11, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Stephen's right. The argument he imagines has no relevance to this MfD, period. And therefore, though I have further response, see it in Talk. --Abd (talk) 00:11, 21 July 2008 (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.
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