Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Malleus Fatuorum

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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 - headcount is about three to one against. Without an overriding, compelling policy, that carries the most weight. Beyond that, the complaint that it's disruptive, and serves to escalate conflict rather the diffuse it seems to have merit (i.e., that it runs afoul of WP:POINT). If you want the content to try and write a real essay about blocking vested contributors, ask me or anyone in Category:Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles. If you need someone to block Malleus, try Category:Rouge admins. WilyD 09:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Malleus Fatuorum

Wikipedia:Malleus Fatuorum (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

This is an advisory MfD. We just want to see if the community rejects the existence of this essay, or not. If not, it can presumably be applied in future. Herostratus (talk) 15:54, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep as author and nominator. This is an advisory MfD. The intent here is to address a particular situation. Let's vote it up or down. Herostratus (talk) 15:56, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep We need this. Users like me have already stuck up for Malleus so many times that we can use this to refer to anybody trying to block Malleus. It's really useful, no scrap that, it's essential! ☠ Jaguar ☠ 16:28, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - We don't write essays on how to deal with individual editors. Period. That's the end of it. This is not a slippery slope argument, that this will devolve into whatever. It's not. If you want an essay that says that blocking successful content creators is bad, be my guest. If you want an essay that says that Regular Contributors™ need a stronger consensus before blocking, I'm cool with that too. If you want to say that civility is a malleable standard (pardon the pun) and that civility blocks should be weighed against the harm it would cause if that contributor was no longer writing, I'm good. But to simply say that one particular editor should be treated differently is something I can't condone, and that I wouldn't be willing to put my name on. Achowat (talk) 00:12, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, but you don't have to put your name on it. There are lots of essays that one doesn't agree with but that that still ought to be able to exist. Let's think this through together. To me, "We don't write essays on how to deal with individual editors. Period. That's the end of it" sounds a bit like "I cannot get my mind around this". This is very understandable and I expect that. However, my question then would be: what is the underlying principle? To say "We don't... Period. That's the end of it" means "We don't, even if will save countless man-hours and otherwise enhance the Wikipedia is many ways". That's fine if there;s an underlying principle at stake. For instance, we wouldn't "out" someone egregiously even if it might be helpful to Wikipedia. The underlying principle here is "don't damage people's real lives, if possible" which is a subset of "don't act evilly". What's the principle here? We've had lots of pages about specific editors (I wrote one myself) when we used to keep pages on prolific vandals. (We don't anymore, but for pragmatic reasons I think.) Is it a slippery slope you're worried about? That's a possibly real concern and we can talk about that if you like, or whatever else the issue is. But "Period. That's the end of it" leaves us nothing to work with. Hey, maybe there is an underlying principle and I just haven't seen it. Help me out here. Herostratus (talk) 02:43, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Achowat and the spirit of WP:UP#POLEMIC --Surturz (talk) 01:06, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - firstly, this is not and never has been policy, and doesn't belong in policy space. Secondly, its description of Malleus, whether fair or otherwise, borders on violating WP:NPA. Overall, I find it difficult to see how this page existing in Wikipedia-space is likely to improve collegiality or address the problem it purports to address; it's just likely to provoke further time-wasting arguments. Robofish (talk) 01:26, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, fine. What's your solution then? In fact, for all the "Delete" voters, I'd very much like to see something along the lines of "Delete, instead let's address the situation by doing X", where X is something that can actually be implemented (if a policy, then one that in actual reality could garner ~75% acceptance, for instance, rather than being a typical "perennial proposal"; if a mode of being, then a mode of being that people will really do; and so forth.) Alternatively "Delete, solution in search of a problem, everything's OK" would be good too, if one believes that. But just "Delete, situation is not solvable" I don't find too helpful. Herostratus (talk) 02:53, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, I guess the question becomes "Is Malleus a specific instance, or are there de facto policies in place that can be made more general?" I think the latter is true. I think that the way we do business is that we weigh a user's contributions when we make blocks for incivility and rough-edgedness. I think that if you want a quick WP: shortcut to point to that says "Don't block this guy just because he's difficult to work with", then that's all well and good. A simple essay on the block policy that suggests blocks need to be weighed against the standard "what would do more harm to the encyclopedia" is all we need. If blocking a successful content creator is needed because of some egregious offense, then that's fine; but if the block would diminish the quality of work on the project overall, then it's not good policy. In the sense of full disclosure, I'm not an admin, I don't have the block button (so the essay isn't really for me), the only time I ever run into Malleus is during RFAs, and I've never had issue with the substance of what he's said there. But, if Malleus is the only one to gain protection from blocks because of content creation, then I'm opposed to the substance of the essay. If Malleus is not a special case, then I'd like to see the essay more broadly defined. Achowat (talk) 06:57, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete should we create special essays for every user? This is clearly WP:CREEP. And there should only be one special user on Wikipedia, that is User:Jimbo Wales, this creates a special preferred status for someone other than Jimbo. -- 70.24.248.246 (talk) 10:23, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I've pinged Jimbo. -- 70.24.248.246 (talk) 10:31, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete no need to handle ANY single editor this way, certainly not this one, - hope that he will serve the project at all, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:42, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I am not intimately familiar with the details of the case, but any such essay sets an abysmal precedent. Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 12:07, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move or merge. This is a snippet of RfC/U material, and if you want to put it up, you should do so according to the normal process. Alternatively it might be a 'workshop' style blurb for some ArbCom case. What it isn't is a standalone WP essay. Think of it this way - if we let this stand, and someone else has a different opinion on this editor, he should add it in, and the opinions should stack up until we have something indistinguishable from an RfC/U, so we should call it that - and if we call it that, we should go by the rules for one. Lastly, it may or may not be a good idea to have a named redirect for dealing with an editor, but if so we should do so for every editor who has ever been taken to RfC/U, and for consistency/sanity it should include the entire username. Wnt (talk) 13:01, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Misses the point: our civility policy needs fixing. While it is unworkable we have no standard against which to measure anybody's behaviour. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:30, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it sets the example that we should be enforcing policy evenly and fairly. Not when and upon whom we feel like. Just because this user has a long history with the project does not excuse the behavior they have shown repeatedly. There are better ways to act and there is no excuse for it after this long and this many times. Let them be an example to the others! Although I agree we should not be identifying the individual. The topic does fit and we have plenty of essays that are just as bad or worse than this one to use as precadent to keep this one. Dick, Diva, etc. Maybe also Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you which contains several references already to things he has said. Kumioko (talk) 17:16, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently some people are never going to understand the basics of how any disruption surrounding an editor must be measured:
  • How much of it is the editor's fault? (A block that is immediately reverted because it was poor is a lot more disruptive than a block that that was completely justified and therefore sticks. The additional disruption is mostly not the blockee's fault but the blocker's.)
  • To what extent is the disruption caused by cultural misunderstandings? (In the UK, words such as "fucking" generally function as pretty innocent intensifiers which can provide a clear signal to the other party that they have crossed a line. Some puritan Americans think that editors unwilling to conform to American-style superficial standards of language use have to be eliminated from the project, and at the same time are regularly breaking the much more functional British standards of civility in the worst ways imaginable. A good example for this is Jclemens, whose block for an outrageous personal attack against Malleus did not stick − apparently because he didn't use any 'bad words' and so by American standards was completely innocent.
  • What was the root cause of the conflict that became disruptive? (When very productive editors are involved, this is often behaviour of the ostentatiously clueless and obnoxious kind which for some reason appears to be more common and more accepted in the US − at least outside academics − than in the UK, and which due to AGF cannot be dealt with as trolling, as extreme stupidity is always a plausible alternative explanation. This problem is also mentioned by many experts when they explain why they don't want to edit Wikipedia.)
  • Is any problematic behaviour by the editor typical for them? (To see this, the frequency of disruptive behaviour must be put in relation to edit frequency, time spent on Wikipedia per unit of time, and net contributions to Wikipedia per unit of time.)
If I thought of Wikipedia as primarily a power game rather than a place for writing and developing encyclopedic content, then I might not see these points either. That would be for selfish reasons that contradict the first pillar of Wikipedia.
It makes no sense whatsoever to single out specific productive editors. Giano was once the most popular victim, now this has shifted to Malleus.
I have said it before and I am saying it again: The way Giano and Malleus are treated amounts to mobbing. Neither is completely innocent, but it is very rare that mobbing victims are completely innocent. That is never an excuse. Creating such a personalised pseudo-policy or a redirect to it is a blatant act of mobbing.
Wikipedia's open tolerance for blatant mobbing − sometimes even Jimbo takes part in it − is why I no longer consider myself part of this community and have reduced my activity dramatically from thousands of edits per year to practically zero. Hans Adler 17:22, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If someone uses incivil words because he's from another culture, but those words are widely recognized as incivil here, you could argue that he be given another chance and be told that the words are not acceptable. If he does it a second time, however, he should no longer have "cultural misunderstandings" as an excuse, since he was warned the first time. It is the responsibility of Wikipedians to understand the cultural norms of Wikipedia.
Furthermore, I doubt that this has anything to do with cultural misunderstandings. Wikipedia has plenty of people from the UK--it's not exactly an obscure place where there are only a handful of Wikipedia editors. If there was really that big a cultural misunderstanding, to the point where an editor from that country could be around for years and still genuinely not understand our standards, we'd be seeing Wikipedians from the UK be kicked off left and right since none of them would be able to act civilly. Clearly that's not happening. Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:03, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe this one either for similar reasons: if it's just a frequency problem, why don't a lot of other editors with similar numbers of edits also get in trouble? Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:03, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As it's poor form to insert your comments inside another editor's comments, I've taken the liberty of moving Ken's to the appropriate place. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:45, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as sufficient evidence of why Malleus and a bunch of others should be banned from the project. And also agree with Tarc. And no, I've never met Malleus. This is of course unless someone argues that the page is not accurate. Be——Critical 03:51, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - the essay has no place as a Wikipedia-space essay, as long as individual editor names are retained. If names are removed (at least to footnotes, as examples), and the tone is changed to direct speech, instead of sarcasm, then it might have general utility on the question of contributions vs. civility, with regard to block/ban discussions. I'm going to want examples beyond Malleus, in that case.
    Notes: No editor's contributions outweigh ongoing, abusive, degrading incivility. If their contributions stop for a short time, or a long time, the encyclopedia will not fall. If they leave, the encyclopedia will not fall. I don't see any foundation for any editor to either "support" or "oppose" Malleus personally: the talk page and edit summary behavior speaks for itself, and alleged article good-editorship (IMHO) cannot override that evidence. WP:DR works, if escalated dispassionately. If escalation rises to blocking to force cooling off, so be it. Nobody here should be a fan or a hater of Malleus - proceed based on evidence alone. --Lexein (talk) 05:47, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And that's nothing but a personal opinion, just like this piece is. Carrite (talk) 16:45, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - The idea that a user could be considered above the rules that apply to the rest of us editors is offensive and something that, where it comes up, should be argued against, not the subject of essays. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 07:23, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is not satire, it's a mockery. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 14:27, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is undoubtedly satire. Mockery is a standard technique in satire. See satire and especially satire#Censorship_and_criticism_of_satire. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:27, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is exactly on the mark. The fact that the creator nominated it for deletion here is indicative that even he wasn't seriously intending to alter policy, but was rather making a statement. When people write books about Wikipedia, and they will, the "Malleus Affair" will be one of the key issues considered for the current period. This essay should absolutely be retained as a historical trinket that more or less encapsulates (or mocks) mainline thinking, albeit mainline thinking "against policy"... Carrite (talk) 07:06, 3 January 2013 (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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