Wikipedia talk:Censorship (2006 proposal)/archive2003

This is probably better moved to Meta. But I've just moved it to the Wikipedia namespace for now -- sannse 16:16 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

Wherever you want, as long as it makes sense. JohnQ

somehow, moving this page to meta could be seen as an act of censorship, don't you think ? :-) ant

That was why I didn't :). But that's only so if it's not a Meta topic and it's only being moved to hide it from view (which wasn't my reasoning). -- sannse 16:28 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

lol. Right. I think this is just the good place. JohnQ

What is this page for? If people disagree with edits people are making (be they sysops or no) they can bring that up on the talk page of the article in question. --Camembert

And that means this is still not published....and censored then. JohnQ

Sorry, I don't know what that means. And I still don't know what the point of this page is. --Camembert

The point of the page, 'bert, was to piss me off. As you can see, it didn't succeed. Why me? Because the banned user who created the page happened to seize on my handle from amongst the half-dozen people who took action to revert his gross vandalism (trying to change the Wikipedia logo into a penis was one example, but there were many others). Tannin 02:34 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

Ah, that was a bit of fun that I missed. Well, if somebody wants to move it to meta or to a subpage from the appropriate user's page, I don't particularly mind, but I'm listing this on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. --Camembert

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Anthere, you said on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion that you'd explained here why you thought this page should be kept - do you mean your comment above that "somehow, moving this page to meta could be seen as an act of censorship, don't you think ?"? That doesn't seem like much of an argument to me. One might as well say we should never delete pages at all, since it might look like censorship.

well, when you remove someone comment and put it in a black pit where a tiny number of people will potentially find it again, that looks pretty much like censorship to me, even if slightly gentler than crude deletion. Hum...like putting someone in a muffled room and tell him "you are not censored, see, you can say whatever you want" :-)

Anyhow, since this has been reorganised and trimmed down, it doesn't seem so bad, and I could probably live with it continuing to exist, but I'm still unclear as to what the purpose of it is - as I said before, the place to raise concerns about censorship or anything else is the appropriate article's talk page. I'm also unclear on what the link to "A physical Wiki" is for. How about we redirect this to Wikipedia:Profanity? --Camembert

That sounds reasonable to me :) Martin

Let me give you a comparison. Sometimes, you work with someone on an article page, and you really cannot succeed to reach an agreement, and really are convinced the other editor is biaised for example. You spent a lot of time with him on the talk page, arguing alone with him. No result. Out of fatigue, you decide to head for the Wikipedia:NPOV dispute and put it there with an explanation, with the hope someone will come and help you, no ? You add your distress to a global page, and call for other people help, because you think you can't assume alone. Well, I think that is about the same here. If someone feels he is being abused (censored) no matter what he is saying in the talk page, that makes sense that he has a global page where he can report his problem, and make other people aware of it, so they can come and help.

Do you see the comparison ?

I see a comparison. I wonder what people would say if I declared the Wikipedia:NPOV dispute was not an encyclopedic page, and had little sense here, and then should be moved to meta, where it belong.

But apparently, we assume by default NPOV dispute *can* happen, but that *censorship* dispute is a delusion. I consider I have been victim of censorship on the anti-french sentiment article. Just good censorship. I tried the talk page, and received no help whatsoever. I know now Wikipedia thinks it is not censored. :-) ant

I agree that Wikipedia is censored. For example, biased material is often censored. I would prefer if biased material was more frequently reworked rather than simply deleted, but one cannot have everything. Many wikipedians censor material from "banned" users. And offensive content or flamebait is fairly often censored, though more commonly people decide instead to offer nutritional substances to mythological creatures. And sometimes censorship is misapplied and material that should remain on Wikipedia is instead removed.

But we have wikipedia:current disputes over articles - could that page not be used where there is a dispute over whether censorship is being applied? What would the benefits be of a seperate page? Martin

immediate thought. In particular related to censored articles from "banned" users. Ie, articles deleted on sight, without review of the content provided (no quality estimate), just for being authored by a "bad" editor), without any consideration for the (often painful, sigh) process of Wikipedia:Votes for deletions. Some of the articles deleted were sometimes written "before" the user was banned, and were initially thought acceptable, to switch to a non acceptable state *after* the ban. When these articles are deleted, they no longer exist. They have no more talk page. It would be quite strange to state censorship on these non-existing articles could be reported in wikipedia:current disputes over articles, let alone their talk page. I agree other cases could be a paragraph in wikipedia:current disputes over articles, though I tend to disagree with the "current".

What is needed, then, is a wikipedia:votes for undeletion where people can protest the deletion of stuff that didn't go through the correct votes for deletion process. That's such a good idea, I'm going to create it. Martin

good idea Martin. But...if you can't see the content of a article (since deleted), how are you supposed to "know" you would prefer it to be restored rather than being left in the trash can ???

You might have seen it before it got deleted, or have stored a copy locally (or in yuor browser cache). It's not an ideal system, but it's the best we can do without re-implementing page deletion, I think. Martin

Or perhaps you have seen nothing at all, but think a comment like "deleted for being written by a banned user" is not a good comment ?

Have people really been deleting pages because they've been written by banned users? Do you have an example (either of a page, or a user who deleted it, or both)? --Camembert

Yes they have. I went through the deletion log to pick up some choice examples:

• 22:42 May 13, 2003 172 deleted "Thats how a nigger goes" (a racist copyright violation by banned user Zog, much of whose work has already been deleted, added to the votes for deletion) (I undeleted this - it was a valid redirect)
• 03:22 May 12, 2003 Zoe deleted "Iron Maiden (album)" (deleting article created by banned user Michael)
• 03:22 May 12, 2003 Zoe deleted "The Soundhouse Tapes" (deleting article created by banned user Michael)
• 03:17 May 12, 2003 Zoe deleted "Bruce Dickinson" (deleting article created by banned user Michael)
• 07:15 May 11, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:Zxcvb" (banned user) (I undeleted, because the reasons for a ban should be kept)
• 07:15 May 11, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:Zxcvb" (banned user) (I undeleted)
• 19:29 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:Anti-Zog" (banned user)
• 19:29 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:Anti-Zog" (banned user)
• 19:29 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:Zog" (banned user)
• 19:28 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:Zog" (banned user)
• 19:28 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:JamesERay" (banned)
• 19:28 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:Zog/ban" (banned user) (undeleted for acountability)
<li>19:28 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:JamesERay" (banned user)
• 19:27 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:JamesERay" (banned user)
• 19:26 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:BaboonMouth" (banned user)
• 19:25 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:BaboonMouth" (banned user)
• 21:17 May 1, 2003 JohnOwens deleted "Aymara" (banned user trying to sneak back in) (I restored it as history only. full text: "A common language amongst highland Bolivians and Peruvians. Considered an official language by both nations.")
• 21:17 May 1, 2003 JohnOwens deleted "Santa Cruz, Bolivia" (banned user trying to sneak back in)
• 21:17 May 1, 2003 JohnOwens deleted "Upper Peru" (banned user trying to sneak back in)full text: "The name of Bolivia during Spanish colonial times."
• 21:17 May 1, 2003 JohnOwens deleted "War of the Pacific" (banned user trying to sneak back in) full text: "The War of the Pacific was fought between Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. Chile gained substantial land, with rich nitrate fields from both of the other two countries."
• 20:32 May 1, 2003 Infrogmation deleted "Image:Baboon.jpe" (Banned user)

And so it goes on - I only went back to May 1st. This is regarded by its supporters as a mere extension of the principle that we should revert all edits made by "banned" users, even good ones that other Wikipedians wish to keep. Martin

Oh ! amazing. Mmmm...does anyone have any idea how long it has been going on ? Maybe we should go further up, till it really started. When banning became so frequent anyway ?

Heck, I didn't realise that was going on - I knew things were being reverted (I have very mixed feelings about that), but not this. --Camembert

Fact is, the system is helping censors. Simply because the deletion log doesnot go farther up than a dozen of days. It is probable sysops can run a query on the base to find back which were the last censored articles. In any case, they can access the list of deleted articles.

However, simple users have no way to check, no way to list anything. There were *many* articles (not user pages or talk pages only) deleted in march and april. That could be seen on the recent changes. These were deleted on sight. The articles do not appear on any list simple user (sorry, low users is really the proper word) could see. {That's not correct -- see logs stretching back to 2002 at Wikipedia talk:Deletion log} They just disappeared. As a kid, in school, while the cold war was still going on, I remember teachers telling us such things about the USSR.. When a censored article can't be seen, when even a list of censored article can't even be recovered, low users can't challenge it. No article names to list, no possibility of recovery. A vote for undeletion page could work in the future, but it can't even work on articles censored less than a month ago. That is the power of sysop, they hide reality to low users :-)

May I appeal for seeing any article deleted with a comment containing the words "banned user" in the past 3 months say ?

I'll see if I can find the time. In the meantime, I'll start listing pages on wikipedia:votes for undeletion.

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• deletion redesign moved to m:Deletion management redesign

I am greatly relieved to discover the existence of these logs. We must have them as well on the french wiki. I must see at that asap. I'll look at the rest of this conversation below later today. Ant

Note that all but one of the questionable deletions I listed above didn't go through wikipedia:votes for deletion. Martin

Ahem. Only pages where there would be some question as to why they should be deleted need be placed on the VfD page. There are several dozen newbie experiments, vandalisms and garbade pages (like just an external link) a day that are deleted unilaterally by Admins within an hour or so of their creation. Possible copyright violations need to be listed, along with any other article with substantial text (unless it was created by a banned user - then it can be reverted back to an edit link as per current practice). --mav

I'm not a banned user, and I don't play one on TV either. But I think the "current practise" of reverting all changes that someone thinks were made by a banned user, needs serious review and debate. None of the original criteria of deletion included ad-hominem criteria, and I think that was a good idea.

The "rain cloud" idea is better, but it may still have the effect of hurting innocent contributors, and of promoting ad-hominem edit wars. Why not just stick to removing nonsense and racism, and leave the ad-hominem out of it?

Steverapaport 21:48 19 May 2003 (UTC)