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Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Mervyn Emrys/sandbox

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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 per WP:SNOW. The discussion here and at ANI makes it clear there is no chance of there being any consensus except to delete this. Keeping this open any longer is unlikely to produce any additional, more useful outcome. Jayron32 23:58, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:Mervyn Emrys/sandbox (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Improper use of sandbox; WP:SOAPBOX proposal to out "the individuals who are making and have made destructive decisions leading to climate change". The exact same proposal has been deleted as soapboxing from User talk:Jimbo Wales[1] and User talk:Larry Sanger.[2] Also see discussion at User talk:Mervyn Emrys#November 2018 ("Just another climate change denier, doing the scut work of the corporate shills? Looks like it to me." and "Your arrogance is truly breathtaking. Too bad your wisdom cannot keep pace with it."). --Guy Macon (talk) 15:41, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Guy neglected to mention that these comments were severely provoked by his own uncivil baiting of me and that subsequently I redacted them with apologies.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 02:22, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
...only to turn around and accuse me of "stalking and threatening" you.[3] --Guy Macon (talk) 05:51, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Something needs to be done. The editor is out of control in his campaign. Some sort of sanction is needed, whether a block for incivility, a block for inappropriate web host use, or, at a minimum, deletion of the stuff. Since we are here:
  • Delete this. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:30, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
User:Guy Macon has spent the past few days STALKING me all over Wikipedia, deleting material I have posted requesting comments from others, even on my own talk page and now in my own sandbox. He displays a pattern of uncivil, even hostile behavior in violation of WP:Civility and seems determined to prevent me from communicating with anyone about a mere PROPOSAL for a project that I attempted to make available to Larry Sanger and Jimbo Wales. This is only a DRAFT PROPOSAL, but it has resulted in numerous insults and accusations from User:Guy Macon. Interesting that this editor seeems determined to make a big deal out of statements I redacted with an apology, after he instigated great provocation against me, including baiting me at one point on my own talk page. User:Guy Macon seems determined to prevent any discussion by anyone other than himself of a proposal that does NOT advocate doing anything but compiling some history from public records, meaning verifiable and credible sources. This entire experience is just astounding to me, and is interfering with my ability to develop a better proposal than the DRAFT I originally floated. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 23:59, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If you believe that Guy Macon has violated WP:HARASSMENT (we don't use "stalking"), then the place to present your evidence is at WP:ANI - however, I should warn you that you're unlikely to succeed at getting him sanctioned, and all you will end up doing is attracting more attention to this MfD and to your editing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:10, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you should postpone any further action on this for the time being. I have requested assistance from AN/I in dealing with an over zealous and uncivil editor, Guy Macon, who appears to be stalking me all over Wikipedia, posting negative comments about me on every page I visit.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 02:22, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note that no actual ANI case was filed. Something strange is going on with this user. First he saw a big red "VANDAL" in an edit summary that didn't mention vandalism, then he claimed that I had mistakenly deleted two users' comments when I had only deleted one, and now he has posted an imaginary ANI case. I am not sure whether this is a WP:CIR situation or subtle trolling. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:10, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have reported this disruptive deletion discussion at WP:ANI. Reporting a disruptive deletion discussion at WP:ANI does not suspend the deletion discussion. The deletion discussion and the WP:ANI discussion continue in parallel. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You might also note the following statement that appears on Jimbo Wales talk page: "This is Jimbo Wales's talk page, where you can send messages and comments to Jimbo Wales." Nothing on that page says it is ok for another editor to delete "messages and comments" from his talk page. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 02:59, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Soapboxing isn't allowed anywhere on Wikipedia. Please read WP:SOAPBOX. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:10, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is true that User:Guy Macon was wrong in censoring a rant from User talk:Jimbo Wales. That page is well-known to be a free-fire zone, and censoring it has in the past resulted in an ArbCom case. It is also true that the greater error was soapboxing by User:Mervyn Emrys, who has then continued by writing things that are not true, such as about filing a thread at WP:ANI. (Merwyn hasn't posted to ANI, either before or after I opened the current thread.) The only issue that needs to be considered here is whether the sandbox should be deleted, because the conduct issues are being dealt with at WP:ANI. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You are attempting to replace a Wikipedia policy with something you made up. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion is quite clear: "This applies to usernames, articles, categories, files, talk page discussions, templates, and user pages." Soapboxing isn't allowed on a user's talk page even if the user wants to allow soapboxing. This applies to all users and all userpages, even Jimbo. If don't like the existing policy, try to change it, but please refrain from telling me on multiple pages that I was wrong when I made a good-faith attempt to follow our policy to the letter. I am asking you nicely to stop this behavior now. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:06, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete not a soapbox applies. Legacypac (talk) 06:13, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:SNOW Delete - WP:SOAPBOX and WP:NOTWEBHOST have predictably already been cited as the most direct and brightline arguments as to why this proposal and even the content that forwards the notion are not appropriate for Wikipedia, but there's actually a bevy of other policies on point, including, but not limited to WP:Original research, WP:Synthesis, WP:NOTESSAY, and WP:NPOV broadly. Mervyn, I understand that you are frustrated by the fact that you have not been able to even vet this notion, and from what I have seen of the dispute here, the explanation for why this just won't fly on this project could have been delivered to you less bombastically (though to be perfectly fair to all parties, I did not see how it started). All of that said, I'll add my voice to the chorus who are trying to make it clear to you that Wikipedia is just not the place for such a venture. This project does not seek to be a promoter of social change in the world--at least, not beyond the objective of making people generally more knowledgeable. What we do here is provide an encyclopedic summary of various topics. You classify your effort as one which attempts to record "history", but everything about the proposal--its format and the stated points of emphasis--makes clear that the primary objective would be to assign causal blame for what is likely to prove the single greatest calamity of the anthropocenic era.
This is problematic for a number of reasons. For one, it will necessarily involve massive amounts of diversion into original research and synthesis, since even those scientists whom are the most steadfast proponents of anthropogenic climate change do not typically engage with the topic by trying to create metrics which assign responsibility. Indeed, empirically, this would a be a fools errand. Lacking such sources, WP:SYNTHESIS (which is not allowed here for a variety of reasons) would become the only means of connecting specific casual factors associated with climate change with individuals and institutions associated with the industries and policies believed to contribute to said phenomena. Indeed, it would not be garden-variety synth, but rather a daisy-chain style of synth on steroids. All of this would destroy any notion of neutrality and reliance on presenting the facts surrounding the relevant topics without introduction of our own interpretations of the issue.
Beyond this, there are more fundamental objections. The tone of any article on this project is meant to be encyclopedic, not editorial. Indeed, we have many articles which do specifically discuss the overwhelming scientific consensus on the causes of climate change. And those articles withstand an onslaught of pretty much daily efforts to weaken the presentation of that consensus and introduce fringe alternative theories through the exercise of false balance and other varieties of WP:POV pushing. The resistance of those articles is in large part attributable to the diligent and professional editors working on them, but more than anything it can be ascribed to our strong policies which forbid editorialization and the introduction of our idiosyncratic views in the place of the more appropriate WP:WEIGHT tests. To allow the introduction of articles such as the one you propose would be to introduce and a fault and a weakness into our processes, and would undermine every safeguard we have against WP:POVFORKS and other forms of soapboxing in defiance of consensus views on particular topics. It would be especially problematic for articles relating to climate change (or any topic plagued by science denialism generally).
At the end of the day, we are here to summarize topics neutrally, but what you wish to do is to get into the weeds and assign blame, and in a very targeted manner for specific pragmatic ends. Perhaps shaming particular individuals could be an appropriate venture--that's a complicated question and one I won't presume to try to answer here. But what I can tell you is that such an objective is in fundamental, intrinsic conflict with several of the guiding principles and priorities of this project. We are not here to leverage to leverage our sizeable platform to encourage specific kinds of change. If we did that, the system we have carefully crafted for generating content free of our own biases (while simultaneously minimizing disputes over the WP:TRUTH of matters between our editors) would grind to a cacophonous halt, and our reputation for how well we pursue our stated purposes (summarizing the whole of human knowledge) would disintegrate into our becoming a punchline--and justifiably so. There are many places online where your proposal would be warmly embraced, but I would urge you to trust me (and the others who have tried to tell you as much already, even if/when they are not doing it as softly as they might have) that this project is just not going to be one of them. Snow let's rap 07:01, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Related:
--Guy Macon (talk) 20:36, 7 November 2018 (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.