Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004/Candidate statements/Discussion

This is useful material. No reason to delete it, other than VeryVerily's spitefulness. Shorne 10:43, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's all available in the user namespaces, so I have redirected this attempt to circumvent the distribution of the endorsements there. If this page were being used for actual discussion rather than pseudo-voting, that would be a different matter. --Michael Snow 16:48, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Did it occur to you to look at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004/Candidate statements/Endorsements before destroying the page? There is broad consensus that this belongs here. Shorne 16:53, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I certainly did look at it before redirecting the page. I believe the consensus supports what I did, because this page so far was merely a recreation of the endorsements page, which several people agreed should be distributed out. As I said, if you wanted to take the approach of actually having a discussion, that would be different. --Michael Snow 17:02, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Did you think about discussing the matter rather than acting unilaterally? Shorne 17:05, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I had discussed it, on the page you just cited. This was not unilateral action. --Michael Snow 17:12, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It was indeed unilateral in my opinion. There's clearly no consensus there for your redirect. I move to remove the redirect, and will support anyone who does so.--FeloniousMonk 18:34, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What do you propose to have instead of the redirect? If you want to start a discussion, as I've indicated above that can be considered. If you simply propose to restore the old version of the endorsements page that Shorne copied here, then this page is simply being used to circumvent community opinion regarding that page. --Michael Snow 18:47, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The original format of the endorsements page, prior to it's ambiguation to the user name spaces, was the proper venue to present endorsements and justifications for granting or withholding them. I support Gzornenplatz' reversion to the orginial format and also agree that having another editor create a page in my namespace without my permission was offensive.--FeloniousMonk 19:20, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Restoring the old format of the endorsements page should be debated on the endorsements talk page, not here. If having a page with your own endorsements, written in your own words, created in your user namespace is so offensive, you have every right to blank it or have it speedily deleted. --Michael Snow 19:34, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

And we have every right to restore the comments to the original place. You don't have authority to "move" people's comments from public talk pages to their private user spaces. That's double vandalism: deletion of other people's comments from a talk page plus unsolicited creation of subpages in other people's user space. Gzornenplatz 19:45, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Michael Snow has every right since he is one of the directors of this set of pages. --mav 19:49, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

First time I hear that. When, where, and by whom was he so appointed? And which "set of pages" exactly does he direct? Are there "directors" of other "sets of pages" and are they listed somewhere? That would be interesting to know. Gzornenplatz 19:54, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

I'm certain that the right, if it indeed exists, does not extend to creating a page in my user namespace. I found that anyone would do so without my permission to be particularly offensive. Invoking some imputed right based on some obscure mandate as justification for censorship under false pretenses smacks of the worst sort of elitist cabal.--FeloniousMonk 20:18, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, I haven't claimed to be a director, though I have been significantly involved in organizing the election process. What I have done is asked the people who are officially administering the election (Danny, Elian, and UninvitedCompany) to weigh in on the question. --Michael Snow 20:22, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I want nothing to do with this page, nor any endorsements of any kind

If someone worth listening to (someone with any legitimate say on the matter) insists I accept "endorsements", I will withdraw from the election. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 22:01, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I am not sure what legitimate means in this context. You have put yourself up for election, yet do not want open discourse about your candidacy. --Mrfixter 22:05, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Where is the public square for me to post my endorsements?

I don't appreciate the unilateral decision to bury my endorsements and opposition on an obscure subpage under my user page, where no one will ever read them, especially before asking me if it was OK. What was the motivation for wanting to hide my comments about the candidates?

If this election is to be free and fair, then in the "public square" that the candidate discussion page represents, everyone should be allowed to make their opinions known. Please restore my comments to the public discussion page where potential voters can read them without having to click on dozens of links before a potential voter can see what I have to say. Thank you. --DV 00:24, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Follow up

Someone made the comment about how clicking on subpages only requires a click on one link. This comment is demonstrably dishonest - potential voters will have to click on dozens of links above mine, or below mine, (depending on the order they are going through the other user's endorsements) before they get to mine. Most users will become impatient and stop clicking long before they get to my endorsements. Hence why I posted on the central discussion in the first place - so my comments would be read!

Excerpts from other pages get read much more frequently than links. (Many popular news sites and blogs illustrate this every day, by excerpting what they link to in order to entice the reader to bother clicking on the link.)

Also, I made endorsements of Neutrality and blankfaze, and they do not appear on the candidate subpages that were recently created. Since the person doing this move wasn't super careful about moving this material around without losing some of it, those two candidates lost some endorsements that they would otherwise have.

The "consensus" on redistributing comments on a single page into many subpages seems weak. And who appointed Michael Snow the "boss" of the candidate endorsements discussion page in the first place? His statements that he would continue his actions despite the wishes of others doesn't seem very wiki-like. --DV 00:24, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Michael Snow suggested that I "pipe" my endorsements into my link on his centralized link page of endorsements. I disagree with his assessment of linking vs. a central page (for the reasons I gave above), but if this is as far as he is willing to compromise, so be it. --DV 00:44, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

By this time Michael Snow should just admit that he made a mistake and restore the old version. DV's points are of course very true. Few people will click through all of this, and the whole duplication with two lists of links makes no sense. Where should people place new comments? People won't post in both places, so that ultimately if one wants to read all comments one would have to click through both sets of links, and thereby would get most comments twice. This bifurcation is an even dumber idea than having just one set of links, and even that is wholly unnecessary. The page was just barely 32K. What are some people thinking? I find no other explanation other than that some people want to deliberately hide certain opposing comments. Gzornenplatz 02:45, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)