Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Prester John/Evidence

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 Keep. Xoloz 21:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Prester John/Evidence

I nominate this page for deletion per my reasoning below and the suggestion of an admin that this might be the right place to bring the issue up. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 08:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

to quote my own entry from Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#More_on_Prester_John:

I just came across this where the editor in question has used the edit history of my user talk page in order to identify the IP address of an editor with whom he is in dispute. This and many other links are under the seemingly devious title of "Evidence" (I refer to link 1 under the heading 1 x).

This editor (PJ) himself seems to have successfully enforced a gag order on Timeshift to prevent him from revealing what is apparently a huge conflict of interest of PJ's when editing Australian political articles. My impression from previous conversations is that PJ is content removed who edits on wikipedia for purely partisan purposes and Timeshift had proof of this but has been blocked by admins from using it in discussions because PJ has chosen not to volunteer his identify on wikipedia. Yet despite being the beneficiary of this policy of anonymity, this editor is using a dossier type technique in order to formulate an attack on another editor based on underhanded research such as researching the editor's IP address.

It must be against policy to do this kind of thing, probably the same policy PJ is using against Timeshift. Don’t wikipedia editors have a right to edit in peace without being researched by editors with which you are supposedly having content based disputes?

• No opinion on deletion yet, but I'd just like to state that pages like this are not inherently bad. We allow people to have pages like this, if the evidence is going to be used for dispute resolution such as an RfC later. -Amarkov moo! 18:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
• No opinion, yet, but it boggles my mind that people feel compelled to create these lists in their userspace. Why not just make a local copy, and skip the drama? If you're collecting "evidence" against someone, validly or not, putting it in your userspace is going to make them upset. --Haemo 19:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with Haemo's opinion - I don't know whether it should be deleted or not and am happy to leave the decision to others to resolve, however I don't honestly think such pages in general terms serve the interests of the encyclopaedia. Orderinchaos 12:51, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Keep. It is within policy to have a draft page to create the extremely tedious and boring evidence needed to formulate 3RR reports and checkuser reports. This nomination is in bad faith as is evident from the attempt expose my "imagined" real world identity, which I will now remove. Prester John ^{-(Talk to the Hand)} 01:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

commentConsidering he is probably within his right to do so I have no objection to Prester John editing my original comment, my comments were in good faith, as the accusations seemed to me to warrant further explanation.

I also do not object to the 3RR recording, although it is very investigatory as long as editors with whom you are in dispute with keep within policy then your recording of their edits like that should not be a problem.

I do find it very concerning that you would include in this investigation a record of the editor's IP address. I don't know a huge amount about the upper workings of wikipedia but I do know that you do not have checkuser access, if there were to be a problem with that kind of thing then you can report it to those admins who do have checkuser ability and they have access to the IP addresses from which any and every editor edits and they can use that information neutrally in resolving problems that come up. As someone who has butted heads with you in the past it greatly concerns me that you are using this kind of tactic against other editors with whom you have a dispute. While I agree with Lister2 on a few of the content based disputes he has with you I don't have the same energy or time to do battle with you on every minor point that you edit, but I commend him for doing so and being willing to talk it through usually, it worries me greatly that you would use tactics that I perceive to be underhanded against Lister2 because I could quite easily see you employing the same type tactics against me and that very much discourages me from entering content based discussions with you or about your edits and thus slightly limits the amount I am willing to participate in the wikipedia project. Thanking you in advance for your understanding on this matter. WikiTownsvillian 04:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep: Users are entitled to use their user page per WP:USER. The page is not an attack page, although it is recommended to PJ that he be careful and not build an attack page nor construct a page to out users. It should be noted that "In extreme cases, your user subpage may be deleted, following a listing on Miscellany for deletion, subject to deletion policy.", this page does not fall into "extreme" by any stretch of the imagination. If editors have a problem with their IP address in their WP edits, then they should take responsibility for their edits, adopt a cool head and use the "Show Preview" button. Shot info 05:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep It seems like an appropriate use of userspace to me. It looks like the editor uses the page to formulate reports to admin noticeboards. See this version, for example. The editor then cut and paste to file this 3RR report and this checkuser. It looks like the current version is preparation for another checkuser request. However, If the editor has more recently used the page inappropriately, then he should be told so, but I don't see a reason for forced deletion. Also, I don't know what you mean when you say Timeshift has been blocked for making allegations about PJs career background, but see the log, I don't see any such or even any recent blocks. The way to deal with people like PJ is via his edits, not via his alleged background. WP:COI, is only a guideline, after all and if people don't want to reveal their real identities, then that's their prerogative. Sarah 10:16, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep users are entitled to keep evidence pages to help them make reports on users in their userspace, which appers to be the purpose of this page. Yahel Guhan 03:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

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.