Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Anthere (talk | contribs) at 17:29, 17 June 2003. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Martin, I thank you for the undeletions. I trust that your decisions on these pages are good ones, and I won't challenge them.

However, I still consider the process you have been applying is not the proper one. Let me remind you that non sysop can not see deleted pages. Let's consider the person challenging a hasty deletion has seen the page and consider the page should be kept. He then comes here and add it to the list.

The process you have been applying here consisted essentially in reviewing "yourself" the page, and taking a "godlike" decision over the future of this page. I think this is deeply wrong.

Remember, the decision of deleting this page was a unilateral decision from a sysop. Then you add your unilateral decision - as a sysop - to keep it undeleted. That means, whatever my own request, my opinion as an editor is worth nothing. Why should sysop opinions have more weight than mine on a topic ? This is *very very* unwiki since in Misplaced Pages editors are supposed to have equal rights in edition. In deciding yourself unilaterally, you reject the opinion of the non-sysop, and you reject the very notion of consensus when there is a disagreement. When two people discuss an issue, a consensus can not be reached if one has preeminence over another in the end, should there still be disagreement. Even in a voting system (which I personally disapprove of - in particular when only a couple of people are involved), one "against", and one "for" is a 50% case, and need more input than just a unilateral decision from one of the two. Hence, the option you followed is neither consensual, nor democratic. If this is the way[REDACTED] works, I think m:Power structure should be edited.

A sysop is there to clean the place, to ensure the rules are respected, to be a pilar for coherance conservation. The sysop is not there to decide which content is right and which content is not right with little respect of the rules, right ? Otherwise, the Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion would be a protected page, and decision over deletions would be acceptable per sysops only.

You might say "right, just keep it on the list, and wait till another sysop takes the pain to undelete it for you". Given the pain of the undeletion process (so I understood, the french wiki does have a relatively small number of deleted articles, so this is not too bad), it is very unlikely, and very unefficient that two people do the same process one after another. Better do it only one time.

The other point in refuse of consensual decision is that with that process, only sysops will ever have the opportunity to give their opinion, and choose to restore or not, never other regular users, since they will never see the page content.

In short, I think the process applied on that page, should be precisely the reverse of the process apply on the Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion. Which is a place where everyone, sysop or non sysop have the right to give their opinion, and where opinions of people have the same weight, whether black, white, male, female, young, old, sysop or non sysop.

Right now, here, I can give my opinion, but a regular user opinion has *no* weight against a sysop opinion. This is humiliating and very wrong. I hope you will then understand it is not satisfying.

Idea : I have the feeling one reason why you feel like taking a "godlike" decision is that some undeletions would become permanents (for example, I suppose restoring an historical version of an existing article cannot be later un-processed - case of the three articles you restored yesterday). Why not in these cases where you feel it is likely the "community" decision (that you, and I, and everybody feeling concerned) will be to keep it undeleted, copy paste the content in a temp page associated with this one, so people can judge the content without potentially restoring something wrong ?

User:Anthere

You say: "A sysop is there to clean the place, to ensure the rules are respected, to be a pilar for coherance conservation." This isn't true at all. A sysop isn't there to "do" anything. If a sysop wants to carry on in exactly the same way they did before they were a sysop, they're quite entitled to do so. If a sysop wants to do nothing but make new articles on Albanian kings and have nothing to do with anything else, that's fine. Being a sysop doesn't carry with it any extra responsibilities as such. Therefore, why don't you become a sysop? If everyone is a sysop, and new users are made sysops once it becomes clear they're not simple vandals, these sorts of problems don't matter so much (I'm not saying they are solved, but they are lessened). You're saying how sysops should handle this page and complaining they're not doing it right - fine, but if you think something is being done incorrectly, the best way to deal with that, and the WikiWay, is for you yourself to do it the way you think it should be done, not demand that others do it that way. Therefore, become a sysop. --Camembert

You are quite right to say "if you want to do it, do it yourself". Except that if *I* want to do it myself, I will just have to tell Eloquence to make me sysop, restore the file, and forget all about it.

But if...dunno...Little Fat Buddha wants to have an article restored because he thinks it was interesting and deleted without community agreement, he won't have any chance to be heard for he will perhaps not be made sysop even if he ask. When something is wrong in the way a country is managed, a regular citizen will first want to have a way for his opinion to be heard and will hope to have impact though voting for a president or another, perhaps. I don't think the good answer if he ask for more transparency and equality, is to tell him, "become the president, then the country can be ruled the way you want". ant

Anthere, I do understand (really, I do), but I'm somewhat stymied by the system here - non-sysops can't see deleted pages - that's a fact of the universe (or rather a fact of the[REDACTED] software) that I can't fully work around. That's why I'm so in favour of a meta:deletion management redesign.

Si. But possibly I will be a grand mother by the time it is implemented :-)

Your idea is a good one, though. There's one minor hitch: I can't copy and paste the source to deleted pages, the way the system currently works. What I can do, though, is undelete the page and move it into a subpage of this page. Would that help?

Hum. I had not realised. Yes, indeed, it is not possible. Crumbs.

An alternative would be to undelete all pages upon request here, and then immediately list them on VfD for further discussion. Which of these options do you think would be better? I'm trying to do the Right Thing here - but it's not easy! Martin

Here is a Good Option, since it was precisely the process which they should have gone through. Also a good idea since it somehow makes forget the article did not go through the proper process (it is gentler on the deleter, right ? hence gentler on the community as it does not focus on the error, but rather on the content). Also a good idea since it make sense that questionable articles are all listed at the right place. It should be indicated here when they are undeleted and listed on vfd. The name of the sysop who did the deletion should not be indicated on vfd, just a statement that the article was listed here. Is that acceptable ?

Excellent :) Martin

Hello. I'd just like to say that I think this page was a brilliant idea! Which of you came up with it? I think undeleting things is good. :) I haven't contributed to the page yet, though, as I must admit it rather confuses me... How does it work, exactly? Can I, as a sysop, undelete things that I think shouldn't have been deleted? Or should I put them on the "votes for undeletion" page and then wait for another sysop to undelete them, so I can't be accused of doing anything unilaterally? Or does it not matter either way? -- Oliver P. 17:18 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

well, it came up from discussions on censored. Yours is a good question. Until now, I put a lot of the stuff to undelete. And usually Martin did the job of undeletion. So...User:anthere