Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/SemBubenny

Statement by Jehochman

Suggestion: if you think an article might be borderline for speedy deletion, WP:PROD can be tried first, falling back to WP:AfD. It is possible to AfD a group of articles at once if the arguments for deletion and the subject matter are closely related. This may be more efficient than arguing about speedy deletions. If there are a few tendentious accounts that habitually object to valid speedy deletes, they should be dealt with under the disruptive editing guideline. You can leave evidence on my talk page if you want me to review such accounts. I see nothing arbitratable here.Jehochman ^Talk 15:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by SoWhy

As far as I can see by SemBubenny's reaction, he does defend that those articles he deleted are not encyclopedic. But I think why Ameliorate! opened this case was not the question about whether those articles should be deleted or not, but on the way SemBubenny did it, citing WP:BOLD as a reason to ignore speedy deletion criteria. As it is within ArbCom's authority, I think the question that should be answered by the Arbitrators is whether ignoring a policy like WP:CSD citing reasons of WP:BOLD or WP:IAR does in fact constitute an abuse of admin privileges. The problem I see is not those articles, it's the fact that SemBubenny repeatedly ignored all appeals to not delete articles outside the deletion policy and yet continued to do so. If he deleted Wikipedia citing "silly article" as a reason, I doubt anyone would doubt that this were abuse. Just because the articles he deleted are less "important", does not mean the deletions are okay, does it? So I think an ArbCom ruling as to if and if so, how far WP:CSD can be ignored by admins would be helpful, not only in this case but in further cases where admin's decide to ignore the criteria and just delete things. SoWhy 21:44, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

@ Vassyana

The ANI thread that Ameliorate! cited is pretty community-feedback-y imho and several users there agreed that those deletions were incorrect and he should stop doing them. I have to agree with the filing party that an RfC will probably yield the same responses (and SemBubenny ignored the community's response to stop it on ANI as well). SoWhy 21:44, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

@ bainer

Actually, policy does not allow deletion of dictionary definitions unless transwikied (see A5). They are never covered by A3 though because all reasons derived from WP:NOT are explicitly listed at WP:CSD#Non-criteria. Regards SoWhy 21:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

@ FayssalF / John Vandenberg / Alex Bakharev

I think Ryan's last comment indicates that SemBubenny has not honored a similar promise in the past, so I don't understand, why we should assume that he will know. Also, he promises not to delete these pages (i.e. phobia-related) but the problem seems to be deletion out of policy in general. SoWhy 14:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

@ Miacek

So you are saying that SemBubenny acted correctly because you experienced it before that a page was kept at AfD? Doesn't that prove that sometimes pages that look like clear cut deletions are in fact worthy of inclusion? And since when are more than 250 (or even one) deletions outside policy a trivial matter? SoWhy 11:57, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Biophys

I must admit that Mikkalai is a difficult user who constantly removes a lot of valid content, no matter how well it was sourced (please see an example), without any explanations.Biophys (talk) 02:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by FeelSunny

@Biophys I find the edits of Byophys contain a POV on many isssues, and this user is really engaged in continuous edit wars over many articles, generally not showing much good will to resolve conflicts.FeelSunny (talk) 00:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Alex Bakharev (talk)

I think Mikkalai was wrong blankly using IAR in the case of marginaly notable phobias. There was no pressing need to disregard our criteria of speedy deletion in this case. Many phobia-related articles are hopeless not-notable neologisms or dictionary definitions (fear of number 283, fear of three oranges, fear of giant octopuses from outer space, etc.) Still all those articles are harmless and some of them have potential to be extended into normal wikiarticles. Thus, some collective decisions via prods or afds were much better.

On the other hand, the dispute seems to be already resolved: Mikkalai accepted that he was not correct and promised not to delete the phobia-related articles out of process again. I do not see any possible good of further arbcom processing. The dispute is already solved, why fix it again? Alex Bakharev (talk) 04:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Ryan Postlethwaite

This should certainly be accepted. There's been problems with Mikkalai's conduct for months now. I actually filed a request for arbitration last March (seen here). The committee then thought it was just simple burnout, but this has obviously continued over nearly a year. Regardless of the cause, the conduct of Mikkalai isn't compatible with that of an administrator. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 14:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Martintg

Note that WP:IAR is official policy too, just like WP:CSD. Having to go through process to delete odd-ball articles (as suggested by Alex like fear of number 283, fear of three oranges, fear of giant octopuses from outer space, etc), particularly if these articles are defended, would be a depressing exercise. Seems kind of perverse to proclaim WP:IAR official policy, then kick someone butt for following it. SemBubenny already stated he was going to cease and desist, so at most the ArbCom should hold him to his word. Seems like an open and shut case in my view. Martintg (talk) 06:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Miacek

Wikipedia has problems with hoaxes, extremely non-notable stuff or just complete rubbish being posted here. Following all the usual procedures might sometimes give no result, as I've experienced [1], [2], [3]. As SemBubenny has agreed to avoid such unilateral moves in the future, there's no reason to start an arbitration for such a trivial matter. --Pan Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 10:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Digwuren

Wikipedia is WP:NOT a bureaucracy. If SemBubenny's judgment regarding deleting oddball articles is correct -- and this does appear to be the case --, there is really no need to go through the motions of a full AFD or even PROD just to keep some proceduralists happy. Of course, if there may be reasonable suspicion as for appropriateness of deletion -- which does not appear to be the case, a standard deletion procedure is the way to go, but

procedure for procedure's sake makes a terrible policy. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 07:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)