Just look at the unblock request I have on my talk page and the sections I've linked (particularly the link to the section at the bottom of my talk page) it will tell you everything you need to know.

Kudos on the block reason:

"Failure of common sense"

They just get better!

I can see the merit in this block. Trying to get the ED article undeleted, despite past consensus and knowing full well that it's a touchy subject, and then warring over the closure of the DRV, I think that could be reasonably considered disruptive.

In Sadaam's Iraq, and Hitler's Germany, a uniformed person could do just about anything, and get away with it, there was no true law.

Same with Wikipedia. The admins make up the law on the trot, and it's lump it or leave it. It's "FU", even if you are a messiah.

The user (Sceptre) who closed it wasn't even an admin so he had no business doing so.

He sure did, on Wikipedia we call it the [[WP:SNOW|snowball clause]].

I hope you were being sarcastic. The "snowball clause" is an essay, not a policy. And if you think that the snowball clause means that once an article is deleted, users should be banned for even suggesting a recreation, you're wrong. He simply doesn't have any right to play the role of an admin and close a deletion review simply because he is at odds with the article's subject. Nor does he have the right to label my edits as vandalism and revert my report on WP:AN of his disruptive behavior. Yet somehow he got away with it all without being blocked while I end up blocked for supposedly starting an edit war. Oh wait, no I didn't!

The only rule on Wikipedia is whatever an admin says, goes, unless another admin overrules it, and then they wheel war until a decision is made.

Once you understand that, life is so much easier...

Oh... there's one more part to that rule (almost forgot!)... or until the Sole Flounder bumbles in and makes an ill-informed and erroneous decision.

There, that's better.

I wasn't being sarcastic. There was (and is) a very clear consensus on ED related stuff, and you knew this. Starting discussion with the purpose of making a fuss is something that should be closed to avoid epic dramaz. Sceptre did well there.

I agree with you, though, that he shouldn't have labelled your edits vandalism, or reverted your report. I'm not fully aware of context on that, so I won't comment further (simply commenting on what you've said). But that's neither here nor there - you weren't blocked because of an AN revert.

Not so much a true consensus as it is a small faction of loudmouths who are adamant that there never be an article about that site, and a somewhat larger group that thinks it's best to humor that faction by avoiding the subject... anybody who believes otherwise gets shouted down.

I'm happy to hear a good reason to have that article recreated, if you'd like to provide one.

Seriously, I am.

Cut and pasted from the deletion review that Sceptre closed:

First we will address the idea that the site is not notable. "Encyclopedia Dramatica" (with quotes get 152,000 Google hits. Without quotes, it gets 286,000. This contrasts with "Essjay", on which we have the article "Essjay controversy", which only gets 128,000 Google hits. "Essjay controversy" only gets 10,600. "Encyclopedia Dramatica" also ranked above "Encyclopedia Britannica" on CustomizeGoogle (a Firefox add-on) searches until it was removed from the list of searches. So notability is not a concern. The outcome of this review will be based on whether or not the sources which cite Encyclopedia Dramatica are reliable or not. If consensus says that they're not, then there will be no reason to propose a recreation of this article unless it is mentioned in reliable sources in the future. Period. If consensus says that the sources are reliable then the article will be recreated. What it boils down to is whether or not the sources are reliable. A link to a draft of the article with all of the sources can be found [[here]]. And also, I ask editors to remember that Wikipedia is not censored and to only vote against recreation if they truly believe that the sources are unreliable, not simply because of personal feelings they have toward the site. Pretending that something doesn't exist just because one hates it is juvenile. So are the sources reliable or not?

I would link you to my draft that contains the sources but I'm afraid you'll nom it for deletion. And also, I'd like to know how you determine whether or not my intent in proposing a recreation of that article was to "make a fuss" in your own words. With that reasoning I guess any nomination of any sort can be arbitrarily shut down by any non-admin on the grounds that the user's intent was to "make a fuss".

No need, it's at User:Urban Rose/ED, and the first two paragraphs are ripped off from User:Shii/ED without proper GFDL attribution.

I read Rose's draft. Each of the sources mention "Encyclopedia Dramatica" no more than twice (including the one solely about it); and one of them was in a comment to the news story.

Sure, it exists, but none of those really say much of anything about it. All in all, I would say ED is about as notable as Daniel Brandt. Everyone on Wikipedia seems to know about it, but the real world doesn't give a shit.

That same standard applies to most of Wikipedia. Consistency in these things is not one of WP's strong points.

I mean where would we be without the hundreds of articles on Japanese railway stations or the Pokemon archive? Or the articles on never-heard-of Norwegian heavy metal bands that released a single and then died?

At least those things exist and had an impact in the real world. (Except for the bands, probably. If you went through a list and tagged each one for proposed deletion, they'd eventually disappear.)

The bottom line is this: Sceptre (a non-admin) disrupts Wikipedia by arbitrarily closing a legitimate deletion review, by reverting as "vandalism" my report of his disruptive behavior on WP:AN, my posts on his talk page asking him to stop, and my reversions of his disruptive edit, and he gets away with it, while I get blocked for twelve hours without any clear reason ever being given as to why. One admin says it's because I started an edit war, while another one says it's not and that it's simply for "disruption". Another says not using common sense is grounds for a block.

Also, take a look at Sceptre's latest edit in which he removes from the article "Internet privacy" the name of the site which Jason Fortuny uploaded the images of those men (which happens by coincidence to be Encyclopedia Dramatica). And my how I do love his edit summary!

lol WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument.

All Pokemon have been prominently featured in several commerical, best-selling video games or on an anime show that was so successful that it has been dubbed into many other languages other than the native Japanese. That doesn't necessarily make them notable enough for their own article, so they've been combined into 25 lists that feature 20 Pokemon each.

Thousands of people use railway stations on a daily basis, though there is probably not very much meat in each article. I'd support merging them into the line they originate from.

But that still doesnt explain why people choose to delete this crap over other crap.

Please don't quote crappy Wikipedia essays at us to justify your argument.

Anything that has a negative history with Wikipedia will be much more closely guarded than noncontroverisal articles. As the Daniel Brandt AFDs began stacking up, for instance, I was sure that people were voting to keep just to piss him off, as they did when someone nominated it for Featured article status. Even the WP:LAME entry noted this at one point, saying that people added to the article just to piss him off, "resulitng in an article more detailed than that of some movie stars."

I am sure that Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO's workshops evidence and final decision hold more information about the animosity between Wikipedia and ED.



It was sarcasm. That's why I wrote "lol" in front of it.

WP:IHATEIT, maybe? It's a working link, apparently...

I suppose they have every reason to dislike Encyclopedia Dramatica - heck, we all do - but at some point they're just going to have to accept the fact that ED has much more porn than they do, and give them their "due props" on that basis at the very least.

My latest unblock request is declined. And again, no specific instance of policy violation is attributed to me. And he completely ignores my links to Sceptre's violation of policy. Just read the post for yourself.

lol you spoke of the ED article You must have wanted to be blocked

I didn't recreate it. The long and short of it is that I proposed a recreation, Sceptre removed this multiple times as well as a notice of the dispute I placed on WP:AN on the grounds that he was "reverting vandalism", and the end result is I get blocked without a straight answer ever being given for my block, while Sceptre's actions are ignored and he isn't even warned let alone blocked

That's where the state of play was already, before you started a DRV. That and loathing of ED from some influential users.



Even to suggest such a thing makes a person appear to be an ED user in some people's opinion, and existing just to cause trouble on wiki. They said they don't see how your recent edits are constructive. They think you've gone to the dark side.

Well if you want to get technical, I am an ED user. But I've thought the site has deserved an article for a while. Even if I completely hated the site (which I don't, as beneath its many grotesque shock images there is a margin of humor to be found) I wouldn't try to pretend that something doesn't exist just because I hate it. That's just juvenile. And in order to justify my block, they have to have substantial evidence that my behavior was disruptive. They can't just block me on a whim that I may have done something without good intention (well I guess they can, but they can't justify it).

He has an article about him on ED. Most of the admins on there who have an article on there themselves will be sympathetic to his cause- as will their followers.

Don't I know it.

In their minds, opening a deletion review about ED is disruptive.

On its own without providing significant new information - maybe. Twice without providing significant new information. Probobly.

The first time was speedy closed just because I didn't have a draft at the time. And the second time would have gone on like it should had Sceptre not tried to play admin and intervened where he didn't belong.

Until recently, the "unauthorized page creation" message for the page "Encyclopedia Dramatica" read "The article Encyclopedia Dramatica will never be recreated. Ever."

I just can't bring myself to click on the link - too repetitive, I already know it will be some variant of "you stepped out of line, now you're getting the cattle prod". This is the way of wikipedia.

Here's a question - without making reference to WP "policies", what do you believe would be gained from having this article, and what do you think is motivating them to slap you down?

I honestly believe that the article is only not on Wikipedia because of people who have had personal issues with the site trying to censor any mention of it, and I also honestly believe that the primary motivation behind my block was simply that I was in favor of its recreation. Contradictory reasons were given for my block with no clear reason ever being given, and to be honest, even if Encyclopedia Dramatica isn't cited by reliable sources, I think Wikipedia should make an exception in its case and give it an article just to avoid any possibility that its exclusion from the article namespace is not due to resentment of the site that many editors have toward it.

Well good luck with that. They give Wikipedia Review and Wikitruth articles (which probably have more sources anyway- at least the WR one) partly so they can't be accused of being like that I imagine. But they would never do that with ED unless it becomes a household name, because it would be like giving free advertising to a site where there are very cruel articles about some of the admins and editors themselves.

Very true. That is what we philosophers call an 'argument from sufficient reason'. There has to be some reason to prefer A over B. If not, you can A and B, or neither, but not one without the other.

I basically agree with you, but you do come off as somewhat obsessed on the ED issue... and I'm speaking as somebody prone to obsessive-compulsive behavior myself, so I can recognize it when I see it. Maybe you'd get more sympathy if you toned it down a bit, and also showed that you had some interest in the encyclopedia other than its coverage of this one pet subject.

Still, I can understand your frustration... much of the opposition you're fighting seems thoroughly irrational, motivated by fear and loathing rather than calm consideration. There's something about the subject of ED that turns otherwise reasonable people into raving lunatics foaming at the mouth whenever it comes up.

It's probably the brashness of ED that's so off-putting.

One might call it "Fear and Loathing in Lost Vagueness".

Oh, please, let's not be facetious (that's their schtick). Creating an ED article is baiting them to ban you (or block you, or whatever).

Most "lifer" Wikipedians hate that place. And fair enough. Much of it is offensive. To their sensibilities.

Ergo, writing an ED article (and insisting that it stay) is basically sticking your tongue out at them and placing them in a position of admitting that there isn't perfect free speech on the machine. Which is fair. They hate it.

I don't condone their tag-team, hypocritical, rule-avoidant approach to content control, but at the end of the day, it's their site, and it's a pretty clear majority that hates ED. Hands down losing proposition.

Writing a WR article would be more sanguine, since most WP-ers read this site religiously, and many respect the content. Still, they wouldn't allow a WR article, out of wounded pride. They hate to admit much of what WR says is right on the money. And even so, they'd kill anyone who wrote a WR article faster than an ED article. For the reason I said: WR is far too often right on the money, and no one likes being "called on their stuff". Esp. in public.

Given that ED is complete puerile drivel, and given that WP policy is not to have articles on websites, fair enough. It does seem hypocritical though (WP is not censored) not to have an article on Wikipedia Review.

No, I think that it's fair. WR started out as sort of an underground subversive movement, and was highly controversial, with an owner who was pretty, um.... unusual I suppose is a tactful word (not Adrian, the other guy before him). At this point, the discourse is pretty much on the up and up, but that doesn't redeem it in their eyes. After all, it is highly critical of them, and they don't tolerate criticism of them in general, so it makes perfect sense to me that they'd ban it, as such.

Strictly speaking WR is sufficiently legitimate (and sufficiently sourced by real publications) to warrant an article, and they'd be showing some integrity (not the right word, but I can't find it) to give it one. But the situation.... well, "it is what it is". And that's not happening anytime soon.

I'm still impressed (and amazed) that Poetlister got unblocked.

Since when does WP have any policy against articles on websites, or articles on complete puerile drivel?

A written policy? Come on Daniel. You know that's not necessary. Rules can be well unstated, and that's one of them.

Though your well-made slightly sarcastic point is understood.

WP has an extensive article (and many WP:COATRACK entries elsewhere in BLP space) to a public relations and political action web site launched two years ago by the Discovery Institute.

"most WP-ers read this site religiously"??? I would think that depends on how you define a WP-er. I suspect that the vast majority of those who edit WP don't even read much stuff in the Wikipedia: namespace, much less external sites related to it... take a look at the number of different folk posting on the mailing lists for example. (I've read somewhere that you can extrapolate readership (inaccurately! ) by multiplying posts by a ratio somewhere between 10 and 100 or so)

Heck, I'd be surprised if a majority of admins read here even occasionally.

However, I would agree that it is likely that many who read here "respect the content" in the sense of agreeing with some of it or of using it to find out about things going on, and the like.

But this is all conjecture on my part, I may be wrong.

It's the outing they don't like. Rightly or wrongly, they consider Brandt's outing of them "harassment", and as he posts here and sometimes mentions names or clues to them here (though less so these days) they consider it a site that harasses wikipedians.

They claimed the same thing about Don Murphy's website.

Very true. It was SlimVirgin who told me about the 'no websites' policy. No, don't say anything.

People also post here to give Daniel Brandt information in aid of his current or future searches. Why they post here instead of just emailing him the info (perhaps they have google email addresses? Perhaps they want to be seen giving it? perhaps they want a confirmation that it was received? ) I could not say. But that practice plays into the hands of those who criticise this site as an enabling mechanism for outing/harassment, etc... even if the mods subsequently remove such posts, they are seen and remembered.

Just pointing that out.

That would come under the rubric of "contributing to the delinquency of a major."