Forum:Deletion of disputed images

For older conversations, see the pre-admin archive, the 2009 archive, the 2010 archive, and the 2011 archive.

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Xindi incident

When you have a moment could you take a look at the Xindi incident reconfirmation? Thing needs at least four more support votes to pass because of it's history. Thanks. - Archduk3 00:21, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Image policy discussion

As you suggested discussing it in more detail, it would be great if you joined Memory Alpha talk:Image use policy#Policy clarification regarding "fanmade" images. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 12:17, January 13, 2012 (UTC)

Regarding your comment "I have no means to compel either of you to do so" - actually, you do. You have admin rights (and responsibilities), so if you think that words are no longer enough, you do have other means to stop either me or Archduk3, or both of us, from editing. Having directly been called an "idiot" now on top of all that other shit that has been hurled my way throughout the last two days, I really ask you to at least consider that possibility. In any case, your activity over there is much appreciated. No one else seems to be interested in moderating that stuff. :) -- Cid Highwind 23:24, January 14, 2012 (UTC)

While I can block someone with admin powers, as I understand it I cannot compel them to respect it- I've accidentally blocked myself and was able to undo it. I haven't seen anything to suggest that anyone would disrespect it- but I wanted to be clear with my thoughts. I truly don't want to get to that point with anyone but I will certainly consider it if necessary for any user. --31dot 23:37, January 14, 2012 (UTC)

I'll gladly sit the rest of the discussion out if Cid does as well. I don't mind if it's while I am, or he is, blocked or not, and I've already said I'll abide by any blocked placed on me, provided it's explained. There currently is no requirement for more than one admin to intervene right now, so do what you think is best. - Archduk3 23:46, January 14, 2012 (UTC)

31dot, I see no need to "sit out" that whole discussion as suggested by Archduk3. A distinction needs to be made between the on-topic part consisting of policy suggestions, questions on how a specific suggestion would affect existing material, hopefully the answers to those questions, pointing out misconceptions of others about my suggestions, etc. - and the off-topic part of weird accusations and insults. I will continue the former and will let you or any other admin that wants to handle it decide who's to blame and eventually to be "punished" for the latter. Of course, I would post less frequently if more people than just one and a half others got involved, and if the discussion became more decent and less personal - perhaps the amount of moderation by others needs to be increased. Should you decide that blocking me is a correct way of dealing with things, then I would abide in any case. I would complain later if the block is not properly explained, though. ;) -- Cid Highwind 00:09, January 15, 2012 (UTC)

Image uploads

MediaWiki:Successfulupload may be the solution to the problem, see w:tardis:MediaWiki:Successfulupload. I don't know if that would work with the licenses "turned off" as they are though. - Archduk3 00:02, February 2, 2012 (UTC)

Something like that could be helpful, either a new one or resurrecting that one. That one was a bit before my time so I'm not familiar with it. Something to keep in mind, I guess.--31dot 00:41, February 2, 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of disputed images

31dot, I'm asking you as a neutral admin to deal with this: diff. As you can see, Archduk3 removed this discussion - although he was involved in the discussion and as such should not resolve it - although there wasn't even a consensus for deletion - although he himself claims that images without proper citation (of which there's one in the image history) mustn't be deleted but instead be added to some category - and without archiving the discussion anywhere. He also removed other traces of the discussion we had, including existing usages of these images: [1], File Talk:Map alpha quadrant.jpg. All of that is very much out of line for an admin, so I feel it is necessary to get involved. I also cross-posted this to sulfur. If you don't care about getting involved, let me know soon. -- Cid Highwind 19:44, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

Will be looking at shortly. --31dot 20:55, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in and also for your comments on User talk:Archduk3. I know that it can be tiring to read this as an uninvolved party, but at the same time, I'm very sure that this initial action (blocking for an insult) - although deserved - will not help much in the long run. The issue is not whether I'm called "a giant dick" now, or "an idiot" some weeks ago (which apparently did not set off any alarms throughout the whole administration of this wiki) - the issue is that AD is very good at bullying his way through discussions and anything else to achieve what he thinks is a proper way, all others be damned. This happened to me in this whole image deletion charade and also in a recent FA discussion, this happened to sulfur when he asked AD to not add major changes to our live CSS without prior discussion and (recently) to not make wide-reaching edits to templates and/or categories without letting other people know in advance. It also happened to several users, some of which complained about it already. Unless that behaviour stops - or is stopped by others - the effect of having to read through all this crap again and again will not stop, either.

So, I repeat the plea to get (and stay) involved here, and to not let your involvement end with this proverbial slap on the wrist. To clarify, because my first comment had been misinterpreted already: I'm not asking you to babysit and just hand out further blocks. Instead, I'm asking you to join discussions early and stick with them, so that those don't simply end in an "AD vs. me" situation. The current problem is a good example of something that needs admin involvement:

It ended with AD deleting an image that he himself brought up for deletion - which is problem #1 already. In the past, we had the informal agreement to not delete stuff that one brought up for deletion himself. This is expressed as a "rule of thumb" in our deletion policy and perhaps (suggestion #1) should be turned into a more authoritative rule that forbids doing so in case of controversial suggestions.

Problem #2 is the fact that the discussion apparently didn't lead to any consensus yet (among other things because the policy discussion started from that deletion suggestion didn't lead anywhere for lack of participation of other people) but was still ended against even a majority - in addition, the deletion of those images as "unused" ist just plain wrong, because they still were used 4 minutes prior to their deletion.

Problem #3, and this is the real issue here, I guess - deleting these images even contradicts what AD put forth in the policy discussion. The only thing that can be called anything like an outcome is the idea that "uncited images mustn't be deleted but removed from articles and collected in an image category". If being unused is still a proper reason to delete images after that, then the whole idea doesn't make any sense, obviously. The idea applies here, because older revisions of the deleted images were "uncited" - me trying to deal that very fact started this whole thing (so, suggestion #2: participate in the now-inactive discussion about how to deal with images). This is what I tried to show by temporarily undeleting one of the deleted images and reverting it to its earlier revision, before AD intervened - perhaps trying to force me into a "deletion edit war", I don't know. In any case, suggestion #3: clarify if or if not admins should be allowed to temporarily undelete pages or images if they are considered necessary for a discussion - because this has happened several times in the past already without it leading to controversies, so I don't see how this time should be an exception to that.

BTW, if you think that this is better handled on a central forum page, of course feel free to move this there. -- Cid Highwind 12:45, February 16, 2012 (UTC)