Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Rogue 9

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 discussion was: keep. The inflammatory content has been removed in good faith. Consensus is quickly becoming keep for good reason. I suggest leaving Rogue 9 alone now and apologize for assuming bad faith and acting out of process. (non-admin closure) Dronebogus (talk) 17:59, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

User:Rogue 9

Okay, I just KNOW this is going to look counterintuitive given the big CRIMETHINK bar at the top, but after a good deal of consideration I’m thinking this violates WP:NPA (insulting another user, who is not an obvious troll, by name [1]) and WP:NOTBLOG (whole paragraphs of text about irrelevant opinions, interests, and activities— including an inflammatorily written “rant” about the UN [2]). Normally I’d ignore this for an active non-disruptive editor, but six edits in the last two years isn’t “active” enough to justify keeping vanity cruft with a deliberately “controversial” tone around. I considered just asking them to tone it down but I’m getting a Molon Labe attitude from this page so I decided MfD was the only constructive outlet. Dronebogus (talk) 15:39, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

~~Delete~~ Yeah I don't know why we have to host this. I also agree that given the page content asking the editor in question to remove it would not really be a productive route. Super exciting to see another community member who loves guns and hates marxism and international collaboration. Makes wikipedia feel real safe! Protonk (talk) 18:40, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Moving to weak delete/neutral. The fact that the user wants to edit the page (and has) means deletion is probably not the best option. And I think that while we shouldn't be hosting what are essentially commentaries on American politics, it is practically impossible and would be incredibly unfair to delete pages which resemble the current version of the page on that basis. Protonk (talk) 15:09, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I strenuously object. Since when do we go around deleting people's user pages? This is absurd. Rogue 9 (talk) 23:27, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To elaborate: The proper course of action would have been to talk to me, which Dronebogus has, in this very request for deletion, explicitly refused to do. I am amenable to taking down the section he objects to, and have already done so. I hope that will resolve the issue and we can be done with this. Rogue 9 (talk) 03:24, 22 August 2022 (UTC)n[reply]

this is getting fairly off-topic Dronebogus (talk) 03:12, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I mean...I don't know how supportable it is to create a prickly and hyper-opinionated user page filled with badges indicating that you'd be a real pill to talk to and then object that someone didn't reach out to you. Protonk (talk) 04:15, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It costs nothing to try. We're supposed to WP:AGF and I hope I've demonstrated good faith by complying with the apparent demand. As I've already said to him on his talk page, I've failed to do maintenance on my userpage for years, and most of that was the product of a bullheaded twentysomething, and that isn't who I am anymore - and when it was, I still edited the encyclopedia in good faith and I hope constructively added to and improved it in small ways. I hope I've shown that this step is unnecessary. Rogue 9 (talk) 04:52, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's not true that it costs nothing to try. YOU may feel it does. How is an editor who is trans or non-binary supposed to feel when facing the constellation of "this user is not PC, doesn't think singular they is grammatical, and likes guns"? What should their impression not just of you be but of their safety in conversation with you? How safe do you think they feel asking you to use their preferred pronouns? How am I supposed to feel when I struggle to differentiate your freely and loudly expressed views from those of the average member of ACA (because if I'm being honest there isn't much apparent daylight)? Maybe what it costs me or someone else to ask is nothing. Maybe it costs you being upset and haranguing me on my talk page. Maybe (and this isn't an entirely remote possibility) you get a wild hair up your ass and decide that you should find where I live IRL or find my other online identities and make my life miserable. I think it is worth reflecting on how safe you feel expressing all that bullshit and how UNSAFE it makes other people feel. On top of that you might want to reflect on the possibility that safety has a political valence. I wasn't joking above (despite the snarky tone) when I felt that your page made me feel less safe. One social consequence of making people feel unsafe in your presence is they are less willing (for rational and defensible reasons) to communicate with you unless they absolutely have to. Your actions have consequences and one of the salient ones here is someone chose to take action without reaching out to you first. Protonk (talk) 05:02, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I hope by this point I have demonstrated that I will do none of those things, and while I assume you don't mean the Affordable Care Act, I have no idea what you're talking about. That's neither here nor there. I will not hurt you, will happily and diligently use whichever pronouns you wish, and once we're done with this thing one way or the other will leave you alone. I'm not interested in going on the attack against other editors (or anyone else) for any reason; I have neither the time nor the inclination. I do understand why you may not want to reach out to me given the old content I've been revising and removing, but that still doesn't make this the right opening move, because (as we're seeing here) it doesn't avoid talking to me; it just immediately escalates the discussion. If you would like to talk in other contexts (I doubt it, but on the off chance) I would happily regale about how I have come to abandon conservative politics nearly entirely over the past ten years or so, but this isn't the time or the place for the whole tale. I don't have time to finish an overhaul of the userpage tonight, but it will be done over the next day or so. I wish I'd paid it more attention the past couple of years, but deleting it will make that impossible. Rogue 9 (talk) 05:25, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ACA is Anti-Communist Action, a neo-nazi street gang.

I think it's great that you're not going to hurt me and that you tell me now that you'll use whatever pronouns I wish. I do. I also understand and appreciate that you can see how your old content (which really was, until recently, the current content) on your user page might give someone a different impression. However, I wasn't asking you to use my preferred pronouns or assure me that I was safe. I was asking how you think someone whose preferred pronouns would seem to make them a persona non grata based on your userpage might feel. I was asking how I might feel knowing that the intersection of "motivated to join a street protest group due to feelings about marxists and leftist + loves guns + isn't "pc" etc." is incredibly similar to the usual slew of reasons people join ACA or other radical right wing groups whose members are responsible for violence and the resurgence of fascism in a country I love.

If you want to talk about your turn away from conservative politics I am happy to listen. I might not just listen. I might press you to feel uncomfortable, but I will be happy to listen. But first it is important to me that you reflect on how you might have made people feel genuinely unsafe here. In saying that I don't think you violated any wikipedia policy or even any strong wikipedian social norm--in fact there are very strong social norms which made it so you could make someone feel unsafe and they couldn't communicate that you made them feel unsafe. Even in this edit I am taking a social risk in saying that your userboxes + PW story made me think of members of a neo-nazi street gang. It wouldn't take too much for someone to decide that this constituted an unacceptable personal attack. There are strong social powers working to preserve your userpage's ability to make people feel uncomfortable and to shield you from exactly how uncomfortable they might feel. If you can reflect on that and on the questions I posed above we can talk politics. Protonk (talk) 06:10, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you're taking a risk I'm not the source. I have no interest in dragging people to MfD and/or the admins over an errant thought, and believe it or not if someone else does tag me in; I'll go to bat for you. For your questions: The singular they thing you brought up (though it wasn't part of this MfD) was aimed at what I perceived as lazy grammar shift in situations that had nothing to do with anyone being nonbinary. Gender identity was not on my mind when that was added - which I acknowledge is a luxury and privilege I have, but it's also the truth. I do not now and have not ever wished to invalidate anyone's identity. Fifteen years and a lot of education later I can see how it might be read that way, but I typically don't spend my time on Wikipedia staring at my userpage (to say nothing of other people's userpages absent a very good reason), which is why it's gone now as opposed to earlier. The PW story was there as an editing disclosure when editing the article on it was a going concern. As for what people were to think of me and their safety in interacting with me, if you're really that interested you could take in the userpage in its totality and pick up all kinds of other things that would exclude me from wanting to join neo-Nazis or be like them (opposition to the Slave Power, the fact that PW's founders and leaders were Jewish, much of the contents of the quotation section). However, the last remotely controversial thing I did on the encyclopedia was get into it with the dearly departed Bedford in Names of the American Civil War (you can probably guess the reason) and that was years ago; since then it's been copy editing, so I question why you think anyone would feel the need to begin with. I've been happy just being in the background doing occasional gnome business since, so I'll answer it with a question: Why would anyone need to? If anyone had, I'd have reacted much as I have to this (removing the things causing the issue) only with much less annoyance about the whole thing; I'm not looking to cause trouble. But if no one did, I'd have continued as before, bothering no one and making minor improvements when the fancy struck. And once this is over I still will.

Speaking of the last remotely controversial thing I did, a final thought for the evening: In that particular discussion the userboxes of the various neo-Confederates were useful to me, because at a glance I could see who was operating in bad faith trying to take the War of Southern Aggression (which is an extant period name I can and did document six ways to Sunday) out of the article and behave accordingly. So quite separate from the fact it's me you're going after this particular time, I question the wisdom of the apparent current crusade. If I wind up in an edit war, especially with multiple editors, I'd rather know what exactly I'm dealing with and why rather than be left to guess. Rogue 9 (talk) 04:03, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your response. I don't think that "As for what people were to think of me and their safety in interacting with me, if you're really that interested you could take in the userpage in its totality and pick up all kinds of other things that would exclude me from wanting to join neo-Nazis or be like them" is an answer to my question tho. "they should read more of my page and in more detail to pick up nuance which I see" (paraphrasing here obviously) isn't a reflection on how someone might feel, it's what you would want them to do instead of feeling the way they might in this hypothetical. This thread came out of my noting that your userpage does not give off a great first impression; rather it might be pointed enough to lead an editor to start a bureaucratic process without talking to you first. That's an error on their part to be sure, but it is an understandable one. I wasn't trying to say that this first impression reflects who you are or your actions on wikipedia. I 100% believe it does not, but that's the bear about first impressions isn't it? Protonk (talk) 13:54, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As for your comments on privilege. Thank you for them as well. I believe we interacted ca 2007/8 (based on your recent edits to 40K I imagine it was over deletion stuff or 40K stuff) and at that point I also would have been privileged enough to be ignorant of some of the things which are, today, red flags for me. Even the PW stuff might have passed me by, despite that when you were protesting in support of the Iraq War, I was fighting in it. However, the fact that you and I have learned a lot between then and now doesn't mean that it wasn't out there to know. So while it took my being involved in anti-fascist work to develop a strong suspicion of someone who claims to be a classical liberal but has considerably more apparent antipathy toward marxism than conservatism, probably lots of people could have at any point seen "This user is politically incorrect", membership in the "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" (what seems to me to be a tongue in cheek joke, though today I find little funny about conservatives), and a host of quotes/comments about how politics in general is not to be trusted and formed a pretty clear opinion. Whether that opinion is right or wrong is almost beside the point. The idea that you felt welcome to post this at a time when someone who depended on what you call political correctness for recognition of their right to exist in a space like Wikipedia would probably be more important than the accuracy of a first impression. Protonk (talk) 15:00, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For what little it's worth, I wasn't involved until after the war was on, and by that point my motivation was the idea that we'd made this mess and calls to just dump it and leave were irresponsible, and the "we support our troops when they shoot their officers" banners that were going around at the time. I thought then that rushing to war had been a mistake ("the army you have, not the army you may want or wish to have" rang alarm bells even then), but the deed had been done. I know now it was at best arrogance and at worst criminal, not simply a mistake. That put me at odds with several members, but they made me a chapter leader anyway and I used it to aim the organization at other targets as well (after all, if you're going to carry a sign saying "War never solves anything (except Nazism, etc)" maybe also oppose actual Nazis). If it were given to me to do all over again, I wouldn't do it. The few people from those days I keep in contact with agree. I don't know a single member who went over to the Proud Boys or fascist militias, but I haven't kept track of everyone.

As for interacting before, I don't remember it. I wasn't playing 40k tabletop then (though I was into Dawn of War), so maybe AfD; I was fairly active there at the time. Rogue 9 (talk) 21:07, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It was probably AfD. I had your talk page on my watchlist for some reason, hence why I commented so early on the MfD. I mentioned it not so much to jog a memory as to offer some temporal context and to point out that whether or not I remember it (I didn't) I must have seen your userpage then. 15 years--or at least THESE last 15 years--is a long time. Protonk (talk) 01:23, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom, as a clear violation of WP:NOTBLOG. —Sundostund (talk) 11:38, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Delete - As per Sundostund, this is a blog masquerading as a user page, and a combative blog at that. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:03, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I'm !voting based on the userpage as it is currently. I completely agree with Protonk's point that the leeway we give to personal expressions on userpages should not extend to opinions that make other users feel unsafe. Wikipedia isn't a platform for free individual expression, and isn't social media; userpages are for amateur encyclopedists to share a bit about themselves to foster community within the project. As soon as a userpage defeats that purpose, there's a problem. That said, we do give a lot of space to people when it comes to userpages, and the requirements for us to take action are usually pretty extreme. If Rogue 9 were doubling down on everything people took issue with, rather than explaining their views have tempered with time, and even removing some of the more objectionable stuff, I might be calling for some kind of action. As it stands, while the confederacy box makes me raise an eyebrow (but can be dealt with at its own MfD). The only thing remaining that I'm concerned about is the Protest Warrior stuff, which, combined with some of the other content, sounds a lot like proto-Proud Boys stuff. I don't know Protest Warriors well enough to know how well that comparison holds up, but a group known for use of violence against those they disagree with probably isn't going to be welcome in a collaborative writing project with those they disagree with. At the end of the day, there has to be a really good reason to outright delete (rather than redact, edit, or even blank) a userpage. It has to be problematic even if blanked, and since Rogue 9 seems amenable to changing it, deletion seems like overkill IMO. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:08, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To be crystal clear, Protest Warrior was not a violent group and did not share an ideology with the Proud Boys. We never showed up to fight, and we also showed up to protest neo-Nazi rallies (I led such an operation myself) because the whole point was to be vocally anti-tyranny. I am as anti-Confederate as they come, but did have ancestors on the wrong side of the war. However, since the organization is defunct and I don't want to have to explain this every time someone looks at my page, that will also go. Rogue 9 (talk) 19:41, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: as a violation of WP:NOTWEBHOST that clearly does not fall under any WP:UPYES exceptions. ––FormalDude talk 20:21, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed everything apart from limited biography and directly Wikipedia-related material. Can we all calm down now? Rogue 9 (talk) 20:55, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Do you agree to not restore any of it moving forward? ––FormalDude talk 04:16, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, ~~based on R9’s last comment I’m getting hints of not being 100% honest.~~ Dronebogus (talk) 04:19, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep based on current state, which currently appears to comply with WP:UPYES and has been heavily edited since the nomination for deletion so hopefully earlier "delete" comments will take another look at the page. If there are any remaining userboxes that someone objects to, they can request that Rogue 9 remove them or nominate them for deletion. Schazjmd (talk) 21:21, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep based on current reforms. I also advocate a WP:TROUT to the nominator..."I decided MfD was the only constructive outlet" is really not how things are to be done. As with pretty much anything on this site, if there's a problem with someone else, we bring it up to the user first and see if they're willing to work things through in good faith. This is Community Dynamics 101. Considering that there was no prior interaction with the user and and that the issue revolved around someone else's userspace, please just try talking it out first. bibliomaniac 1 5 21:45, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This was discussed in depth between Rogue 9 and Protonk above, which is a pretty good summary of why I didn’t. Rouge 9 should instead be trouted for being an active editor who still left inflammatory content they no longer agreed with up. Dronebogus (talk) 00:17, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Considering it was and still is no concern of yours, I'm not too sussed about your opinion of the matter. This was absolutely the wrong course of action. If you were afraid of me for whatever unfounded reason, you should have gotten an admin to intercede or something. MfD is not supposed to be the first course of dispute resolution for a reason. What you're announcing by running around doing this to people is that you have no interest in collaboration and resort to force (make no mistake, in this context that's exactly what this is; you've got me removing material that couldn't possibly be offensive just in case at this point under threat) as a first resort. The only disruption here is the one you caused. Don't play the victim; no one's buying it. Rogue 9 (talk) 02:24, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am not “running around doing this to people; I’ve nominated troll pages and stuff from banned users. You’re the one playing the victim now, and I’m hardly “afraid” of you. Before you deleted the inflammatory material you had multiple people seconding my opinion. At first you acted like you agreed the material was inappropriate and now you’re acting like you only did it because you were made to— which is it? Dronebogus (talk) 04:11, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's both. Had you simply said something, this would have been much more amicable and you'd still get what you wanted. However, you elected to go to force as your first option, and dragged in a bunch of other people who started making additional demands. I can agree to take things down for cause and still be unhappy about the way you went about it. Rogue 9 (talk) 04:24, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is sort of the situation you put yourself in when nominating something for deletion without talking to someone. Regardless of whether or not that was an understandable choice (I still submit it was), you end up losing the ability to question whether or not someone would have done something without administrative pressure. Protonk (talk) 23:39, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in current state, and maybe trout everyone commenting here for good measure. It's just a decorative page on a website and we should all calm down a little. (As for the old version of the page, my hot take is that as long as you aren't advertising then you should be able to put whatever on your page. I get that that's not the actual policy, but it should be. I used to have User:Casualdejekyll/I Did A Thing, although I don't use it anymore so maybe I should U1 it.) casualdejekyll 01:28, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the userpage has been WP:HEY'd to the point where it no longer can be considered a violation of WP:NOTBLOG. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 20:12, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and propose banning users who troll user pages for things to mfd. —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 12:56, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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.