Little Fatty?, Or, the sound of gasoline being poured over flames Options

[CrazyGameOfPoker]

Recently, some article about an internet meme got deleted from AfD. And then overturned on DRV. And then the wheel war started. (for a much better summary see the RFC))

badlydrawnjeff opened up a RFAR on the matter, but it was soundly rejected despite being a mile long. He was told to go to that RFC, despite the fact that in jeff's words that it wouldn't accomplish anything. Surprising he was right. Our old friend doc opened yet another RFAR days after it was originally rejected.

And then...things get bad.

The mandate came from IRC that Jeff needed to be blocked for 11 days. Instead User:Zhinsj blocks him for 60 hours, and never notified him. In fact he only notified our friend Tony. Gamaliel unblocks, and jeff is pissed and not standing for it. (ANI thread)

This is going to get interesting. Especially when the anti-IRC crew gets up.

This post has been edited by CrazyGameOfPoker: Wed 23rd May 2007, 3:17am

[Somey]

The deleted article was about an overweight Chinese boy named Qian Zhijun, who has indeed become an "internet meme" - though originally through no fault of his own. It seems a number of people have Photoshopped his face onto just about every commonly-available image known to Man, though one would think this could get just a little stale after, I dunno, the 14th or 15th time. But noooooo...

Anyway, the article didn't make it past AfD, and got deleted (though at the time of this writing you can still read it in the Google cache). Good for Wikipedia - they managed to delete an article about someone who was made famous on the internet against his will! At least initially. Within hours, our very own User:Badlydrawnjeff appeared out of nowhere to put the article up for deletion review, and when that didn't work, he did it again, and again, and again... Well, after the, I dunno, like, 11th time, people just got a little fed up. But Our Man Jeff wasn't going to let that get in his way, no sirree! He proceeded to file an RfC over the speedy closures to his DRV's, in which he even tried to draw an absurd parallel between the fat Chinese kid and Daniel Brandt, simply because there have been signs recently that the fat Chinese kid is now participating in the promotion of his own memehood - something Brandt is clearly not doing, but Jeff has never been one for living in reality-land.

Anyway, the whole thing came up before the Arbcom, and in the process, User:Zsinj decided to block him for 60 hours (i.e., block Jeff, not the Chinese kid), which all seems a little silly under the circumstances... I mean, 60 hours? What's that supposed to accomplish? But it didn't matter either way, because as noted above, the block was overturned within minutes by User:Gaillimh as "inappropriate." And now there's a huge dispute on AN/I about the block, with various people calling for various other peoples' heads to be served up on various platters and serving dishes.

All this has taken place in just the last 36 hours. Don't these people have jobs and stuff? I mean, sheeeeeit.

[Jonny Cache]

You're forgetting that these are the same people who have spent untold man-, er, infant-hours — almost the whole month of May just in recent memory — arguing over spoiler tags in articles about books and movies ...

If they spent even 1% of that time actually improving the quality of articles on standard subjects that are hopelessly rotting on the shelves — but nooooo — that would be work ...

Jonny

[Somey]

You're forgetting that these are the same people who have spent untold man-, er, infant-hours — almost the whole month of May just in recent memory — arguing over spoiler tags in articles about books and movies ...

Forgetting...? More like "deliberately ignoring"!

Sometimes I think they argue over stuff like that just to get people like me to finally give up checking the list archives every day or two. And I have to admit, it's a very effective strategy...

[The Joy]

It was Gaillimh (formerly Hoopydink) who unblocked him, but that's a minor detail.

I don't even know what the article Jeff and others are fighting for to undelete. Some young Chinese adult who runs a gas station? What did the guy do that was even notable to get his own article (seeing as I didn't see the article itself before it was deleted. Note: No need to reproduce it, just give me the gist of it)?

From what I've gleaned from Jeff's talkpage, the Chinese guy isn't like Brian Peppers as the guy apparently has a blog or whatever and is seeking attention. Maybe the extreme inclusionists have a better case this go round, but it looks like even after this whole thing is over, the article will remain deleted barring any deus ex machinas or miracles.

Bad move blocking Jeff for the IRC guys. People may not always like the philosophies of editors like badlydrawnjeff, JzG, and Doc glasgow, but you have to admire their sticking to their convictions and that alone can gain respect from the Community.

Alas, extreme inclusionists (as with the extreme deletionists and I don't mean "extreme" in a negative light in both philosophies, mind you) like Jeff aren't going to be around much longer from the way things are going in my opinion. It seems the Community is pushing for him to leave or to do something that will give them reason to ban him.

A sad commentary.

[Jonny Cache]

You're forgetting that these are the same people who have spent untold man-, er, infant-hours — almost the whole month of May just in recent memory — arguing over spoiler tags in articles about books and movies ...

Forgetting...? More like "deliberately ignoring"!

Sometimes I think they argue over stuff like that just to get people like me to finally give up checking the list archives every day or two. And I have to admit, it's a very effective strategy...

Speaking of which ...

Recalls the time some wikiwag posted this Reader Advisory for the eliterati ...

Plato's Cave — Don't Tell Us How It Ends ...

Jonny

[BobbyBombastic]

it's interesting to watch the hand wringing over the threat that IRC logs may be posted or released so all the peasants can read them.

anybody suffering under the delusion that what they say in an IRC channel is somehow protected and will not/cannot come back to haunt them is severely naive--even in a private invite only channel.

that said, what would be the rationale of disseminating them "publicly"? sure it be interesting to read, but i don't see that any administrators are going to take a hit from this, and even if they do it is not required that all the peasants see the logs.

i'll just wait until they go on wikitruth.info

This post has been edited by BobbyBombastic: Thu 24th May 2007, 4:58pm

[Somey]

...what would be the rational of disseminating them "publicly"? sure it be interesting to read, but i don't see that any administrators are going to take a hit from this, and even if they do it is not required that all the peasants see the logs.

The stated rationale is that it would make it possible for people who are unfairly blocked as a result of IRC conversations to prove that the blocking decisions were made in IRC, thereby imposing a "chilling effect" on such conversations.

The unstated rationale is that older, more traditional types don't like IRC, period. It's too confusing, conversations are too unpredictable, you can't keep "unwanted elements" effectively banned, and it's impossible to edit things out of existence once they're posted in order to pretend that they were ever written. That means lots of embarrassing moments, so anti-IRC people figure that public scrutiny will alleviate that somewhat.

Meanwhile, it struck me that the deep emotional resonance people seem to experience over the Qian Zhijun image may be due to his uncanny resemblance to an illustration by Kurt Wiese in Claire Huchet Bishop's children's-book story of the Five Chinese Brothers, which many people who grew up prior to the early 80's read as kindergarteners, before the image (and the book) was rejected by most American school systems (probably with complete justification) as "racist":

That doesn't explain the image's popularity with 20-year-olds, though. REM did a song on their second album called "Seven Chinese Brothers," and Margaret Mahy also wrote aversion of the original story by that title in 1990, so since then there's obviously been some confusion as to the number of brothers involved. But either way, the REM album was released back in the early 80's, and it didn't come with an illustration. So IMO that doesn't quite do the job, explanation-wise.

[JTM]

You're forgetting that these are the same people who have spent untold man-, er, infant-hours — almost the whole month of May just in recent memory — arguing over spoiler tags in articles about books and movies ...

If they spent even 1% of that time actually improving the quality of articles on standard subjects that are hopelessly rotting on the shelves — but nooooo — that would be work ...

Jonny

Spot on. It's absolutely blitheringly insane to argue about creating new articles involving people of zero notability except to a handful of geeks when there are so many articles in desperate need of repair. If it were up to me, I'd tell Jeff he can HAVE his stupid article if he can bring a worthwhile article up to featured status.

[Viridae]

I wonder when this would make it here, as it has been going for several days. Yes, I have been involved in the subsequent mess and no I will not comment on here beyond repition of what I have already said on wiki - and since I can't be bothered doing that, read my staement at the RfC.

Meanwhile, it struck me that the deep emotional resonance people seem to experience over the Qian Zhijun image may be due to his uncanny resemblance to an illustration by Kurt Wiese in Claire Huchet Bishop's children's-book story of the Five Chinese Brothers, which many people who grew up prior to the early 80's read as kindergarteners, before the image (and the book) was rejected by most American school systems (probably with complete justification) as "racist"...

I hadnt noticed the similarity to that image (which i do know from somewhere). I believe the fascination lies in the absurd look on the kids face and the fact that he is essentially chubby, round and bright red.

[Somey]

I wonder when this would make it here, as it has been going for several days. Yes, I have been involved in the subsequent mess and no I will not comment on here beyond repition of what I have already said on wiki - and since I can't be bothered doing that, read my staement at the RfC.

Okay, so correct me if I'm wrong here (it's a complex situation, obviously): You're essentially supporting the notion that once a person begins to participate directly and willfully in the promotion of his or her own public notoriety, arguments in favor of deletion to protect that person's privacy are no longer valid? And you also reject the statement made a bit earlier by User:Eagle 101, to the effect that the original AfD was handled correctly and that it was improper to review it, particularly so soon after the article was deleted?

I would have to disagree with you on the idea that "policy and process do not hurt anyone" - Wikipedia policies and processes hurt all sorts of people, sometimes even well-established Wikipedians. Though, of course, rarely them... On the other hand, you're absolutely correct about how comments to the effect of "this is how it is, deal with it" really piss people off. (Especially on the internet!)

Re-listing the AfD on the "Little Fatty" bio would be a perfectly fine idea if there were some assurance that there won't be badgering, intimidation, wikiboarding (hey, our new neologism), and the standard-issue puppet show going on. Maybe there wouldn't be in this case - after all, I expect that very few people really care about this person, and for good reason. But it does seem (to me) like a lot of sound and fury over a deeply flawed principle.

[badlydrawnjeff]

Spot on. It's absolutely blitheringly insane to argue about creating new articles involving people of zero notability except to a handful of geeks when there are so many articles in desperate need of repair. If it were up to me, I'd tell Jeff he can HAVE his stupid article if he can bring a worthwhile article up to featured status.

For the record, I've brought three articles to featured status, with a fourth nominated and a fifth that should make it by mid-June.

Thank you, drive through.

[Somey]

For the record, I've brought three articles to featured status, with a fourth nominated and a fifth that should make it by mid-June.

He didn't say you hadn't, though... only that he'd let you have the Little Fatty article in return for doing it again. Or something like that... Of course, he didn't define "worthwhile," either.

So you wrote the article on Mark_Eitzel? I saw that there's a bot called Martin that reverted the one bit of vandalism on that in less than a minute.

I wonder how sophisticated some of those things are these days? This bot seems to be getting a lot of good reviews.

[JTM]

Spot on. It's absolutely blitheringly insane to argue about creating new articles involving people of zero notability except to a handful of geeks when there are so many articles in desperate need of repair. If it were up to me, I'd tell Jeff he can HAVE his stupid article if he can bring a worthwhile article up to featured status.

For the record, I've brought three articles to featured status, with a fourth nominated and a fifth that should make it by mid-June.

Thank you, drive through.

As someone who has brought a few articles to featured status myself, I appreciate your efforts. Nonetheless, seeing all the perturbations and the time you and many others spent dealing with the "Little Fatty" article, I believe this is a fair question: WTF?

Seriously, in the midst of defending and debating the merits of this article, did you ever consider that your obvious abilities could have been used elsewhere on the project? The kid sound like this week's internet fad. Three months from now, he will all be all but forgotten, just another meme that someone might wistfully recall. Even if the kid comes arguably within the definition of notability, extremely few people care.

Please don't take this personally. it is certainly not meant to be. Rather, I think all the time, effort and energy on the part of both sides arguing whether the article should be kept constitutes a monumental waste of talent and it reflects on how Wikipedia gets perpetually bogged down in Process. In the meantime, hundreds of new articles are appearing, poorly sourced and increasingly obscure, and fewer and fewer seem to want to do anything about the existing articles. My God, I can't help but believe a few years from now people will look back and wonder what the heck they were doing with their time.

[badlydrawnjeff]

As someone who has brought a few articles to featured status myself, I appreciate your efforts. Nonetheless, seeing all the perturbations and the time you and many others spent dealing with the "Little Fatty" article, I believe this is a fair question: WTF?/

Seriously, in the midst of defending and debating the merits of this article, did you ever consider that your obvious abilities could have been used elsewhere on the project? The kid sound like this week's internet fad. Three months from now, he will all be all but forgotten, just another meme that someone might wistfully recall. Even if the kid comes arguably within the definition of notability, extremely few people care.

To make a not-so-apt analogy, why defend the indefensible in court? Wouldn't that time be better spent defending the falsely accused? Or, even better, if we can't be bothered with making sure we get the right answer properly on the cases that aren't contested as much, how can we possibly protest when more contentious situations matter. In the case of "Little Fatty," any subject where multiple references call him "the most famous face in China" needs to be in a general interest encyclopedia, period. There are many, many things in history that may have been "forgotten" at one point just to pop up again later. When an article does no harm to anyone, and reflects a situation that undoubtedly meets any reasonable person's standard of "importance," there's no reason not to fight for it.

And even fighting for it, we're seeing the situation take a turn for the worse, with administrators (always the same crew, isn't it?) deciding they now have a mandate to make policy on their own. This is why we have to fight that. I know this place seems to side with them on the BLP issue - that's your prerogative, but a line exists somewhere, and I don't think that's up to a couple people to make.

Please don't take this personally. it is certainly not meant to be. Rather, I think all the time, effort and energy on the part of both sides arguing whether the article should be kept constitutes a monumental waste of talent and it reflects on how Wikipedia gets perpetually bogged down in Process. In the meantime, hundreds of new articles are appearing, poorly sourced and increasingly obscure, and fewer and fewer seem to want to do anything about the existing articles. My God, I can't help but believe a few years from now people will look back and wonder what the heck they were doing with their time.

To be honest, this is really the first time a meta issue has actively taken me away from a project I've been intent on working on, which is kind of surprising. Wikipedia has a lot of growing up to do, yes - but part of that has to do with its resistance to structure and process. It can't keep existing as the pseudo-anarchy it is. The Foundation is MIA except when it comes to fair use (and they can't even get that straightened out), Jimbo only pops up when wheel warring occurs, and, before you know it, it's crazy.

This is the closest to critical mass I've seen yet, and the first time I've seriously felt the project may be in some significant jeopardy. More and more projects are unafraid to do what Wikipedia's worst are afraid of doing - you have one project cataloguing all people, you have another cataloging all species, we've already lost the webcomics, and Wikipedia's public star isn't exactly getting brighter since the Essjay fiasco.

I dunno.

[Kato]

Jeff, why do you feel so passionately about an article concerning an overweight Chinese boy whose face was morphed onto various images without his knowledge?

Why is this subject so important to Wikipedia as far as you are concerned?

Have you considered that the people deleting the article have got a point. That the article is a tedious piece of junk that belittles everyone involved, and is clearly not worth anyone in their right mind fighting over?

[Vincent]

Jeff, why do you feel so passionately about an article concerning an overweight Chinese boy whose face was morphed onto various images without his knowledge?

Why is this subject so important to Wikipedia as far as you are concerned?

Have you considered that the people deleting the article have got a point. That the article is a tedious piece of junk that belittles everyone involved, and is clearly not worth anyone in their right mind fighting over?

Kato:

Your last two posts reeked of the Wikipedia Hive's negative attitudes from my perspective. I do change the subject here, and it could belong in the Tar and Feather Barrel as a result because I'd argue changing the subject could be pseudo-reason from a critical-thinking perspective for one. However, it's something I notice. On the other hand, I also notice you use the third-person plural (possesive pronoun) "their" rather than the third-person singular (possessive pronoun) "his." I did laugh about it.

Vincent

This post has been edited by Vincent: Sun 27th May 2007, 11:04am

[papaya]

Have you considered that the people deleting the article have got a point. That the article is a tedious piece of junk that belittles everyone involved, and is clearly not worth anyone in their right mind fighting over?

Well, being the rabid deletionist here, I'd be quite happy if all the articles internet memes disappeared.

[badlydrawnjeff]

Jeff, why do you feel so passionately about an article concerning an overweight Chinese boy whose face was morphed onto various images without his knowledge?

Why is this subject so important to Wikipedia as far as you are concerned?

Have you considered that the people deleting the article have got a point. That the article is a tedious piece of junk that belittles everyone involved, and is clearly not worth anyone in their right mind fighting over?

I don't feel more passionately about this than any other article that belongs on the project, honestly. That the same abusive, disruptive administrators who have been problematic since my start on the project two years ago are using this as a hammer certainly doesn't help this issue.

This isn't about the kid - if it wasn't this article, it would have been another.

[Kato]

Your last two posts reeked of the Wikipedia Hive's negative attitudes from my perspective. I do change the subject here, and it could belong in the Tar and Feather Barrel as a result because I'd argue changing the subject could be pseudo-reason from a critical-thinking perspective for one. However, it's something I notice.

Er... What?