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I'm bringing this here myself, before some someone else does it for me. On the 15th contentious AfD, Daniel Brandt was merged by User:A Man In Black on 14th June 2007 (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Brandt (14th nomination)), and the article was made into a redirect to Public Information Research. It really was the best that could be done in the heat of the drama. On December 1st, the subject posted on the BLP noticeboard [1] pointing out, amongst other things, that the result of the redirect was that any google for his name first located our article on PIR. (A little unfair when you consider that we only kept our PIR article because there was no consensus to delete it - basically it's crap). Considering the request to be rational, and the cost to us little, and the drama to have died down, I deleted the redirect at Daniel Brandt - citing BLP and privacy considerations. I'd have done the same for any subject - and the fact people knee-jerk with the "hate Brandt" mantra is no reason not to.[unhelpful remark stricken by me - with apology] We have to give some thought to what Wikipedia causes Google to do when real people's names are involved. My decision was a bit IAR - but I was trying to "do the right thing" without drama - and it was endorsed by an number of admins, including the AfD closer.[2]
Yesterday, User:JoshuaZ approached me with a number of concerns, including a valid point the GFDL had technically been violated by my actions. However, before we had fully discussed this, or sought agreement, he promptly and without warning reversed my deletion, and attacked as me as I (according to him) "insist on being Brandt's lackey" [3]. Trying to avoid further wheel waring, and meet the GFDL technicalities, I moved Daniel Brandt and all its history to Talk:Public Information Research/merged material and set that as a redirect to the main article. User:Dmcdevit deleted the resulting redirect at Brandt's name, as now redundant. I'd hoped that would be a quiet end of the matter, acceptable to most, but it seems some wish to instigate a public debate on my "unilateral" BLP moves. So to pre-empt that, I'm coming here myself. Please endorse the move (not deletion) of the history and Dmcdevit's deletion of the redundant redirect.--Docg 14:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse move of history and deletion of redirect. This should have been done the first time round and should be done in future to address such concerns. Would also recommend a bit less of the sighing, mentioning of knee-jerks and dramaqueens - that creates drama in itself. Carcharoth (talk) 15:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Sighing stopped forthwith.--Docg 15:06, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 15:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: note that this solution does not address all of Brandt's concerns. The history of the Brandt article is still available, just a bit harder to find. Also, the fact that Brandt's name is mentioned 14 times in the PIR article means that that article will still rank highly in a Google search. The February 2007 DRV still ranks highly in Google searches, along with (ironically) the ED article on all this. Nice to see the German artist is still up there and not being affected too badly by all this... Carcharoth (talk) 15:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Confused: I don't understand why the GFDL requires duplicating the history of Public Information Research on a subpage simply because we deleted a redirect to it? That seems entirely beurocratic?? -- Kendrick7talk 15:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- (edit conflict) GFDL requires proper attribution for contributions by each and every user. There were 2000+ edits that got deleted along with the deletion of the redirect. Endorse Doc's and Dominic's actions. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 15:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Good move, Doc. Thanks. Oh, and I endorse your actions. --Tony Sidaway 15:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- overturn There are a variety of concerns here. First, This is highly unsual and out of process and should get a community input at a RfD (the default in Wikipedia is to keep, not delete). Second, the notion that Brandt will be at all satisfied with this is inaccurate in the extreme. He has continued to push and to harass Wikipedians and will continue to make demands of us. The end result when we keep compromising further with Brandt is that he wins. Wikipedia articles inevitably have high google ranking and we are deluding ourselves if we think he will be satisfied as long as his name is mentioned anywhere. The other articles also get high google rankings and he will continue to make demands for those. Third, there is nothing in WP:BLP that allows for deletion of a redirect simply because it has high google rankings. Indeed, such a suggestion was made (by Fred Bauder at one point) about that sort of thing at one point and it was rejected. Fourth, this goes against a long-standing compromise of how to handle the material. Fifth, this sends a message to Brandt and other trolls that they can get what they want by harassing us enough. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- He "wins"? I'm not playing a zero-sum video game with Daniel Brandt. I judged his request on its merits. Let's keep personalites out of it - and less of the "trolls" language. This is the type of "war with wikipedia review" paranoia that ends up distorting our decisions. We are neither "lackies" for, not soldiers against Brandt.--Docg 15:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, he wins. He gets to not have a well-written source about him and his various activities and he gets to further destroy Wikipedia content. That's called Daniel Brandt winning. If this continues we won't even have an article even on PIR (and don't claim this is a slippery slope fallacy because we've already gone multiple steps down the slope). And your comment doesn't even address my other concerns. The bottom line is that this is out of process, against prior consensus, doesn't help matters at all, won't satisfy Brandt, won't stop Brandt and will in fact just embolden trolls and other people with interests directly inimical to an NPOV encyclopedia. JoshuaZ (talk) 16:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. I don't care about Brandt, but I do care about the Wikipedia, and this goes against what we stand for, which is making a decision by consensus, rather than by fiat. The slippery slope isn't just something we're in danger of here, it's here. You can see the next steps in the implied request to delete Public Information Research right at the top of this DRV. The article on Daniel Brandt had something like 40 excellent references, and was merged, not deleted, in a highly contentious decision, given that a large majority was arguing to keep. Doc Glasgow was one of the minority arguing for outright deletion.[4] Now, some time has passed, and it's not a merge, it's a deletion. In another few months, it seems that PIR will be quietly deleted too. This is doing a quiet end-run around the community, not the way we do things around here. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Sidebar to my own comment. It seems that DocG is feeling put upon; that is not the intent here, or at least not my intent. I fully believe the Doc is doing this for the best motives. I think he is wrong, but not evil. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 18:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. Now that the fuss over the GFDL has been sorted out, we really don't need a Daniel Brandt redirect in place. Concerns that "Daniel Brandt has won" are misplaced; he may think he is in a conflict with us, but we should not regard it as a conflict with him, and treat him as any other person mentioned in Wikipedia would be. Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. Fourteen AfDs, and still going... Appeasing characters like Brandt does not work - he'll always find something else to hassle us about. In addition, Google is not Wikipedia -- why should our work be damaged because of what some other site shows? If Brandt has a problem with ranking high on Google, he needs to talk to Google, not us. Finally, there was a long-argued-about compromise solution developed (incredibly painfully, I hasten to add). For somebody to now destroy that compromise is undesirable, to say the least - especially when done by someone who was not neutral on the last AfD. LondonStatto (talk) 16:23, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Question Because this back and forth is a bit confusing. Which version of this scenario meets 100% compliance with our GFDL requirements, which I understand as non-negotiable and trumping any other policies since its WMF level? Obviously endorse that scenario. If one of these scenarios isn't GFDL compliant, why even consider it? Lawrence Cohen 16:30, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I think the fully-compliant GFDL options are: (1) Undelete and restore everything; (2) Delete everything and start again. The non-compliant options involve having unattributed text in an article written by we-don't-know-who. I think GFDL doesn't require a full list of authors (only the five primary authors), but it would be nice. One of the partially compliant options is what is being discussed here. In practice, this GFDL fudging happens all the time, every day, on Wikipedia. Take a random phrase from George W. Bush: "In the 2004 elections, 95–98% of the Republican electorate approved of him. This support waned, however, due mostly to Republicans' growing frustration with Bush on the issues of spending and illegal immigration. Some Republican leaders began criticizing Bush on his policies in Iraq, Iran and the Palestinian Territories." - how easy do you think it would be to find out who wrote that? Is that what GFDL is about? It is possible, indeed probable, that the sentence was rehashed and rewritten innumerable times, moved out to other articles, rewritten again, merged back in, and so on and so on. Makes a bit of a mockery of GFDL sometimes. Carcharoth (talk) 16:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, a history merge is GFDL compliant which would allow the redirect to stay deleted. What Doc did probably is GFDL compliant at this point in time. JoshuaZ (talk) 16:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn the deletion, ie, endorse the results of the most recent AfD. This deletion not only pointlessly breaks the GFDL but also breaks the compromise position it took 14 AfDs to finally come to. This was done unilaterally and doesn't even make sense within a BLP context. Bryan Derksen (talk) 17:06, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn: should not have been deleted, IMO, for both the GFDL history reasons and because I see no legitimate BLP reason. If the PIR article remains and mentions Brandt prominently - as it does - a redirect from Daniel Brandt is normal practise. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 17:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The GFDL rationale is moot, since we've solved that other ways. As for BLP, consider that we almost deleted PIR on the grounds of not being notable (there was a majority, although not a consensus, to delete). Why should someone's name HAVE to google to an article that a majority of wikipedians think to be unencyclopedic, especially when it's unnecessary and the subject has objected? That's the BLP issue - we're quite needlessly upsetting someone (someone most of us don't like, but that's not the point). I've yet to see one good reason for declining Brandt's request here.--Docg 17:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I see no evidence for the claim that "we almost deleted PIR on the grounds of not being notable" And if you feel a need to AfD PIR then AfD that, but let's not play games with redirects. PIR is meets notability many times over (indeed so does Brandt himself for that matter). We don't delete articles to mess with google rankings. JoshuaZ (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Look harder - here's your evidence - a majority (although not a consensus) of wikipedians voted to delete it - as I said. No, I'm not renominating it - and I note you did agree with the majority. But it is exactly as I said: "we almost deleted PIR on the grounds of not being notable". BTW, I'm not "playing games" - are you?--Docg 18:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Fascinating, an AfD on the subject back when we still had an article on Brandt and most of the material currently at PIR was at the Brandt article. That AfD says little about the article as it currently stands. And again, if you don't think that the PIR article should be or is going to get deleted than there's no reason to delete a legitimate redirect to it simply to hurt google rankings. That does amount to game playing- an attempt to avoid the lack of ability to delete what you are really aiming at so trying to get around by deleting the redirect. JoshuaZ (talk) 18:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn the deletion and stop rocking the boat :( Stifle (talk) 17:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse and end this drama fiasco once and for all. Danny (talk) 18:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse though the idea of a "redirecting to an article mentioning this person" approach was going to be good enough for Angela and Wikia so that approach should be good enough for Brandt and Public Information Research. We have no control over Google, let Brandt go annoy them if he doesn't want his name on Google. Nick (talk) 18:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion. Enough; Doc's rationale for deletion seems perfectly sound. --krimpet⟲ 19:09, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn as 1) out of process. 2) not in the intention of WP:BLP. When the subject of an article has genuine privacy concerns that is a serious issue. But please do not start deleting things because some arbitrary search engine happens to have it on the first place, and the subject happens to be upset by that. Sometimes, complaints from the subject are to be listened to. This is not because of their source alone, but also because they're valid. This complaint is not. User:Krator (t c) 19:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion of redirect. Move history if you wish, but let bygones be bygones. David.Monniaux (talk) 19:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn - there is only so far we can go to humor people who want to control their PR spin on the net. Where someone has already by their actions and/or Internet presence made themselves a public figure, there's no legal or privacy problem and someone simply wants to change history, we can't really do that. Wikidemo (talk) 19:44, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment has the Foundation counsel been consulted on this decision? If this was done per Mike Godwin's opinion, then fine. Otherwise it may be better to either restore the previous compromise or open a new community discussion over the merits of this solution. DurovaCharge! 19:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with any legal issue.--Docg 21:12, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- GDFL compliance is a legal issue, is it not? And Daniel Brandt has made legal threats in the past, so that's a potential issue also. DurovaCharge! 22:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- GFDL has been fixed, and Brandt's legal threats have not entered into this. Why do you think we need to consult the general counsel?--Docg 22:58, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- That's not quite what I've said; I'm asking whether he was already consulted. If this change was taken per his advice then that resolves the question for me. Otherwise it was a unilateral decision by one administrator. I just want to understand the context clearly. Does that sound reasonable? DurovaCharge! 23:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I still don't really understand what you are talking about. I have never suggested I deleted this for legal reasons, so why would I have consulted the lawyer? Why do you think I might have? This seems a total red-herring.--Docg 23:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- It was my good faith in your judgement that doubted you would have acted unilaterally without some appropriate consultation on an issue where consensus had been so difficult to achieve. You hadn't mentioned that point one way or the other so I proposed it in your favor. If that somehow gives offense then I'll gladly strikethrough my comments to this thread. Please advise, and apologies for my share of the confusion. DurovaCharge! 01:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I outlined the rationale and history extensively in my two paragraphs above. I think if I had had some sort of "legal reason" and or had instructions from the "wikimedia general counsel", I might just have mentioned it. Perhaps you can assume my good faith, and rational judgement, without need for such a far-fetched scenario.--Docg 01:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- In other words, Doc never mentioned secretive (untaken) measures, so you've poisoned the well for him. May we move on? Mackensen (talk) 01:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. It's a bloody redirect. Subject wants it gone and it really doesn't hurt us either way. Are we so obsessed with hating Brandt that we can't delete a damn redirect about him now? Pathetic. ^demon[omg plz] 21:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- This has nothing to do with being "obsessed with hating Brandt" - there's no good policy or other reason to delete this redirect. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- You said this was not about letting Brandt "win" some type of war - and that's why we can't delete this. So it does seem that feeling towards Brandt might be clouding the judgement here.--Docg 23:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Brandt wants to destroy any mention of him on this project. That is what he wants to win at. And that's not acceptable since he is a very notable person who was willingly made himself a public figure and a source of public controversy. Emotional feelings about Brandt have nothing to do with that. He could be an impersonal force of nature and my reaction would be identical. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Sounds reasonable to me - seriously, getting caught up on these high drama low value topics is not a good thing. --B (talk) 22:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- overturn he has no right to control how he as a subject is handled by wikipedia. There is no provision of BLP that justifies this deletion. The redirect was properly made as a compromise solution to a long-standing controversy. I dont really want to revisit that right now, but this request and this removal may make it inevitable. the cat has been foolishly let out of the bag again, and--who knows--there might even be additional sources to justify an article. DGG (talk) 00:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion, seems like a reasonable solution, and the potential GFDL problems seem to be simple to deal with. Not sure what the point is in getting so worked up over a redirect, whether it's Brandt or anything else. As ^demon said, "it's just a bloody redirect". And just because Daniel Brandt is a redlink doesn't mean that article is automatically going to become a heavily requested article (and with all the drama that's come from this article and dealing with the subject, I'm not sure why it would be requested to begin with). --Coredesat 01:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion per Doc. Mackensen (talk) 01:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Common Sense. Yes. I think this is what we need. Mercury 01:27, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion lets think here. Prodego talk 01:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse end of drama. ~ priyanath talk 03:25, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- overturn It's an absurd argument that deleting the redirect will have any realistic impact on the attention he receives or how easily people will find information on him. If you search Daniel Brandt, you find this information, with or without the redirect. Seriously, BLP does not apply here, nor does it even help Brandt. No really, wtf Wikipedia. Have people gone batshit insane? OMG you've hidden Daniel Brandt! Where did he go? Deleting the redirect is of absolutely no benefit whatsoever, and only serves to confuse the situation, as well as confuse everyone who's ever read the article or contributed to it. Stop making our jobs harder with this BLP drama, and just leave the redirect alone. -- Ned Scott 05:05, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Also, this isn't going to end the drama. We're not deciding if we are going to cover Brandt's information, we're not talking about vanishing, and we're not talking about avoiding unwanted attention. Yes, this is a discussion related to Brandt, but don't confuse this with every other Brandt discussion and blindly endorse actions as a means to end drama. The amount of such misguided blind endorsements are really concerning. Wether you like it or not, even if it causes some drama, putting our heads in the sand is not an acceptable solution to the problem. -- Ned Scott 05:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. Sorry, feels too much like playing shell games with the GFDL, considering the other targets of the complex merge. I'm open to reconsider, but that's my honest assessment. —CComMack (t–c) 05:21, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Interestingly, Google-Watch-Watch is now the first hit for "Daniel Brandt". [5]. Zagalejo^^^ 06:06, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Doc trying to do the right thing, but I leave the decision of whether he did or not in this case to the consensus of others. Ya, maybe Doc sighs a bit much sometimes, :) but he gets very high marks in my book for trying very very hard to do right by the spirit of BLP and by the people affected by our articles. ++Lar: t/c 12:25, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn (that is, revert back at least to the previous compromise outlined by AMIB at the 14th AFD). George William Herbert said the following more eloquently that I could: Rendering aid and comfort to people who behave sociopathically online is not in the best interests of the project [6]. Furthermore, we do not make content decisions based on the behavior of Google or any other search engine (just as search results are not a valid indicator of a topic's "notability" or lack thereof, but merely a tool to help editors locate sources from which to build and verify an article). — CharlotteWebb 14:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. I don't see how the redirect skews the Google results, as Brandt's PiR activities make up the first chunk of relevant Google results anyway. Given that, this is a sensible redirect of the sort we routinely maintain, and I don't see a persuasive reason to remove it. That said, I'd support deleting the PiR article, as it seems like a non-notable company. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:03, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. That this redirect was in someway violating the BLP policy does not make sense. It is a dangerous path to walk down, since it will ultimately undermine the BLP policy if it is used for cases where it was never intended. The decision in the last AFD was to merge, and that means keeping the navigational pointers. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn Done for good motives but don't see a real BLP concern personally, seems to overturn the decision of the last AFD and our normal process of redirects. Davewild (talk) 15:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. for four reasons. First, the merge/redirect was a compromise to end the whole DB AfD/DRV fiasco (apparently, it wasn't enough, but I digress); a single editor shouldn't override such a compromise simply due to the subject's wishes. Second, when making deletions in accordance with the subject's wishes, I think we ought to consider whether a request is made in good faith. Third, I am extremely concerned about the slippery slope we're on: deleting a page in violation of GFDL (a solution has been found for that, but that issue was initially ignored) merely due to the subject's wishes? Fourth, the redirect doesn't violate WP:BLP: it points to a neutral and logical/reasonable target. While I have no doubt that Doc did what he thought was best, I think his decision was wrong and, if endorsed, would set a damaging precedent. – Black Falcon (Talk) 18:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- overturn No good reason to delete. Black Falcon and Ned Scott say it well. Gothnic (talk) 18:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse per Danny. Mr.Z-man 00:58, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - OK, I've not going to make any more hay here. However, there do seem to be issues about what happens to search engines when we have a redirect or a deleted page. This isn't just "google's problem" as it seems the mediawiki software is in part to blame. If, unlike me, you understand such things, you might like to review the thread on my talk page.--Docg 02:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- comment I'm not happy with your further assistance to a banned user. But ignoring that, his claim is simply wrong. There isn't a bug here. The redirects are working exactly as they are supposed to. Brandt now appears to be demanding that we change our software in a way that will 1) severely damage our search engine rankings on many topics and 2) increase our server usage or he that he will be in a situation that is "actionable with the Foundation". In others words, go cut off a limb or I'll sue you. Do we need any more evidence that giving into this man's demands at all just leads to more demands? JoshuaZ (talk) 02:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I've removed the link to the material you find objectionable. I don't comment on whether it is right or wrong - I really, genuinely, have no idea.--Docg 12:19, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn per Morven NoSeptember 04:48, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: I have no more to say on the subject. I acted in good faith by doing what I believed cost the encyclopedia nothing, and helped the subject. I'd have done the same for any subject. It's obvious that the community is taking a different view. Although I'm unclear as to why, I'm going to let this go. I'm sorry for the drama, and I will say no more on this.--Docg 12:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. Brandt is notable enough to be covered in Wikipedia, though a full article may be unnecesaary. In cases such as this one where notable figures who do not trigger heighten BLP conern (i.e. children, crime victims, and the like) I believe that little to no weight should be placed on their wishes. While it is important to consider the fact that anti-Brandt animous may colour some peoples opinions on this matter, it is equally clear that no action on our part will fully satisfy him and that attempts to appease him are ultimately futile. Eluchil404 (talk) 23:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. We don't allow linkspam that companies try to raise their Google rankings with. The reason why we shouldn't delete this redirect is the flip side of that coin. We're an encyclopedia, not the search engine police. IronGargoyle (talk) 01:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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