Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 August 14/BJAODN

The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the article above. Please do not modify it.
Even if the speedy delete of each individual BJAODN pages was justified under copyright and/or GFDL, speedy deletion of the BJAODN project is not. Speedy deletion of the project clearly was out of process. In addition, all the speedy delete pages have been restored and there is an open arbitration case on the matter. The May 31, 2007 deletion review was closed as deletion endorsed yet the BJAODN pages still are on Wikipedia. Even is this deletion review were closed as deletion endorsed, I do not see this effort resulting the in actual deletion of the project and its pages. In addition, the GFDL issues were raised more than three years ago in a March 25, 2004 MfD, which goes against a need to speedy delete this project. I have relisted the project on MfD at Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense (6th nomination). Given that this project has been on Wikipedia for the past seven years, it seems reasonable to spend five days at MfD properly addressing the matter. -- Jreferee (Talk) 20:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (restore|cache|AfD)

One of the oldest pages on Wikipedia, non-mainspace. This and all related pages were deleted by an admin who had not gained consensus and just used WP:DENY as his reason for deletion. Whilst I think he had a reasonably valid reason to delete, he should have gained consensus from the community before deletion. Perhaps list on the miscellaneous pages for deletion page. h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 18:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick note, in total isolation from this debate, I've taken the decision to delete one page for linking to a personal attack on an administrator, for linking to a vandal being blocked - nothing short of humiliation, and the usual complete lack of any history for material copied and pasted. I'll undelete some of the page to any interested editor's userspace so it can be fixed up, made compliant, and re-added. Nick 21:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For prior discussions on the BJAODN project itself, see:
March 25, 2004. Miscellany for deletion #1. Results: Keep.
March 24, 2007. Miscellany for deletion #2. Results: Speedy close.
March 31, 2007. Miscellany for deletion #3. Results: Withdrawn, procedural keep.
May 31, 2007. Miscellany for deletion #4. Results: Nomination withdrawn.
May 31, 2007. Deletion review. Results: Deletion endorsed.
June 2, 2007. Deletion review (of subpages). Results: BJAODN should continue to exist, but it must be absolutely free of GFDL violations.
August 14, 2007. Miscellany for deletion #5. Results: Speedy close.
For prior discussions on BJAODN subpages, see:
July 19, 2005. Articles for deletion (of a BJAODN subpage). Results: Delete
August 26, 2005. Non-main namespace pages for deletion (of a BJAODN subpage). Results: Delete
May 20, 2006. Miscellany for deletion (of a BJAODN subpage). Results: Delete
March 21, 2007. Miscellany for deletion (of a BJAODN subpage). Results: Nomination withdrawn
-- Jreferee (Talk) 18:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note to closer - An arbitration request has been made regarding the events surrounding this deletion. -- Jreferee (Talk) 19:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted, BJAODN is little more than a shrine devoted to preserving vandalism and copyright/GFDL violations because "it's funny". We should be deterring vandals and not promoting them, and the deleting admin's reasoning was sound. --Coredesat 18:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and list in MFD, while I agree with Coredesat, it still was an very improper speedy deletion, it should have at least gone to MFD. Jaranda wat's sup 18:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I saw the comments in WP:AN and seems like many users of the community endorsed the deletion there, endorsing same here. Jaranda wat's sup 19:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • With all respect, a brief discussion on WP:AN is insufficient consensus-gathering for changes of this magnitude. Admin behavior like this on known sensitive hot-button issues gives us all a bad name. Georgewilliamherbert 20:14, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm forced to agree with Herbert here. A brief talk over an inflammatory matter doesn't tell one much beyond what those who are the most opinionated and the most eager to open their mouths think. Jaranda, if you can prove me wrong, please do, but otherwise, can I suggest at least a neutral position? --Kizor 21:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restored - This was too far to go with WP:BOLD. Someone can MFD it if you want. Georgewilliamherbert 18:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn - deleting something as big as this isn't a simple deletion matter, it requires community consensus before deleting. Consensus can change. This deletion should have been discussed in a wider forum than straight-out deletion. Read my arguments on WP:AN for a further explanation. --SunStar Net talk 18:49, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regretfully, this is something that had to be done. An MfD will not solve anything. The reasoning is clear: The content violates the GFDL, the content violates copyright, there is residual SPAM in the content, there are left-over BLP violations in the content, and more. The GFDL reasoning is straightforward: see Section 4.B of the GNU Free Documentation License and the relevant speedy deletion criteria at CSD G-12 and thus must be kept deleted. See also Copyrights - Contributor's rights and obligations. In nearly every case, the content in the subpages had been copy-and-pasted from elsewhere, in the case of existing articles, content was copied without crediting the author(s) of the revisions and in the case of deleted articles, without fail, the content was not properly moved to preserve the history (and in increasingly many cases, that history is unrecoverable). To say that there has been no community discussion is incorrect: there has been an ongoing discussion for a fairly long time about the problems noted above (and more, i.e. the lack of actual humor, the ammount of vitriol, and WP:DENY), and a flurry of discussion when BJAODN was deleted last time 3 months ago. When it was restored out-of-process, the BJAODN regulars promised to get the job done right... they did not. There are so many reasons why this content should not exist, and so very few reasons why it should. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 19:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of people, including lots of admins, disagree that deleting it is the right thing. There has been no local discussion anywhere that I've seen that evolved to a consensus that it must simply all be deleted.

Georgewilliamherbert 19:20, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that Jeffrey O. Gustafson was the admin who boldly deleted a lot of the BJAODN a while back, suddenly and out of turn, using many of the aforementioned arguments. That also led to a wheel war and even to unwarranted and sudden deletion of some of my own personal subpages. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. How can it be a waste of our time when all the time we spend here is freely given? Unless you mean that causing the loss of the time it takes to sort its status out is an offense worthy of deletion, in case we can throw out AfD and install the Fire Pits... but you didn't, so I don't quite get the argument. --Kizor 21:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Partially Restore I think some of the very best, most ridiculous examples should be saved (Maybe 20 or so) and the rest are left alone. Metakraid 20:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Overturn (Keep), perhaps list at MfD - An important part of Wikipedia culture that predates, well, just about everything. Something like that should at least get a fair hearing at the appropriate venue (MfD), rather than being speedied, especially since it survived being deleted a few months ago. — PyTom 20:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion in the spirit of WP:DENY, but also because it violates GFDL, is a massive troll magnet, and by virtue of existing encourages vandalism and similar non-constructive contributions to what is supposed to be an encyclopedia. Burntsauce 20:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion Violation of GFDL, "featured vandalism," WP:DENY, etc. but keep its main page and mark it with {{historical}}. Tim Q. Wells 20:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion per burntsauce and tim wells, etc. --Quiddity 20:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion of every BJAODN page after having reconsidered my comments above, per everyone else. I've always seen BJAODN as just "featured vandalism", although per Tim Q. Wells mark main page with historical tag.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 21:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep restored without prejudice against the option of creating a proper MfD. This article has been well-known and well-liked by many for quite some time. Speedy deleting it absent consensus is taking WP:BOLD rather far, as Georgewilliamherbert said. — xDanielxTalk 21:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep About the only source of sanity left around here half of the time. --D-Day 21:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn - regardless of the merit or, er, dismerit (what's the real word?) of deletion, this seems to have been procedurally imprudent for such a massive and ancient thingy. A fair hearing is needed, and I'd quite like circumstances more amiable to a compromise or the mounting of a rescue attempt. Also? Agree with D-Day. --Kizor 21:49, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    It cannot be stressed enough that the BJAODN regulars had enough warning when it was deleted three months ago - and they failed to fix the problems with BJAODN. It would take hundreds of editors and dozens of admins to dedicate all their time in order to make BJAODN GFDL compliant, that it did not happen last time means it will not happen this time, because frankly, admins and editors alike have far more important things to be doing: Are we an encyclopedia, or a joke book? And if we cannot be GFDL compliant, than what is the point of the GFDL at all? (And this still doesn't address all the other issues involved like WP:DENY, the spam and slander...) --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 22:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh well... Sorry to see it go (ASCII cows are still my all-time favorite), but GFDL problems are quite valid, so keep deleted, but without prejudice to restoration of some content, should anyone eventually elect to clean the mess up and only under the condition that it's kept in compliance with the license (though not much content can be preserved this way). Миша13 22:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion - cesspool of libel, and GFDL violations. Also, I note that this was a very bad idea. Sean William @ 22:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn Deletion Just Keep the Damn Thing -- Hush this fuss. T (Formerly Known as FireSpike) 23:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion per GFDL concerns and general non-funniness. It'd be nice to trim out the large volume of crap and ordinary vandalism that's accumulated in BJAODN over the years, and just keep the truly funny material. This, of course, would also make the collection more manageable, making it easier to provide attribution for the remaining entries. Unfortunately, any cleanup attempt would almost certainly result in tons of reverts and arguments saying "Sure, that may not be funny to YOU, but...", and would never go anywhere. I can't see any other solution than tossing the whole thing. WarpstarRider 23:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn- C'mon. Wikipedia needs some humor! :PNeranei (talk) 23:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I fail to see how that is at all relevant to the issue at hand. Do you have anything to contribute to the discussion? --Cyde Weys 03:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • He has a point there, if we tear the page down, we would be destroying a part of ourselfs, and Wikipedia do need a lot of humour too Af648 12:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • To make my point: Wikipedia is a serious project, and we do need some things to lighten it up periodically. Perhaps having 66 volumes of it is overkill, but sometimes people do funny things, and we should have some humor around here. (And, as a response to the people below, isn't the definition of a wheel war when two (or more) admins repeatedly undo each other's administrative actions? One admin deleted, another undeleted, and it got taken here.) That's all I'm saying. Neranei (talk) 14:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Insanity. Where did people get the idea that the way to solve long disputes is to deliberately create long painful discussions by speedy deleting things? -Amarkov moo! 23:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - No matter how often we vote, we still can't magically fix the deeply set GFDL violations in BJAODN. An MfD endorsement seems to overlook this salient fact. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 00:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and list at MfD (where the following brilliant (to one person) proposal actually belongs)Possibly dumb and out of left field, doesn't really belong in DRV solution. Undelete one subpage at a time, for (say) 3 days to one week, and give supporters time to move whatever portion of that subpage they can salvage and still comply with WP:DENY, GFDL, etc. into a New and Improved! (TM) BJAODN section. In 8-14 months, you'd have a smaller, GFDL compliant BJAODN, only a tiny little bit of illegal stuff woud exist at any one time. Meanwhile, re-organize BJAODN so that going forward it is compliant. Those not willing to devote time to saving the best parts of BJAODN would no longer have reason to complain. The one-subpage-at-a-time thing makes it more manageable. JOG et al should be reasonably happy because there isn't a gigantic wad of non-compliant stuff sitting out there in public. --barneca (talk) 00:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC) --barneca (talk) 14:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I cannot summarize my opinion as either "endorse" or "overturn." The recurring debates about BJAODN are starting to remind me of the fourteen AFDs, two DRVs, and one arbitration case regarding Daniel Brandt. Back in March 2007, a well-intentioned admin, who is now a well-intentioned former admin, deleted the Brandt page without an AFD, starting a wheel war. As in this case, an AFD (the 12th, I think) was started and speedily closed, while a deletion review (the 1st) proceeded simultaneously. The page was repeatedly deleted and restored because of the conflicting rules governing AFD and DRV. The DRV, one of the longest I can recall, resulted in an inevitable decision to relist at AFD because the deletion occurred out-of-process, without consensus and without incontrovertible evidence that the article violated policy. Regardless of other factors recommending deletion, the correct approach to such situations is to overturn and relist. When in doubt, it is better to take an extra step or two to verify whether the initial action was correct.
Notwithstanding, I believe there are "other factors recommending the deletion." Jeffrey O. Gustafson rightly points out that most of BJAODN violates the GFDL (though I made a user subpage, in response to Mr. Gustafson's deletion a few months ago, to identify BJAODN pages that are GFDL compliant.
Other users have suggested that BJAODN glorifies vandalism. I don't think this is a serious problem. Wikipedia:Deny recognition and Wikipedia:Revert, block, ignore recommend that the best way to discourage the Oompapa vandal (for example) from creating new user accounts is to pretend he never existed. I have found the list of Oompapa sockpuppet names mildly amusing (Oompapa on the moon!, Oompapa on a boat!, etc.), but I certainly would not recommend that such disruptive trolling be immortalized in BJAODN, or even in a Newgatery page. BJAODN is intended to glorify bad edits by good editors. The history of tomfoolery on April Fools Day fits this pattern, as does the related list of really, really, really bad article ideas.
I have consistently supported BJAODN, and I created a personal BJAODN collection to circumvent the problems of the original BJAODN. However, given the unresolved GFDL problems, I think the traditional "bulletin board" format should be discontinued, with those 63 or so pages permanently deleted. The other subpages of BJAODN, including the April Fools jokes and much of CAT:BJAODN, should be kept, perhaps in a different format. Shalom Hello 00:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thoroughly endorse deletion. I already posted my reasoning on WP:AN, so here's a crosspost: I'm all for it. BJAODN is a bunch of crap, and it gets worse with every iteration. Half of it is one-liners about sex (Ha...ha...hilarity. If I was five.), and the other half is defamatory to random people. The very few snippets of it that are funny hardly make it worth keeping, and let's not even get into the GFDL issues. Wikipedia has enough amusing stuff - just look at the weird articles list. What do we need bad jokes for when we've got exploding whales? Kill it with fire, and keep it killed. ♠PMC♠ 01:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't see that these pages make a significant contribution to the encyclopedia. The reasons for deletion seem cogent enough to me - in particular, many of these pages are in violation of copyright. But more importantly to me, these pages seem to be an episode in Wikipedia's youth that at some point will be disavowed, and playing young too long as you grow old isn't cool. While editors who were here in the early days may look on these with nostalgia, I don't. Anyone is free to (while copying edit histories at the same time) move these to another wiki somewhere, and I think that would be the right thing to do. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. Something this big needs community consensus. There was no consensus to delete in either MfD. Dbromage [Talk] 01:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • We can have a big consensus cakewalk right through the middle of Tienanmen square, but it won't make a lick of difference, because the GFDL has been deeply and repeatedly busted in BJAODN, and no amount of process-bound MfD will fix that. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse While some of it was funny most appeared to be vandalistic postings. Resolving the GFDL issues would ensure that vandalism was rewarded. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 01:49, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion per (1) the GFDL issues, (2) it being a time-sink for energy better spent on writing/maintaining an encyclopedia, (3) feeding trolls and vandals by making this stuff look clever and, (4) it not being very funny anyway. WjBscribe 02:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion It stopped being funny ages and ages ago. It's full of spam, slander, libel, and well... non-sense. It arguably glorifies vandalism. We have more sophisticated forms of amusement today. That said, throwing my tech hat on:

    The copyright issue is mostly a red-herring. If the material is kept I will, sooner or later, run a matching script for BJAODN against the entire text history (including deleted revisions) of enwp. This should locate the overwhelming majority of the history. The only copyright issues which would remain would be edited BJAODN entries, and places where the deleted nonsense was itself a copyright violation.

    But I'd much rather save myself the good couple of weeks of CPU time that would take, and do ourselves a favor and ditch it. But the history shouldn't record we deleted BJAODN because of copyright issues, since we can solve them. --Gmaxwell 02:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nobody bothered to do this during the X months since the last time this happened, why should anyone believe this copyright-fixing will happen now? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • No on asked me about it until now. I certainly don't want to do it. It would be a huge waste of time. But if we keep it I'd rather we avoid leaving the copyright issue around when we can avoid it. I certainly don't want people to claim that we had to delete this due to copyright issues, since that wouldn't be true. It's worth deleting on it's own lack of merits. The arguments here are still convincing even if you completely ignore the copyright angle. --Gmaxwell 02:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion 1/ WP:DENY and WP:BEANS. 2/ Unconvinced of merits of a place where if an edit is bad enough it will be preserved indefinitely to mark the editor's 15 minutes of fame. 3/ The usefulness of "BJAODN" as a label in debate does not require all 65 pages of "whatever caught people's attention" to be preserved too. (Saving the original page only, for historic value, wouldn't hurt.) Concerns over communal page needing wider debate are probably met AFAIK - likely most long term editors have become aware of this debate if they are aware of anything. FT2 (Talk | email) 02:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep: Even though there's been a push toward suppressing the idea that Wikipedia is a community (e.g., deleting userboxes), I still think it should be able to contain some of its own history. BJAODN isn't just a place for lulz anymore - it contains a great deal of information on what Wikipedia is, what its culture looks like, some of the behind-the-scenes stuff... it's a tenet of Wikipedia that Wikipedia itself shouldn't be referenced in mainspace (except in its own article), but I really see no harm in referencing it in any other space. BJAODN does far more good for the community than harm. --Hyperbole 02:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • What do you mean "Keep"? This is a DrV, not an XfD. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, well, since almost all the arguments for endorsing deletion have focused on the merits of BJAODN and not on whether it was deleted out-of-process, and the issue is likely to be decided on the merits of BJAODN, I thought I'd just cut to the heart of the matter: this is actually an MfD disgused as a DrV (especially since the content at issue is not, last time I checked, actually deleted). --Hyperbole 20:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion folks have been saying they'd fix the copyright issues lierally for years, it's never happened. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 02:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion. BJAODN stopped being funny ages ago. There was no bar for inclusion and all of the entries were mere boring tripe, vandalism of the lamest variety. This is not anything worth preserving. As many others have pointed out, keeping it around as a shrine to vandals runs counter to the principle of Denying vandals recognition. We should take a cue from how real world local governments deal with vandalism: they clean it up as soon as possible, leaving no trace that it was ever there. This is the best way to discourage vandals, by showing them that all of their effort is for naught. The worst thing you can do is put it up on a pedestal where hundreds times more people will eventually see it, and perhaps be "inspired" by it, than if you simply just painted it over and never mentioned it again. --Cyde Weys 02:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn Are we doing this again? Yeesh. 1. WP:DENY is an essay, not policy or a even a guideline. It is the opinion of some editors on how to deal with vandals and vandalism. 2. If the GFDL violations are really that bad, then just start again with new pages. 3. Many people enjoy this page, and since it is out of the mainspace, I don't see the harm as long as everything is properly attributed. 4. Every once in a while, an editor will come across some truly inspired vandalism, above and beyond the usual crap. It would be a shame to delete it. 5. Just deleting this page, without taking to MfD or having any sort of conversation, violates the spirit of consensus. There should be a discussion before deleting any page that doesn't clearly fall within the guidelines of WP:SPEEDY. --Phirazo 03:16, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • In response to 2, I don't see how you can justify overturning the deletion of the GFDL violations. This was already done three months ago with the expectation that some people would go through, clean up the mess, and fix the attributions. But nobody did. And hell, I don't blame them, because it's terrible, worthless work. But since it's not going to happen, the content can't be restored. So you really shouldn't be saying "Overturn". --Cyde Weys 03:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'd rather see these restored, but if there is a consensus that this is not possible due to the GFDL, then the page should start over. That is what I was trying to say in point 2. It seems some of the votes are to nuke the whole thing forever, and I think it would be a shame to do that. Perhaps a fresh start, with enforcement of attribution and perhaps a criteria for inclusion, may be in order. --Phirazo 03:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Deletion I really do not see the point of this whole thing. This really belongs on a WP fan site or something similiar (or a fan wiki!) Corpx 04:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endore Undeletion. Remembering that DRV is NOT WP:MFD the only argument needed here is that the deletion was speedy, and was overturned already, never should have come here. — xaosflux Talk 05:16, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note:A majority of these pages have already been undeleted, I've undeleted the other ones to keep consistency in this matter, all deletions were done as a speedy deletion reversal. — xaosflux Talk 05:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn/ no delete/ keep BJAODN/ WTF was Alkivar thinking? No really, wtf? Where the heck were you the last time this became a mess and tons of people objected? This is not something you speedy, regardless of how you feel about. The community makes these decisions, and the community wants these pages. -- Ned Scott 05:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion. Alkivar did the right thing. The community has had three months to bring BJAODN up to the benchmarks prescribed to it per the GDFL. That failed. And there is no reason to believe it will ever succeed. --Hemlock Martinis 06:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion. Thankfully this is a discussion, not a vote, and I have confidence that the best interests of our encyclopedia will prevail. RFerreira 06:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion. We should not recognize vandalism. The GFDL problems are not being worked out adequately. And it's not funny anymore. Singularity 07:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move offsite This, sadly, will probably not survive. We should at least give a bit of notice and time for someone to salvage BJAODN to another site, which isn't so strict with copyright law, like the many other "stupid things people have said on the internets" sites out there, just Wikipedia flavored. I really don't want to see this go, but it seems like that's what the community wants --Lucid 07:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn I hate seeing bloody people using copyright issues as why to a page should be deleted, For one, can somebody tell me where in the entire collection was a copyright violation. This copyright paranoia is everywhere, half of the comments talk about copyright issues without even listing one out, what the hell man?, where is the proof that there is a copyright violation.
    Secondly, I found the page quite amusing, I know we are trying to write an encyclopedia but that doesn't mean some of us can't have fun. I know some of you hate it, saying it is a piece of crap, Right, ok, but do you repersent the majority? if everybody thinks it is a piece of crap why would there be a deletion review? This is deletion review and we dont care if you think its a piece of crap or not(we want the facts as to why it should be deleted or kept), it is whether or not violates any rules on wikipedia that matters.
    Thirdly, for those of you saying its promoting vandals to attack wikipedia, again there is no proof. How do you know? Do you have a source listed? Do i have to put a "source needed" tag on every sentence you write? How would vandals know of this page in the first place anyway? And even if they see it, it doent encourage them to copy stuff into out articles, if they do, we have something very handy called the ban stick.
    I'm not even going to bother with a conclusion, I'm sick of people deleting everything fun that is on wikipedia Af648 08:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Kill it with fire. ➪HiDrNick! 08:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And for reasons? Af648 08:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete again, and WP:TROUTwhack GWH for wheel warring. Copyvio, data dump, not actually funny. >Radiant< 08:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Wheel warring? GWH rightly saw a large group of pages being deleted without any prior discussion. An administrator has a duty to prevent that kind of thing from happening. --Hyperbole 09:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    ...by restoring them without discussion? As in, it's not wheel warring as long as your friends are doing it? That's funny. >Radiant< 09:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    No. It's wheel warring when two or more admins repetitively reverse each others actions. If an admin disagrees with some other one's action and simply reverts it, they're well within their rights to do so and shall not be shunned for this. It is a very unhealthy practice that any mere reversion of administrative action is now considered wheel-warring - this is a misinterpretation of WP:WHEEL. Sysops are entitled to one revert (because the first admin may simply be wrong), after which discussion should ensue. Миша13 10:19, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    What precedent and indicates what, exactly? It is not just my opinion, it is what WP:WHEEL clearly states: "struggle between two or more admins in which they undo another's administrative actions" - so that it counts as a struggle and they both undo the other's actions, there must be more than one revert. BJAODN is does not seem to be the case (one deletion, one restoration). Finally, in reference to your "it's not wheel warring as long as your friends are doing it?" and the original "whack GWH for wheel warring" comments, one might get the reverse impression that for you it is wheel warring whenever it is not one of your friends (or you otherwise disagree with a particular action). It is a double-edged sword, you know... Миша13 11:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion: Leaving the GFDL concerns behind, this is an extremely useless set of pages that serve no remotely encyclopedic purpose other than to show that there are idiotic pages on this website. Uncyclopedia is that way.Ryulong 08:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion of subpages on the GFDL concerns alone and for that reason only; Allow reinstantiation of material in sourced & attributed, highly culled and selected form (for example, reinstantiation of the "best of BJAODN" series, the April Fools things, etc). In my opinion, there's absolutely no concern other than GFDL compliance to delete these. This is a case where people are attempting to use our policies to trample something that's ultimately harmless and benign; the intention of our policies is to strengthen articles, not use them to randomly get rid of stuff we don't like on technicalities. Okay, so we have GFDL issues with these; if there's admins who really want these restored and can do source searching and some vetting on their spare time, I don't see a problem with that - the page isn't that bad. I don't see the vandalism-glorification an issue here. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 11:01, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do whatever the hell you want. We are the mighty admins. We have the buttons. We answer to no one. Thatcher131 11:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Now that's funny! We should move your post to BJAO...er, never mind. --SGT Tex 21:59, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Your sarcastic remark likely isn't helping. --Cyde Weys 03:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - For all of those that didn't find BJAODN funny

    "Feminism is the movement of women. Sometimes they move to the right, and sometimes they move to the left. Sometimes they move up and down, and sometimes they vibrate. Yes, feminism is really a plethora of movements all shoved into one...."

    If you didn't laugh, you obviously don't have a sense of humour and it is no suprise that you voted "DELETE", 'cos the whole point of BJAODN is that its funny Af648 11:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted On strictly procedural grounds I'll agree that speedy deletion was not the ideal avenue here, however I have to say I would not miss this "institution". GFDL issies aside it serves no usefull purpose (and so spending time tracking down attribution for each entry is a waste of time), at times it at least comes close to glorifying vandalism and it also acts as a magnet for people who want to write silly joke articles because they know theyr "work" will be preserved in the BJAODN archives rater than be deleted. These things belongs on Unencyclopedia (though frankly a lot of it would probably be deleted from there for not beeing funny), not here IMHO. --Sherool (talk) 12:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn deletion. Speedy deletion was completely inappropriate for a longstanding Wikipedia institution, for which there is clearly no consensus for deletion. Kudos to the admin who was brave enough to undelete it (I would have done the same). The only valid concern here is the copyright question, but it seems from the discussion above that this has been resolved. As to the idea that this is somehow detrimental to the encyclopedia, I will re-iterate a point I've made in dozens of MfDs and DRVs. In addition to being an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is a community. It needs a community infrastructure - not all of which will be directly related to building the encyclopedia - in order to support that community. No evidence whatsoever has been presented for the spurious argument that the existence of BJAODN encourages vandals to create joke pages; human nature is such that some people will always be driven to create joke pages. In any case, if such an argument is the basis for deletion, it should be presented to the community at MfD. Deletion on the whim of a single admin is utterly unacceptable in a case like this. WaltonOne 12:49, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - agree with much of this. Yes it should have gone through MFD rather than AFD, and should have not needed xD then undelete then DRV. But it's getting a thorough discussion now, so for me it's a "no real harm done in the end". All these processes are merely ways to get communal views, and that's being done finally here. I also agree that bad jokes and humor are integral. The copyright issue we also agree on, perhaps for different reasons - there is a lot of non-copyvio material, and in other xFD's copyvio is not a good argument for page deletion if there is also significant valid non-copyvio material too. However for me one thing overrides these. I don't believe (as stated above) that advertizing in effect, if you make a bad enough article edit or hoax, you might permanently get in the Wikipedia hall of fame, is a good thing. That concern (which broadly mirrors BEANS and DENY) is my main concern. I also don't think we need a 65 page archive. It was funny once, but 65 sequels dim the humor. My $0.02. FT2 (Talk | email) 15:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fair enough. I certainly agree in principle that a 65-page archive is unnecessary; in fact, the very early quote on the main BJAODN page talks about the need for "frequent updates of this page" to prevent it turning into an "encyclopedia of silliness". Possibly this will improve once all the copyvios are removed, or maybe someone should go through and prune the archives (not all the stuff in there is that funny, IMO). All in all, though, I don't think this is a good reason to delete the entire thing. WaltonOne 16:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted Unencyclopedic crap that needs to stay deleted. WP:DENY vandalism glorification, and move to uncyclopedia if you're only purpose was to contribute to this. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, where you should contribute to the sum of human knowledge, not contribute to sum of stupidity. — Moe ε 13:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It Deleted. People keep saying "we'll source it"...every time it gets deleted. The trouble of the matter is, they don't. We've had years of promising to get it all sourced, but it's still not all sourced. I for one say that the BJAODN folks have had their chance, and don't deserve another. ^demon[omg plz] 13:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and give people as much time as they need to source it: there is no deadline on Wikipedia, well as long as it gets done. Whoever that Sun guy is that suggested the sourcing thing, credit to him... what a suggestion!Also agree with Walton One as well... now let's allow it to be undeleted. Walton One, what a great argument... enough said!Heh, now this debate could be BJAODN'd, oh the irony! --84.45.219.185 14:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and list on MFD Deleting this without a MFD discussion will inevitably result in a deletion review. Therefore, if we're going to delete it, lets at least have a commmunity consensus on what to do with it. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 15:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • The community has already proven themselves incapable of doing what's right in regards to BJAODN. ^demon[omg plz] 16:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • So the cabal has to step in? Seriously, that is a very disturbing statement. -Amarkov moo! 17:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think ^demon could have chosen wording a little clearer. The problem is that no matter what the community votes, it doesn't change the fact that clear GFDL violations are not allowed. We can vote until we're blue in the face, but it doesn't change the fact that a base policy is being violated, a policy with legal ramifications, and that if we decide to "selectively observe" the GFDL, then we lose all credibility in terms of licensing and set a precedent that Wikipedia only observes the GFDL when it is popular. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:19, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • How much longer do we have to give for editors to try and source the pages as they should be. It's distrubing to see established editors actually caring about something so useless to the project. — Moe ε 17:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • GFDL violations don't matter for deletion of the entire thing. We can just delete all the subpages and start over again, if the only serious problem is the GFDL. -Amarkov moo! 17:29, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • That is actually something I suggested and supported the first time around. Starting over would get rid of the overall GFDL violation. I just don't know how willing editors will be to restart the entire process and start sourcing it correctly. If there was that kind of willingness, the problem would have been solved by now. — Moe ε 17:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • Starting over was done the first time. Problem is, it was done with a complete lack of prior discussion, which caused a reflexive undelete of everything. We've only tried sourcing all the old entries (which clearly does not work). -Amarkov moo! 17:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
              • Then starting over again with new material may be for the better if the old material is unsourcable. I'm not sure, but I don't think there would be any objections to recreating a properly kept BJAODN. — Moe ε 17:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn I don't understand why BJAODN is considered copyright infringement. Rather than deleting a funny and interesting page edit, someone elected to move the change to BJAODN and revert the original page, retaining both the changes and the original text both in their proper areas. Moving text around in an effort to maintain the website is not and should not be considered copyright infringement. The arguments that keeping BJAODN encourages vandalism are completely unfounded, the original edits that made up the first page of BJAODN obviously weren't inspired by BJAODN seeing as it did not exist at the time, and if BJAODN were to be deleted these sort of edits would not stop appearing. I see no viable means by which we could separate those edits inspired or promoted by BJAODN from those that were not influenced by BJAODN, so the point is moot. If some action must be taken than I would ask that BJAODN be moved somewhere more appropriate (offsite if necessary), but to simply delete such a wealth of insight into the very nature of humor would be a horrible waste. --Odin_son 17:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC) — Odinsonnah (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • Ok, I mistakenly referred to copyright, which is not related to the issue at hand, in my post above. I don't know much of anything about the GFDL personally, but following the link in Moe's post above, the first quote I find directly from the GFDL is this "You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute." Now maybe I am misinterpreting the quote above but doesn't that mean deleting BJAODN would be a violation of the GFDL since you would be using a technical measure to obstruct the reading of the copies made of the original edits of Wikipedia pages? --Odin_son 17:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If that were the case, any deletion from Wikipedia would be in violation of the GFDL. This material was in violation of the GFDL even before it was deleted, then restored. The material was copied from other various places on Wikipedia, then copied and pasted to BJAODN, that was the violation of GFDL. — Moe ε 17:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I suppose I don't know enough about the GFDL to contribute to this part of the discussion. I will research the topic and return when I feel I am knowledgeable enough to contribute. --Odin_son 18:24, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • One, this is not the computer I typically use to edit Wikipedia, so any other edit under this IP address likely belong to someone else. Two, what part do attacks on my person play in this discussion? I intend to defend BJAODN, because I believe it has a valuable use and merit and the problems with it are surmountable. --Odin_son 18:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • One, people usually finding DRV on thier account as a first edit is always suspicious. Two, this problem is pretty unsurmountable, as people who have been working on this GFDL violation for a long time, haven't been able to correct it. Three, if you could name one valuable use of unencylopedic page with potential legal issues, it would be news to me. — Moe ε 18:19, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The value of BJAODN, like any comedy, is purely subjective. If you do not find BJAODN to be funny and/or interesting, then it holds no value for you. I agree that BJAODN has no place as an encyclopedia entry. But outside of the regular encyclopedia, I view it as a valuable and irreproducible testament to human creativity and humor. -- Odin_son 18:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. As I edit this, I see in giant bold letters: "Do not copy text from other websites without a GFDL-compatible license. It will be deleted." It seems weird that copying text from other websites is allowed, but not from wikipedia. Perhaps this disclaimer should be clarified? — PyTom 17:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have several questions that I would like to ask, but this may not be the proper place for them. If you know of a better forum for my questions please kindly link me to it so that I will not clog up this discussion area needlessly. -- Odin_son 18:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is a full record kept of all changes made to Wikipedia, including any edits that are later reverted? If so the best thing to do would be to change BJAODN into a list of links to the individual pages showing the edit before it was reverted. This process could be automated using a search program, with direct human action only needed to confirm the results. If the original records of the edits shown in BJAODN were never made or are irrevocably gone then the problem becomes quite a bit more complex, I will wait for a response to my first question before commenting on that possibility any further. -- Odin_son 18:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • A full history is kept, but without Greg's assistance and the involvement of a large number of administrators, locating page histories for articles and edits that have long since been deleted will be impossible. It can be done if someone is willing to do it, but people promised to fix the situation several months ago and we've come back to find nothing meaningful has been done, so I really don't see why Greg or anybody else should waste time now covering for two seperate sets of failings here. Everything gets more complicated and entirely impossible to fix if anything that appears on BJAODN was oversighted (perish the thought) as it will most certainly need to be deleted. Nick 11:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and list at MFD. An essay is not adequate grounds to delete a page without discussion. This is clearly a contentious deletion, so procedure should be followed in this case. JulesH 19:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The GFDL wasn't mentioned as part of the original deletion reasoning. Also, there has been discussion above about ways to prevent the GFDL from being an issue... these should be given a chance now the problem has been raised before deletion is decided upon. JulesH 07:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • But this isn't the same kind of issue as an article needing cleanup. BJAODN presents two immediate problems, both of which cause harm for every hour that BJAODN remains in existence: it is a violation of our core licensing policies and it serves as a hall of fame to vandalism, encouraging further copycats in the hope that people get on BJAODN. When the vandal hall of fame was still up and running ("Long-term abuse"), we actually caught, with CheckUser, people creating account names that appeared to be sockpuppets of Willy on Wheels or other "well-known" vandals, vandalizing in the appropriate pattern as described by the long-term abuse page, and then reporting the vandal account with their main account and adding it to a sockpuppets category. Why? Because they wanted the recognition that came with helping to "track down" these vandals. I do not doubt that a similar thing is going on with BJAODN, with people vandalizing an article and then adding it to BJAODN under a different account. --Cyde Weys 03:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn Any true BLP concerns can be dealt with by editing. Copyvio likewise. GFDL is a red herring--GFDL requires only the most recent edits, and these can in almost all cases still be traced. (and if necessary added). This are all excuses only, for those who think that these pages lower the serious level of WP. That's a policy question worth further discussion--elsewhere. DGG (talk) 19:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I, for one, only became aware of this issue yesterday. I'm sure plenty of the other people who have commented on this DRV are in the same position. The situation is now different to what it has been for the last 3 months, so what has happened over those 3 months is now irrelevant. JulesH 07:59, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • DGG, a correction on your claim about attribution. The GFDL requires attribution be preserved for the principle authors of a document. BJAODN is an aggregation of many GFDLed documents, for each of these documents we are required to pass along the attribution for the principle authors. Doing so is rather difficult because BJAODN has long been maintained without any care given to the license requirements, many of the source documents have been deleted (hidden) on Wikipedia, and there is often no link to the revision. A prior AFD was closed months with the decision that it could be kept but the copyright issues must be resolved. As far as I can tell no progress was made on that front. While the copyright issues can be resolved (and I pledged to take a crack at it if this somehow survives), the libel issues are much harder since none of that work can be automated. ... If no progress was made on the copyright issues, can you honestly claim any will be made on the BLP issues? How many hours per week are you willing to personally spend resolving the issue? ... If no progress was made on the copyright issues, can you honestly claim any will be made on the BLP issues? How many hours per week are you willing to personally spend resolving the issue? ... and how is that a good use of our volunteer labor? --Gmaxwell 22:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • GFDL issues - I'm not clear on the assertion that BJAODN violates the GFDL - about ten people have said that it does, but no one has made a case for why. What's the concern here - that archiving funny vandalism is violating the vandals' rights to have their work attributed to them? That in mainspace, "attribution" is based on history pages with archived IPs, but that this history may not be transferred to a page like BJAODN, leaving the content without attribution? Obviously, this sounds ridiculous. Help me out here. -- Hyperbole 21:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    It is ridiculous. Editors move text -- sentences, paragraphs -- from an article where it's inappropriate to a more appropriate article all the time. Since they're not moving the whole article, the source of the new material isn't always obvious, unless the editor makes a note of it. Is that a licensing issue? Surely not. Surely that was what the FDL was intended to avoid having quarrels about. Or so I've always understood it. RandomCritic 21:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Substantial amounts of text (i.e. things large enough to carry a copyright) sure as heck shouldn't be copy and paste moved without attribution. We have a whole process set up to clean things up like that over at WP:SPLICE. Breaking the attribution of the text is both a violation of the license, and it's an unethical violation of the expectations we give our contributors. Mistakes happen and are unavoidable, and we shouldn't worry too deeply about them... but to claim that following the license and our keeping promise to the copyright holders of the content on our site isn't important is deplorable. --Gmaxwell 22:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Sometimes substantial movement of text cannot be repaired and the edit history of the text found only at one page, is unavoidably spread out over several different pages. See WP:SPLICE#Requests which cannot be fulfilled, for some examples. The only way to attribute in those cases is to link to the originating page in the edit summary. It was my impression that much of BJAODN falls under this criteria, with the problem being that the place you would normally link to has been, well, deleted. I'd be interested in how your script would work. Would it locate the diff used to create each bit of the BJAODN text for a particular entry? What would it then do with that? Create a list of authors and post somewhere in BJAODN? Carcharoth 15:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore, or failing that relist on MFD. WP:DENY is an essay, not even a guideline. It is most certainly not a criterion for deletion, speedy or otherwise. WP:BJAODN is a place for harmless fun, which is (rightly) kept out of the rest of the Wikipedia. Copyright issues are a red herring - as we've seen above someone has a script to cut out anything that's a copyvio. Finally, the decision was a speedy deletion, which was not made in accordance with process and policy, so it's essential that MFD is used if nothing else. Stifle (talk) 22:19, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Someone has a script? Oh really? Where would that be? Let me be perfectly clear: I have nothing. It will take me a good few days of development work to write the software to do this, and then weeks of cpu time running the software. This time could be better spent developing better search software for Wikipedia and commons. Virtually everyone who has supported the deletion of BJAODN has also cited a reason unrelated to copyright. If you're so concerned by process why are you not decrying the actions of the wheelwarring admins who undid the deletion out of process while the discussion was ongoing? --Gmaxwell 22:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I made a proposal for future GFDL compliance in BJAODN here. What I am thinking is that if the decision is to delete the subarticles due to GFDL issues, then we can use the template I'm suggesting to ensure future GFDL compliance in a uniform way. I think this might be the way to go if the GFDL issues are truly insurmountable. --Phirazo 23:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion I liked BJAODN. I found parts of it funny. I have no personal beef with it, however, I can find no reasoned arguement for keeping it at wikipedia other than I liked it. Regardless of how much I enjoyed it, without any reason beyond that, I must say that it should probably go. I will miss it, but c'est la vie. The internet is filled with other funny stuff. I will have to go laugh at that instead. Since BJAODN as an acronym is so prevalent a single historical page explaining what it means should be preserved. But I seriously, as much as I enjoyed it, can find no way to defend it. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 01:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just like to put this out there, if BJAODN goes, I might as well... T (Formerly Known as FireSpike) 02:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC) Ah! I'd never do that! T (Formerly Known as FireSpike) 06:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't delete it, just fix it. — The Storm Surfer 03:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • This option was tried, and failed. There was no apparent effort actually spent to do the fixing requested X months ago after a previous drama like this. Segments of the community have clearly argued in favor of "fix it" without any actual willingness to do the dirty work. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 03:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Considering that what we're concerned with is apparently the rights of vandals under the GFDL, I don't think there's any desperate rush to get this done within a three-month time frame. The more recent pages actually tend to be attributed pretty well; I wouldn't have a problem if it took the community several years to go through the backlog and attribute it. Yes, we're talking about copyright here, but it's not as though any serious copyright violations, like plagiarism or unauthorized distribution of for-profit material, are at issue. This is really about a technicality of the GFDL. My view: these pages need to be fixed eventually, but there's absolutely no urgency to do it fast. --Hyperbole 04:11, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • The point isn't protecting the rights of vandals under the GFDL. If any vandal complains about certain entries, then it is trivial to go source those. We can't claim to follow the GFDL and then say "oop, it's not convenient here, so we'll just say that it will be made GFDL compliant eventually". Like I've said above, it's probably a good idea to try just restarting so we don't have to deal with a backlog that nobody ever wants to clear, but since nobody is willing to go through and attribute the archives, they really need to be deleted. -Amarkov moo! 04:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment it seems to me that we're creating a really dangerous precedent by lauding the behavior of people who act completely outside of process, spark massive disruptions, and then claim victory by shouting the loudest. I've seen people say things like "well, I don't like the process, but the outcome is what's important." And, frankly, that's absolute nonsense. The "outcome" every single time this happens is that good, valuable editors get treated like crap and driven from the project. If you want to say the ends justify the means, just stop for a second -- look back at some of these episodes -- and consider what all of the ends are; I bet you'll find somebody who used to be a really good editor who isn't here anymore. --JayHenry 05:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Overturn and wtf. Wildly out of process speedy deletion, adhering to absolutely no policy outside of WP:IAR. Highly disruptive as evidenced by this discussion, when there was no reason not to send it to MfD. Speedy deleting material, in any space, in order to force the opinion of one administrator, when there is obvious community controversy, is wholly unacceptable. Evouga 07:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Possible sockpuppet, first edits were to WP:AN, very few edits outside of DRV and AFD.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 16:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn It was a out of process deletion pure and simple. Whispering 11:08, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It simply isn't an issue if this was out-of-process or not. For the most part, WP:IAR applies. Utterly useless projects that contained GFDL violations simply has no place on Wikipedia. — Moe ε 15:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment At this point, this discussion is no longer about process (which is what DRV is supposed to be about). This discussion has become a de facto MfD, and you may want to base your arguements as if it were an MfD. --Phirazo 16:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Deletion: The page I deleted (for reasons below, only tangibly related to this debate) is the finest reason for the deletion, or at lease, cessation of the project, a whole page that consisted of a personal attack on an administrator, a common piece of vandalism being reverted then the vandal being blocked - in my book we shuffle off quietly and ignore vandals, we don't ridicule them or laugh at them being blocked, and of course, no history for anything copied into the page. Now, you're all saying, well, we know the project isn't GFDL compliant and we can fix that, indeed it's possible, but this was a page created days ago when the importance of GFDL compliance was made abundantly clear to all working on the BJAODN project. In my view, there's no sign that histories are being correct preserved with the very latest BJAODN pages so I can't really see any way forward other that a cessation of the project and deletion of material. Nick 11:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion The restoration of these pages is simply an act of copyright infringement. The GFDL license requirements for those contributions have not been met. We need to respect out own license agreement. Regardless of the consensus here, we cannot use a copyright infringement, I don't see why there is even a discussion about it. The only people who can dig up the history are admins, so if they really want to make it meet GFDL, then deleting it in the meantime will not hinder them. The pages have no encyclopedic value. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 16:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn, and spin off to an independent website. While there are some GFDL violations, we could eliminate them or source them out. Furthermore, a lot of the contribs are probably hit-and-run editors who don't want to be cited or remembered. GFDL never took that into account. Nonetheless, since we started doing this in the first place, we should work hard to cite everyone as we signed up to GFDL to begin with. — Rickyrab | Talk 17:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC) Furthermore, the collection of BJAODN may be better off as a different website, taken care of by editors dedicated to BJAODN, rather than as a part of Wikipedia proper. — Rickyrab | Talk 17:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have to assume that the authors have not given up the rights they released it under, the contributions are copyright and to say that "perhaps they don't want that copyright" is contrary to law and general copyright interpretation. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let's face it, there's no consensus here. — Rickyrab | Talk 17:59, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Consensus doesn't trump blatant violation of the GFDL, one of the basic foundations of the entire Wikimedia effort. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • That is what people said last time it was undeleted, but nobody sourced it. What is more, much of the attribution is in the history of deleted articles, so it takes an admin to source it. An admin can do this on a deleted BJAODN as well, so this whole "it can be brought into compliance with GFDL" is a red herring. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 13:52, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • This has nothing to do with consensus. Chairboy is right, the fact that we are not meeting the GFDL license requirements makes it illegal, and even worse it is ripping off the contributors. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 18:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's one thing if one side is saying "the GFDL is violated", the other side is saying "no it isn't", and there's no consensus. It would be very bad if people said "There's no consensus, but I'm right, so it should be deleted anyway" in that case. What we have here is one side saying "the GFDL is violated", and the other side saying "yes it is, but..." There is no "but" which can excuse breaking the license Wikipedia is supposed to be under. -Amarkov moo! 18:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Consensus is also a foundation of Wikimedia, and GFDL and consensus must work in harmony with one another. Otherwise, we have a lot of unfortunate editors who thought they were getting a good deal when they agreed to the GFDL terms, only to find that managing GFDL was trickier than they originally thought. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Furthermore, censoring something due to laziness and GFDL may well be theft of intellectual property, given that people might be denied access to their own edits, which are, after all, their property. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But common sense dictates that someone shouldn't bar their entry into their own apartment in a co-op to get the furniture out if someone else doesn't want the furniture there. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • See foundation issue #4, "Copyleft licensing of content; in practice, defined by project, either GFDL or CC-BY." This is not negotiable, it is one of the fundamental ideas behind the whole Wikimedia Foundation. A consensus that goes against a foundation issue must be ignored. Content that does not meet these requirements must be removed. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 18:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Or made to fit the requirements. The problem is that people are lazy. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me?! Who the hell are you to call other people lazy? First of all, I don't see you pitching in to help clean up BJAODN in any meaningful capacity, so the pot shouldn't call the kettle black. Secondly, we are all volunteers here, so nobody has to do anything. And finally, given the limited man hours we have available, it makes no sense to waste precious administrator time cleaning up the cesspool that is BJAODN. That's why you don't see any of us doing it. We have much better things to do, like blocking vandals, closing AFDs, etc. --Cyde Weys 03:29, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To find the attribution history you need to be an admin to see the deleted pages. So if this is deleted the same people could still look up the history and do a DRV after it meets GFDL. Deletion does not prevent potential sourcing in any way because many of the sources are themselves deleted. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 18:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is only true for deleted pages, and many of the sources come from pages still undeleted. Furthermore, if admins can source the BJAODN, then why aren't they doing it? They should. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Because we can think of many more important things to do than waste our time finding sources for jokes. ^demon[omg plz] 18:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So it is "wasting time" to make sure something complies with Wikipedia policy? — Rickyrab | Talk 18:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For some humor thing? Yes. --Hemlock Martinis 18:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. If Wikipedia has information that some people like, and that information is not compliant with copyright or GFDL because it is not sourced, and if GFDL is the backbone of Wikipedia as it has so often been claimed, then the proper thing to do is to take the time to source the material behind the information, even if it is drivel! — Rickyrab | Talk 19:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so you want to spend admin's time sourcing BJAODN. Good, we don't. If you want to have an admin while away the hours of the day digging up sources for an unfunny joke, then you should run for adminship and do it yourself. ^demon[omg plz] 19:11, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Once again you mistake the fundamental purpose of Wikipedia. The purpose of Wikipedia is to provide a free and libre encyclopedia in all the nations of the world. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "information that some people like". Guess what people like? Pirated music, TV shows, movies, and porn. But we don't host them here at Wikipedia. Likewise, we don't host unattributed text that violates the GFDL. And we don't host vandalism hall of fames. --Cyde Weys 03:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Suppose a pluralty of Wikipedia editors want to negotiate GFDL in order to make information more accessible. What would you recommend they do? — Rickyrab | Talk 18:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To extend the GFDL license beyond its current limitations, you would need the permission of all contributing editors. Wikipedia does not own its content, all individual contributions are owned by the authors, but released in such a way that Wikipedia can use it, if it gives proper attribution to the authors. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 18:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The trouble with that interpretation of the GFDL is that not every editor of Wikipedia necessarily thought it was a good idea to begin with. Besides, you're causing everyone to "agree" to GFDL by inserting a statement that people "agree to license their contributions under the GFDL". Suppose some prankster or wheel warrior were to change that statement, or, even worse, some editor were to openly contradict such a statement. See the ethical problem here? — Rickyrab | Talk 18:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What in the world are you talking about? How would a prankster change the GFDL? --Hemlock Martinis 18:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll ignore the question about the prankster. (I'll assume this hypothetical prankster is some stupid leet haXXor, it's not important how he would do any such thing and I don't know how he'd do such a thing anyway.) However, are people who agree to the GFDL necessarily aware of what they are agreeing to, or of its complexities? — Rickyrab | Talk
The warning has a link to the GFDL text. It's not like they can claim ignorance. --Hemlock Martinis 18:46, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nonetheless, the wording may be rather heavy and people may be busy with other things. Furthermore, some people just want to edit, and so they skim and say "Okay". That doesn't necessarily make them aware of what they're agreeing to. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh please. People still have to obey the law even if they're not a lawyer. Ignorance is not innocence. --Hemlock Martinis 18:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Who made the law in this case? And how democratic was the process to begin with? — Rickyrab | Talk 18:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Jimbo Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia is not a democracy, it's a constitutional monarchy. --Hemlock Martinis 19:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, ok. I wasn't aiming to undermine GFDL itself, I am trying to save at least some or even most of the BJAODN, and I think people are just using GFDL as an excuse to be lazy and delete when they could be sourcing the material instead. — Rickyrab | Talk 19:08, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted - there are obvious GFDL problems with it ... and let's face it - even if someone were to dig up article histories, we don't know whether or not these hoax/joke articles were actually original works to begin with or copied from a message board or some other website. What do you think the odds are that someone posting a joke page really cares about the copyright of the page? Consensus can't override copyright and thus keep deleted. --B 18:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Then delete the rest of Wikipedia, too or otherwise trust the authors. Who knows how much of WP is really a copyvio? — Rickyrab | Talk 18:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well ... there's a bit of a difference there. If someone is contributing constructively, we assume good faith. If someone is vandalizing, why should we assume good faith there? --B 18:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Some people consider comic intent to be "good faith". After all, those edits could always be reverted, and so they are. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Please tell me you're joking, Rickyrab. It's vandalism, pure and simple. --Hemlock Martinis 18:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • Okay, I'm joking, if that's what you want to hear. But bear in mind that there's an Uncyclopedia out there because people like comic intent. However, some people think stupidity and vandalism are good things, and so they need a place. That is why I think there ought to be a separate website dedicated to nonsense. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
              • Wikia might be willing to host such a site, and you're welcome to take any content which is fully compliant with the GFDL provided you're prepared to re-licence under the GFDL licence. Personally, I'd rather such a site didn't exist as may encourage people to vandalise Wikipedia, but if you want to go for it, you're entirely welcome. Nick 18:56, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
              • Rickyrab, if you want to go to Uncyclopedia, then go. But we won't keep GFDl violations for the lulz. — Moe ε 20:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Overturn in strongest possible terms, relist at MFD if issues remain. Since the article was deleted out-of-process, I don't think that this DRV is at all appropriate; speedy close this DRV. The article has already been restored, and ought to be brought before MFD first, before any further discussion can even be considered. The habit of leaping to IAR before even holding proper discussions is just a way of stirring up trouble... most importantly, though, out-of-process deletions should absolutely not be allowed to put a page's fate in the 'default keep deleted' nature of DRV when an MFD hasn't even been held yet. The results of this DRV should not, under any circumstances, be taken to support re-deletion unless a clear majority in favor of that course of action appears. This is not a minor procedural matter... it is one thing to ignore MFD, skip consensus and invoke IAR or some other rule you hold to be non-circumventable after you think it's given a bad result, but to just recklessly zoom past the consensus-building step and do whatever you want without making even a basic effort to seek consensus through the usual channels is beyond reckless. This DRV should be shut down immediately in favor of a proper MFD, before any other options can even be considered. If we're not even going to run things by MFD, why do we have it in the first place? --Aquillion 18:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The deletion was entirely correct, the material does indeed constitute a copyright violation. What must be decided is whether rectifying the problems with the history is really worth the hassle and whether there is an appetite to carry out this work. Nick 18:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I somewhat disagree with the first part, as some of the material involved was sourced and not a copyvio. I agree with deciding whether to rectify the problem with the history, though. The wheat must be separated from the chaff! Or at least the chaff must be made into wheat! — Rickyrab | Talk 19:04, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, the vast majority of the material was unsourced. Just because some small percentage of it was doesn't excuse the rest of it. As for "separating the wheat from the chaff": you've had three months to do it. Nobody's stepped forward, and nobody's even stepping forward to say that they will do it this time. They're just using the hypothetical "Well, someone might". Whether an action that fixes a huge problem will actually be done is a legitimate concern. We have all the evidence we need that it isn't going to happen. --Cyde Weys 03:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion I've never been much of a fan of BJAODN, especially because of al the divisions it has caused here. Deletion is not a perfect option but there are few other viable alternatives. We can leave it as is but it would violate the GFDL. We can assemble a team of editors to make it GFDL compliant, but this seems like a huge waste of effort on something not too important to the encyclopedia. Or we can delete it. That's not to say we can't start it over, making any new BJAODN GFDL complaint from the beginning. Unfortunately, I don't see this discusion getting any consensus. It's been through 5 MFDs, another DRV, 88kb of discussion here so far, a myriad of discussions elsewhere, and an arbitration request was just made. There are just too many issues here for us to decide on anything: GFDL, Wikipedia history, WP:DENY, the amount of work put into it, etc. With any luck, the arbitration case will come up with an enforceable solution and we can stop wasting so much time. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 19:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. Bad idea to go around speedy deleting things that are obviously polemic. Since everybody is going waay off-topic here... why not me too? Here goes... Undeleting was a bad idea too, there was no hurry, so opening this DRV was a better option. GFDL issues? I suppose "bad jokes" and "nonsense" are, by their nature, original work by their editors. As such they agreed to release them as soon as they wrote it in WP. Plus, it is not up to us to be a court of law. Yes, we should do our best to respect and uphold the law, but lacking consesus, the issue should be dealt by the Foundation. If they want it deleted on copyright violation grounds they'll do an "office action", case closed. Finaly, BJAODN should be deleted, because they either glorify vandalism, or insult poor, but otherwise good faith, additions, thus being detrimental to WP development. - Nabla 19:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Process isn't the issue anymore, thus the speedy deletion isn't what is the main question. It's the content, which you said should be deleted if I'm not mistaken. If we are going to restore, there should be an actual reason for keeping it, but restoring for the sake of process, isn't something we should be taking in for consideration. — Moe ε 20:11, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is DRV, process is the only issue, or at least it should be the main one. And process is important, otherwise it would be impossible for so many people to collaborate in any productive way. - Nabla 21:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • You misunderstand the copyright issue, when people submit something to Wikipedia they are giving permission for anyone to use it if attribution is given to all authors. The problem is that this much of this attribution has been lost to deleted articles. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 20:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn deletion. Casting my vote. I don't have new stuff to say, but: I don't think it conflicts with GFDL; the vandalism is original work; the vandals and contributors inadvertently agreed to Wikipedia's GFDL when they edited. WP:MfD is more proper way to discuss this before WP:DRV, even though it has been to MfD countless times. WP:IAR has its limits and it may not be used all the time. Using WP:DENY is not a reason to delete BJAODN; it is not even a guideline. Deletion of BJAODN is disruptive. People enjoy this humor; at least I do. There is not much harm, if any, to the mainspace and other places of Wikipedia with its presence. (I understand my points have been mentioned and have been battered, but my vote holds.) — Andy W. (talk/contrb.) 20:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The vandalism is indeed original work, but without the history, the creators are not receiving due attribution. If we can't do that for any contributor on Wikipedia, which should any outside site, body or person using our work feel the need to provide due attribution ?. Nick 21:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's still a red herring: User:Gmaxwell has offered to do the work of fixing the attributions if the page is kept. The only question left, then, is whether or not WP:BOLDly deleting it per WP:DENY is good enough reasoning. Clearly this user believes not. Controversial decisions should be taken by the community with consensus, not by unilateral action. JulesH 11:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep article (overturn deletion). It's indeed unruly but we've lived with it from the early days and it is not hurting anything. Quite the opposite, it is an irreplaceable piece of our history, like Gradma's old stuff in the attic or that dusty box at the back of a museum. I wouldn't mind deprecating and locking it in its present state. But if we delete it without at least archiving it and putting it somewhere else for people to read we're erasing history. Years from now when historians want to know how this crazy Wikipedia thing came to be, they'll be wondering why we did that and wishing we hadn't. Wikidemo 21:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion We don't discuss and bandy about blatant copyright violations - we delete or fix them. Plenty of time was given to fix this one and it was not progressing. Deletion was the proper response, ethically and legally. --ElKevbo 21:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn I salute bold actions so long as they don't engender animosity or form the foundation of a useless shitstorm. The GFDL concerns are a red herring: Wikipedia produces GFDL-licensed article content, everything else exists as the background mechanism. One of the more important background diversions at Wikipedia is taking a load off, amusing oneself after hours of article writing or vandal fighting. Yeah, BJAODN is unfunny/stupid/violates every sacred right of human dignity and copyright, but it isn't exactly something that the Wikimedia foundation publishes. It is a cavernous warehouse of amusing crap kept around to show that yes, we can occasionally take a break from endless arguments and policy debates to appreciate the dumber things life. Clearing out stale/unfunny BJAODN is easy, and those who really, really give a damn about maintaining the GFDL requirements in never-going-to-be-published content might be inclined to go and fix all their own concerns, but categorical deletion is going too far. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 22:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Clue: WP:ILIKEIT only pertains to articlespace deletion discussions. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 22:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Well, you presented two other arguments besides your ILIKEIT, so I'll go into those. First, the GFDL violation is not a red herring; it is at the center of this debate. The GFDL makes it quite clear that you must provide sourcing for the history of material copied from one part of the encyclopedia to another. This has not been done. And the GFDL does not make exceptions for "cavernous warehouses of amusing crap". Second, if people really, really gave a damn about BJAODN like you state, they'd have fixed it over the last three months. This has not been done, and I see no reason to believe it will ever be done. It is pointless to wait for some knight in shining armor to come rescue BJAODN when history clearly shows a lack of effort. --Hemlock Martinis 22:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - BJAODN is the only section of the encyclopedia where questions about being able to trace the source of content moved from one page to another have ever seriously come up. This does happen on a regular basis, and nobody tracks what is being done well or consistently. If this is in fact a legitimate issue we need to address, the way that large portions of the editors and admins edit and expand the encyclopedia will have to be reviewed and corrected, and large portions of the encyclopedia are vulnerable to history-tracing challenge.
Maybe we legitimately have to do that, but please acknowledge that if you open that can, there are many many worms in it beyond BJAODN, and that the worms are carnivorous... Georgewilliamherbert 22:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's something that'll have to be looked into (and indeed, should be looked into) separately. But this is about BJAODN. --Hemlock Martinis 23:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Can't entirely be separated out. If we propose that the problem is both legitimate (which I don't disagree with) and requires draconian enforcement (which I do disagree with, but agree is up for legitimate debate), then we're grossly neglecting a whole bunch of other related problems out in article space. The policy adopted has to be consistent for BJAODN and article space, if we change anything here, and making the changes that most of the deletion advocates here recommend would have catastrophic consequences beyond BJAODN... Insisting that you can propose what is effectively new policy, and then apply it only here, is unreasonable. If you're going to make policy, then the wider effects of that must be on the table in the discussion. Georgewilliamherbert 23:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The GFDL is a license chosen by Wikimedia Foundation to distribute the sum output of Wikipedia projects, that is, articles (& the accompanying categories/templates/maybe portals). BJAODN will never, ever be distributed under the GFDL or any other license, by Wikimedia. Wikimedia may selectively enforce GFDL in any way, so any representative of the foundation would be well within their right to delete BJAODN if it was deemed a real concern. Us mere editors have to watch out for GFDL violations, especially in articlespace, but shit like BJAODN just isn't important. If the contributor of a bad joke or other bit of nonsense was to ever complain about their GFDL-given rights, the offending content would be deleted without a second glance. This has never happened. If someone is offended by any content in the BJAODN archives, they would be free to remove it or request deletion. This deletion review concerns a solution to a non-existant problem. (e/c) ˉˉanetode╦╩ 23:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
BJAODN is available under the GFDL licence from Wikimedia as we speak. It's packaged up as part of the database dumps. It's downloadable from this very website this very instant. It's printable. It's searchable. You get the idea. Nick 23:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's not presented as an article or anything remotely encyclopedic or in any way useful. Anyway, there's enough other questionable content/non-GFDL compliant material/crap on the backend of wikipediaspace to fill a thousand BJAODNs. Wikipedia makes no warranty of merchantability or complete GFDL compliance and no one has seen fit to publish this content anywhere else. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 23:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I spent about five minutes with Google and found a few sites with BJAODN content. [2] has a copy of Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense: The Next Generation for example. Nick 00:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose there are a few other mirrors that also do that, as part of reproducing the full database dump. Should have qualified that statement by saying that BJAODN has not been singled out as a piece of unique, worthy content and distributed as such. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 00:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP DELETED - One of the major reasons we created this page all those years ago was related to not having the ability to restore deleted pages. This page now simply encourages vandals by having a 'best of' archive. Let WikipediaReview do that. --mav 22:12, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment For the record, I really REALLY want to know -- why the in the WORLD do some people consider anything that "doesn't contribute to the encyclopedia" a "waste of time" as if people were required to do it? Are we not ALL volunteers? I've never understood this argument and it seems as if some people have the opinion that any of us have actual obligations to do anything around here. And, GDFL issues aside (which I admit I don't really understand...especially as I've seen that most of the edits since last time have given a diff), I think an archive of the more creative attempts is worth keeping simply for the sheer chutzpah people had in creating them. Yes, they are vandalism, but I say why NOT have them? I'm not talking about the personal attacks or the one liners (and yes, I know what some find funny others don't and vice versa). Uncyclopedia is all good, but its funny in and of itself rather than related to WP. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 02:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment for those who wish to downplay the issue of the GFDL, from Jimbo's userpage, principle 5: "The GNU FDL license, the openness and viral nature of it, are fundamental to the long-term success of the site. Anyone who wants to use our content in a closed, proprietary manner must be challenged. We must adhere very strictly to both the letter and spirit of the license." --Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 06:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • We're really not talking about using content "in a closed, proprietary manner." We're talking about preserving vandalism written specifically for this site. And even then, we've all realized even vandalism needs to be attributed to at least an IP. So recent BJAODN pages are actually very well sourced - and I see absolutely no rush to bring the backlog into compliance. For god's sake, they're vandals. They're not going to sue the Wikimedia foundation for preserving the work they intentionally posted to the site. They'd be laughed out of court. --Hyperbole 06:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not giving attribution to the original authors is exactly the type of violation Jimbo was talking about. It is not just the vandals that go unattributed, but the authors of the text the vandalism was based on. You can say "They are vandals so they don't get a copyright", but the very fact that people want to keep it demonstrates it has value, and they deserve their copyright either way. This is a matter of law, not just something we can decide to ignore. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 13:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Deletion per WP:DENY and copyright vios. The "Overturn" arguments don't convince me that BJAODN needs a place on Wikipedia. GizzaDiscuss © 12:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's a pretty weak reason, given that other people are convinced that the decision should be overturned. Of course, if this argument were made in support of an overturn, it would still be a weak reason. — Rickyrab | Talk 14:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I fail to see how copyright violation is a weak reason. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Persuasion is a weak reason. Copyright violations can often be fixed. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • If they are so easy to fix, why in all this time hasn't been? You know, it hasn't just been 2 months people have been worried about this and BJAODN keeps promising to fix it, and they don't. I would personally like for this to go to no consensus about the deletion, so I can place it on MFD. — Moe ε 16:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • Because somebody with the ability to do so has only just offered to do the work. Many of us were unaware of this issue until a few days ago, so the last two months have been irrelevant. JulesH 11:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
              • First off, it can't be done by someone, it has to be done by a lot of users and administrators. Second, the last two months have actually been the most critical if anything. BJAODN have promised to remove the violations for way over two months. Just because one or two new editors say they are going to do it when no one else does, thats a reason to keep it? No. The GFDL has been violated for way too long for someone to say that they are "going to fix it" when clearly it hasn't been done and there is a lack of effort to do so. — Moe ε 18:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn, keep, quit worrying about it and let's work on the parts of the encyclopedia that outsiders actually use. 1) BJAODN deserves preservation as part of Wikipedia's history, much like the NostalgiaWiki and perhaps some of the oldest articles on Wikipedia: where, guess what, many of the early edits may have also been lost, a clear GFDL violation. We take great pains to preserve a record of our culture, with all its various and sundry jokes and insider references; it's part of what makes Wikipedia a community, rather than a bunch of unconnected people schlepping away for free on a project. BJAODN, as much as some of ya'll don't like it, is a part of that heritage, along with WP:LAME (where this thoroughly belongs). 2) We do take pains to preserve vandalism -- every single minute of every single day, someone's vandalism gets enshrined for all time in the edit history of some article or another. It's one of our core principles: all revisions are kept, no matter how ridiculous -- unless that work is so extremely egregious that a team of people steps in and deletes it, and even then they are kept. Most of the stuff on BJAODN are one of those vandalised revisions of a page, preserved elsewhere but copied to the BJAODN space for posterity, because some editor thought it enlivened their day. 3) It's not a time sink if you don't choose to work on or read about it. 4) Regarding the GFDL -- this is the biggest question, and one that I can't tell we've gotten any real expert outside opinion on to date. Many people who are extremely competent and that I know to have a good understanding of the legal issues have disagreed, as reasonable people. It is clear that there are articles with lost histories in BJAODN. However, I feel, with GMaxwell, that it's something of a red herring. For one thing, there are other, more pressing GFDL issues. If we delete BJAODN on grounds of not adequately preserving page histories, then how about deleting every single article that's ever been merged or split from another article? How about deleting every article that has content from a now-deleted article? What about tracking down every single copyvio? That is a bigger GFDL issue, folks, and one that affects our reputation to the outside world and our outside readers. Let's get to work, and let's be consistent in how we interpret policy. -- phoebe/(talk) 14:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • You'd fix it over fixing content that other people might actually try to do something with? Content that's mirrored out to dozens of sites (unlike WP-space pages)? Why? Also, my argument is not that we should keep it because other stuff exists; my argument that we should keep it is in in the first two points, the latter two are responses to other arguments. -- phoebe/(talk) 14:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And I've heard of people who have already saved BJAODN to their hard drive. who knows what sort of BJAODN might be floating around with a Wikipedia origin years down the road, even if the thing were to be promptly be nipped in the bud? Besides, a deletion of BJAODN would make any standing violation of GFDL worse, because owners of mirror sites wouldn't be able to access the contrib list to find out sources for themselves. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've been following a deleted article on various mirrors to check how often they get updated, and it can take many months. We should also distinguish here between mirrors that just copy and update themselves frequently, and those sites that are more snapshots - dumps of the entire database at one point in time. Some of those snapshots allow people to view deleted content like BJAODN. And technically, if people have a copy of BJAODN on their hard-drive, they can republish it under the GFDL as when they got it from Wikipedia, there was an authorship history. It might be the wrong history, but it is up to Wikipedia to track down those copies and retract them, not those who took a copy (allowed under the GFDL) and gave authorship credit (as required by the GFDL). Who can verify whether or not it is the right credit without the original Wikipedia pages available? Carcharoth 16:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It seems quite unethical for those who have argued that this material violates the GFDL to support moving this material offsite so that it's "not Wikipedia's problem anymore." --ElKevbo 17:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree-- the entire concern is the Wikimedia foundation being held responsible for copyright violations. The chance of BJAODN ever being subject to legal action is incredibly small, but off site Wikimedia doesn't have to worry about it. Unfortunately, someone from Wikitruth already snagged bjaodn.com, dammit --Lucid 14:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Speak for yourself. My concern is not necessarily legal but ethical. The odds of someone filing suit or issuing a takedown notice for this material are exceedingly small. But that doesn't excuse our blatant infringement of the ideals and license(s) upon which we have built this project. --ElKevbo 14:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I personally think copyright infringement is fine, but that is my opinion and it does not belong on Wikipedia. I pirate stuff all the time, but on Wikipedia I respect its decision to follow copyright law. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 03:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thats the point- we can deal with it privately, and Wikipedia doesn't have to be involved in it. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 18:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and on the server, I've requested that my account be moved to a server to PHP 5, so that I can upgrade from MediaWiki 1.6 to the latest version available. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 18:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The BJAODN website is now up; I'm going to begin work on porting the entire thing over. Any help would be appreciated. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 20:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep restored. It is part of wikipedia history and culture. `'Míkka 00:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • That isn't a reason to keep anything that is a foundation issue or irreparably violate the GFDL. --Coredesat 01:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's asserted widely that it's a foundation issue and that it irreparably violates the GFDL, but that's just opinions of BJADON critics, not any settled policy or policy statement from anyone "above". I invite their opinions, but operating as if they already have issued such a statement or policy in absence of one is unjustified. IF they issue a ruling then this debate is all moot. In the absence of one, it's an invalid argument that the issue is settled conclusively. Georgewilliamherbert 02:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Neither of those points are true. The foundation has made no comments regarding BJAODN and the archives could be brought into compliance with the GFDL - some already have direct attribution and all are stored in their respective article histories. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 02:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC) (edit conflict, might as well post anyway)[reply]
      • Do we really need a pressing danger to follow copyright law? Isn't the fact that it is a foundation goal to offer copyleft licensed material enough? ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 03:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • I thought that at en.Wiki our only tangible, important output was our collection of articles. The foundation isn't exactly offering BJAODN as copyleft material to the masses, it is rather a half-maintained diversion for editors, nothing that is in any danger of being a copyright threat. This is due in no small part to the disclaimer about the archive being, you know, a list of bad jokes and other deleted nonsense. Prior to this deletion discussions the content was only occasionally included in mirrors as part of the database dump. Because of this deletion discussion there are now several users intent on forking out content, thereby actualizing real copyright problems predicted by the deletion itself, and doing so at the behest of deletion endorsements! Instead of keeping BJAODN as an editable, obscure, and ad-hoc process, deleting it has created friction, attracted notice, and resulted in the creation of mirrors. Now I don't care about specific deleting specific instances from BJAODN, for what it's worth all non-attributed content could go, if that is really such a huge problem, but BJAODN has value as an informal recreational process. It is vital that Wikipedia contributors have diversions *that they like*, because such diversions provide a direct incentive to focus on other, more important tasks. An inability to accept this fact, or the willingness to ignore it, is not healthy for the project as a whole. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 03:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • The foundation is exactly offering BJAODN as copyleft material to the masses. At the bottom, of every page, not just article pages, every page it says: "All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License". ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 04:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes, but not as something useful, not as an article. en.Wiki doesn't link to BJAODN from a community portal or a front page, it's just there in the background. It's not a high-priority piece of content to meticulously maintain. It has a copyleft license, and any reader is able to trace the source of any one bit of BJAODN by looking at the history of the linked article. I suppose that all BJAODN entries could be histmerged, but, again, this maintenance is not necessary for an informal, even disposable, process. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 04:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If it's forked over to a website off of Wikipedia, I'm willing to favor a deletion on Wikipedia proper. — Rickyrab | Talk 00:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • What the hell, give them a week to copy everything off-wiki, then delete everything here. That's probably the most amicable resolution to this. I think I echo most of us when I say: as long as long as it's not hosted here, it's not our problem. --Cyde Weys 03:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree with Cyde, which isn't something I do often, when it's off off Wikipedia, it ain't our problem. — Moe ε 18:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion per best practice for trash bins.VirtualDelight 08:00, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am starting to agree with the forking off to another website. The main page should not be deleted, but a link would link to the entire collection of BJAODN to the new website. — Andy W. (talk/contrb.) 14:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion Strongly agree on deletion. We don't allow reposting of deleted content. --Kjoonlee 15:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Huh, that's a good argument that I hadn't even thought of. In addition to all of the CSDs (probably every general one) that BJAODN meets. Patent nonsense? Check. Attacking users? Check. Vandalism? Check. Et cetera. --Cyde Weys 15:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archived debate of the deletion review of the article above. Please do not modify it.