User:Kiefer.Wolfowitz/AC

This voting guide

• seems to be more popular :) than my articles! :(
• agrees mostly with the evaluations by Ealdgyth, Elonka, SandyGeorgia, Badger Drink , and Wizardman. All of these guides emphasize the candidates' recent behavior, which is a better predictor of ArbCom performance than the questionnaire response.
• Guides with greater emphasis on Wikipedia policies and ArbCom processes were written by HJ Mitchell, Nuclear Warfare.

Overview

My recommendations are the following:

Support

Indomitably: Coren, Kirill, and Courcelles.

Mightily: Risker, Roger Davies, SilkTork, and AGK.

Persuasively: Hersfold, and JClemens

Tactically: Delta Quad and KWW

Oppose

Firmly: Worm That Turned (WTT), Geni

Maturely: Eluchil404 and Panyd.

Obviously: NWA.Rep and Hot Stop.

Comments

Within each category, the candidates are roughly ordered, beginning with the best. These within-category orderings are more uncertain than the between-category divisions.

I'll explain qualifications next, and later discuss the candidates individually with comments.

Qualifications

Understanding and curiosity

• ArbComm has to read a lot of material, often revolving around content disputes, and so its members must have a good education, simply to keep up, and especially to make wise decisions.
• Having written GA/FA articles or reviewed GA/FA articles on traditional encyclopedia topics are important merits, showing intellectual power.
• ArbComm members carry big sticks---and I can show you my bruises---so their public whispers cause hurricanes on Wikipedia. Clear writing is essential, and "negative capability"---silence when we have nothing good to say---is desirable.

Solidarity

Concern for vulnerable persons. Publishing the formerly confidential emails of a vulnerable person was proposed, at least briefly, by one administrator, before he clarified his opposition. Clear and firm opposition to such disclosure is an important merit; Wikipedia has had too many suicides already.

Prudence

In the Monty Hall problem case, some early decisions would have hobbled the mathematics project. I oppose candidates who behaved imprudently at the RfC of Badger Drink (or at my own RfC!).

Experience, being necessary for maturity

ArbCom is a terrible job, so the volunteers should deserve some appreciation for their hard work. Many members quit, because of the work load and the bitching and moaning of the herd of independent minds called "the community".

Thus, good ArbCom experience is an important merit. Good experience elsewhere (e.g. Wikipedia's mediation committee) is another great merit.

As a rule, new administrators should not be on ArbCom. There are no exceptions this year.

Last year, the new administrator Elen of the Roads had already flourished off-Wikipedia and on-Wikipedia; acting with the other leaders at ArbCom, she has performed exceptionally well on the committee.

Evaluation of Candidates

Support

Indomitably

• Coren (Incumbent)

  Great work on the Monty Hall Problem. Very good public leadership opposing the publication of confidential emails from a vulnerable user. Legendary creator of Corenbot.

  Nuclear Winter votes "neutral" for Coren. Dumbing-down ArbCom by removing Coren is a terrible idea. H. J. Mitchell opposes because Coren has few recent edits; in another year blessed with a great set of alternative candidates, this issue might have made a difference.

• Kirill Lokshin (Incumbent)

  Great work on the Monty Hall problem. Protected vulnerable editor.

  Nuclear Winter favors removing Kirill_Lokshin, perhaps having some "neutral"-rated candidates serve instead. Among NW's neutrals, none could have performed Kirill's work on Month Hall problem. Dumbing-down ArbCom by removing Kirill is a terrible idea. (Despite having high regard for Kirill's writing and administrative contributions to ArbCom, H.J. Mitchell is neutral, because of questions raised in "other voter guides".)

• Courcelles (new).

  Strong support. Good writer. Experienced. Opposed publication of confidential materials involving vulnerable editor.

Why I am supporting incumbents

I have ignored the ArbComm mailing scandals, whose real scandals have been the theft of confidential correspondence and the WP community reading stolen confidential correspondence. Thus, my guide does not suggest "throw the bums out".... Rather, a quality ArbCom this year requires the re-election of most incumbent administrators, if only to block unqualified/mediocre candidates.

"Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!

A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.

Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!

The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on."

— "The Great Day", William Butler Yeats (1938)

Mightily

• Risker (Incumbent).

  Inactive on Monty Hall Problem. Good work on vulnerable user

• Roger Davies (Incumbent)

  Good work on vulnerable user. Inactive on Monty Hall problem

• SilkTork (new)

  Nice person, Good writer, whom (nearly) everybody supports.

• AGK

  Good person; a few times overly process oriented. Seems to have a lot of experience and community trust being elected to lead the mediation committee, etc.

Persuasively

• Hersfold.

  Good person, good administrator, experienced, even at ArbCom.

• JClemens

• JClemens's suggested decision in the Monty Hall problem case would have hamstrung the mathematics project (11.3). In this case, he was also naively lenient in suggested action 1.2.

  Another reason for objection to JClemens was his repeated support for publicizing confidential materials from a vulnerable user. My vagueness protects privacy, intentionally. At the end, JClemens clarified that he opposed releasing confidential email, I am glad to add. However ...

On second thought, JClemens is a reasonable and collaborative ArbCom member. He is not afraid to clarify (alter) his public position when new information comes along. He does not seem to be seeking power or to enjoy the use of administrative/ArbCom sanctions, which is a merit this year, so much so that I do support his re-election.

Tactically

• Delta Quad

• I barely supported DQ at RfA. Needs more experience and quality editing. Has been doing good work as an administrator. Ordinarily, I would vote neutral.

This election has too many immature, inexperienced candidates, who should not be on ArbCom. Thus, I support Delta Quad because some unqualified ArbCom members may be knocked out of the running.

• KWW.

  Endorsements by Casliber, Carrite, etc. outweigh concerns by SandyGeorgia, at least this year.

Oppose

"Friend, though hast no business here", said the Quaker as he pushed back the pirate over the ship's railing"

Firmly

Worm That Turned

Worm That Turned's DYK "blamed" increasing pork-prices on BLT sandwiches (pictured).

Writing 4 DYKs and 2 GAs on bacon-topics earned WTT the 2011 Bacon WikiCup (pictured).

• Worm That Turned (WTT).

I oppose WTT's election this year, with regrets, because he has (1) pushed poorly written bacon-articles onto the main page and (2) supported partisan RfCs (flawed with cherry-picked diffs, taken out of context) that have ignored others' misbehaviors.

1. WTT won the 2011 Bacon Cup by writing 4 DYKs and 2 GAs on bacon-topics. WTT's bacon-cup victory is not a merit for ArbCom, however:

• The articles had poor prose (e.g. jumbling tenses),
• weak sources (perhaps even advertising?), and
• made factual errors:

• I corrected many errors in the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival.
• The main page featured a picture of a BLT with WTT's hook attributing increase in hog prices only to American's eating Bacon-Lettuce-and-Tomato sandwiches (BLTs) rather than to the increase in grain-prices emphasized by the Telegraph's article, which was entitled "...Prices ... jump after wheat crop failures". Read the article and judge whether this is a case of POV-pushing, with bacon being pushed onto Wikipedia's Main Page not by Stephen Colbert or any (fictitious) Pig Farmers of America but by an ArbCom candidate who was trying to win a Bacon Cup (pictured).

• A search for BLTs and hog-prices revealed no academic articles but only silly examples used in teaching microeconomics.

  As I expected, as an statistician surrounded by time-series econometricians, I found nothing on the alleged "BLT bump"—despite the pork cycle being the canonical example of periodicity (since 1928) in econometrics and agricultural economics. (Such a bump would be identifiable using [frequency domain|spectral analysis]], but then farmers would strategically adapt and presumably eliminate the arbitrage, in this, the best of all possible worlds.) Update: Some confusion between pork and bacon appeared when I removed the mistaken claim, in the discussion on the talk page of the BLT for which WTT and I shared a barn-star.

2. In two RfC's, WTT and other enthusiasts from RfA Reform have behaved like U.S. prosecutors, cherry-picking diffs to establish guilt, neglecting the principle of fairness, "it's important that comments are taken in context", written by ArbCom member Casliber, in an RfC.

A. Badger Drink RfC. WTT was recently admonished by present ArbCom member Casliber, in the current (badly flawed) Request for Comment about the Conduct of User:Badger Drink: Earlier, WTT first dismissed concerns that the RfC was retaliation for Badger's opposition to a young RfA candidate because it discussed other issues, and then made the belated suggestion that the RfC should have been conducted after the RfA (!), in denial about how the RfC was viewed by outside viewers. This RfC has frequent personal-attacks and incivility directed against Badger, without complaints from WTT; this acquiesence gives the appearance of partisanship and double-standards. (The anti-Badger RfC was imprudently and willfully filed, despite the pleas of advice of experienced administrators at ANI.)

B. My RfC/Full disclosure:

My account risks seeming self-serving, so I make it available on demand, for those wishing to read diffs documenting assertions.

Details

I've had a long-running conflict with a friend of WTT, who successfully summoned WTT's assistance at ANI, which led to WTT's initiating an RfC-style "mediation" (which he quit after I responded to his charges/complaints: WTT's complaints alleged that I had been "over-zealous towards younger RfA candidates" and that I had been "promoting a hierarchical atmosphere, where some editors are better than others"---I quote from memory. Next, WTT & friend took August, September, & October in drafting the RfC under WTT's leadership. WTT's RfC started with a shock-and-awe section of "issues not to be pursued", which tried to discredit me by quoting editors' complaints; in this section, WTT cherry-picked diffs in a grossly partisan way, ignoring context, and grossly distorting events. Written August-October, WTT's passive-aggressive misrepresentation "shocked" an editor who had criticized me for "POV-pushing for a week until he observed my accomplishments and congratulated my editing, indeed helping me with sources and comments ever since. WTT's RfC continued to misrepresent my editing|, again cherry-picking quotes from me and others out of context and ignoring obvious counter-examples to his claims. Finally, WTT/David accused me of having removed material because of my personal politics: "He feels articles related to certain USA political parties have an "ideological bias", which he solves by removing what he sees as OR/POV in them." This AGF violation was made despite my having restored the deleted material! WTT failed to retract this accusation, despite a euphemistically polite request. His behavior in my RfC suggest that WTT should face strong opposition in this election, imho. "One man's meat is another man's poison": WTT's RfC/U against me RfC/U against me was endorsed by the often sanctioned but always intelligent & forthright William M. Connolley, who has found me to be unhelpful! ;) Finally, despite WTT's involvement, and mocking me with "a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing", WTT used a misleading edit-summary "This should be closed" when he not only closed but also misused the hidden-archive template, to which he attached the cover-up label "User blocked for a week, tangential discussion closed - nothing left to see here; this action violated the prohibition against involved administrators applying the administrators-only hidden archival template. User blocked for a week, tangential discussion closed - nothing left to see here. The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. Resolved  – User blocked for a week I'll try and keep this brief. The other day, I noted a nomination by Lihaas (talk · contribs) at WP:ITNC was posted on the wrong date [1]. So to get back at me, he undid one of my revisions on the page marking a seperate nomination as ready [2] (it was eventually posted by an admin). Later on, another editor moved the nomination to the right day [3] but Lihaas later red-added it [4] and decided to take a shot at me unnecessarily [5]. So I warned him not to do it and explained that he was wrong in assuming I moved it [6]. In response, he made this somewhat threatening response [7] and now he's comparing me to deposed dictators [8]. Hot Stop talk-contribs 21:48, 9 November 2011 (UTC) hot stop whos vengeance mongering started eons ago takes it upon himself to REFACTOR other comments without any authority whatsoever. Thats not his prerorgative. And the issue is the same of the Nigeria attakcs (something he did before before because he did not like yet he has whis cake and eat it too with the current ITN on JOe Frazier) Umm he did remove it! not MOVE IT! Anyways hes quite pov in assuming notoriety...Lihaas (talk) 21:57, 9 November 2011 (UTC) This isn't Lihaas' first time at ANI. Sigh. I've issued a final warning. m.o.p 21:53, 9 November 2011 (UTC) and youre authourity like his? Furthermore the subject title here is CLEARLY an NPA to make prejudgements where he has no authority at allLihaas (talk) 21:57, 9 November 2011 (UTC) I should clarify that I've changed the section title here; Lihass is objecting to a previous section title, not "Lihass". --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:21, 9 November 2011 (UTC) I wish you'd both dial it back a few notches. I realize this kind of spiraled out of control, and I hesitate to criticize only the person who went the furthest over the line, but Lihass, this is too far over the line. If this conflict is a single instance, can't you disengage and go back to your corners? And if this is a long-simmering dispute between the two of you, then I guess you should say so. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:12, 9 November 2011 (UTC) Off the top of my head, I've also noted other instances when items he posted are "stale" (too old be posted), but it's never devolved to this point. Hot Stop talk-contribs 22:20, 9 November 2011 (UTC) If there's a relatively harmless pattern of posting stale items, then I'd ignore it. If there's a pattern of posting stale items that you think is disruptive (being careful not to let your current antagonism cloud your judgement), then that sounds like a job for WT:ITN. I meant, a history of you two arguing unproductively with each other. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:26, 9 November 2011 (UTC) this is not something beyond AN incident...not a recalling of all thing that pissed people off. His "current antagonism DOES cloud [his] judgement." I dont cry to ANI or elsewhere when things dont go my way...thas whymy complaints dont appear here! Lets note he inclides a history f bitchinginstead of productive additionsLihaas (talk) 23:26, 9 November 2011 (UTC) but fine i agree to tone it down if its MUTUAL...his accusation above that i maliciously posted stale posts is also "over th line" and Not AGF...i cant keep sitting back and takiong nsanctioned NPAs just ebcause i dont complain!Lihaas (talk) 23:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC) Calling another editor's actions 'bitching' and 'crying' is past the final straw. I've blocked Lihaas for one week. m.o.p 00:48, 10 November 2011 (UTC) But Lihaas can get smeared as a "national socialist" for a week and you administrators just sit on your hands and do nothing .... What a political crib you crawl in if "bitching and moaning" is worse than Nazism.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC) The user has a userbox proclaiming himself to be a national socialist. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC) Lihaas has hundreds of contradictory user boxes, as you know, BB, yet you shamelessly repeat the ns smear and neglect his boxes identifying himself as a classical liberal, as a supporter of Pahlin, as an opponent of Pahlin, etc. Your user name Baseball Buggs contains "ass" but it would be unfair to say that you identify yourself as an ass.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 09:20, 10 November 2011 (UTC) OK, so you're saying he's not necessarily any of those things, he's just being funny. 10-4. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:30, 10 November 2011 (UTC) And in this ANI, you were told by around 10 users (admins and editors alike) that pointing out that a user has a userbox (self-created I might add) is not a smear. It's time to drop that stick. WormTT · (talk) 09:27, 10 November 2011 (UTC) Lihaas has been blocked for the straw "bitching and moaning", yet the smear "national socialist" went without chastisement of the administrator and familiar. This is a double standard. Who cares what 10 lightweights think when Geometry guy has explained the impropriety of smearing Lihaas?  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 09:36, 10 November 2011 (UTC) I have warned Kiefer.Wolfowitz on his talk page that any further discussion by him of the whole "Lihaas was smeared" topic will get him blocked for disruption. This has gone on for far too long. Fram (talk) 09:41, 10 November 2011 (UTC) I certainly can discuss the smearing at appropriate venues, such as ArbComm Elections, RfAs, RfCs, etc. Please redact your "any" and replace with "inappropriate".  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 09:50, 10 November 2011 (UTC) Oh yes, wikilawyering, that will improve things. Just drop it. Fram (talk) 09:53, 10 November 2011 (UTC) It is not a smear. It is a self-proclaimed fact. His edits confirm it. BTW, I pointed out his user box on talk page long before Elen ever did. Paul B (talk) 09:55, 10 November 2011 (UTC) Can I please ask everybody else to not respond to these comments either. Any response will only invite further comments, and if he then gets blocked, he may claim that it was one-sided, and that he isn't even allowed to respond to comments and so on. Fram (talk) 09:59, 10 November 2011 (UTC) Kiefer.Wolfowitz now blocked for 24 hours for continued discussion of the "national-socialist" issue after ample warning. Fram (talk) 10:05, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

The community has observed ArbCom for many years. When ArbCom members walk among us, we don't want them to brandish (or swing) their ArbCom billy-clubs, with possible partisanship---the appearance of which concerned ArbCom member Casliber in Badger Drink's RfC/U.

Did You Know

• "... that high autumn pork prices are blamed on Americans eating so many BLTs (pictured) during the summer?"

Discussion of BLT this week

At WTT's RfA, BLT ranked 6 among his most edited articles. "Well, I'm intently proud of all my contributions.... My other good articles are food and drink related, Clotted Cream, ... and BLT, and I feel all 7 are well written and on interesting topics." Yesterday, I removed the assertion, and WTT promptly reinserted it with "rephras(ing) for clarity". Jayron removed the claim, hinting at WP policies (WP:Reliable, and WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle) and asking for a talk-page discussion. For fairness, more context is needed, imho. (α) Soon thereafter, WTT proposed correcting the error, and adding the interesting fact that tomato harvests influencing BLT consumption (and perhaps bacon prices). WP is saved! :) The Moral of the Story: It would have been unfair for me to cite only WTT's mistakes, etc., without mentioning (α) his proposing a workable solution. In my RfC, WTT cherry-picked diffs and provided no context--no alphas (α). At Badger Drink's RfC, WTT condoned the omission of context, until Casliber spoke up. Regardless of this election's outcome, I wish that WTT would better understand that fairness and trust-building require providing context for diffs, and not omitting (α) in order to score a conviction, especially at RfC/Us. His candidacy faces my opposition this year. Let us wish that WTT shall earn our support for the next election.

• Geni

I was somewhat concerned by the bad block of Malleus F. The diffs given by NW and SandyGeorgia convinced me to oppose.

Maturely

• Eluchil404

  Intemperate and imprudent position in the RfC against Badger Drink, but better than Panyd there.

• Panyd

  Cliche-ridden hysteria at RfC/U, ,

Meshegas fun der goyim: Accusing an editor of racism, Pandyd ignored the long ANI discussion on "goyim"

I quote from the RfC of Badger Drink Badger Drink's edit summary included a funny summary, "only a truly befuddled, naive goyim would present something so condescending as fact", which was denounced as "racism" in a "case" at ANI, which was laughed at. Nonetheless, Badger Drink's only use of "goyim" was again the basis of a "racism" charge ---- ignoring the ANI thread! --- by ArbCom candidate Panyd. Panyd's statement that "incivility ... is not something we should ever tolerate" is inconsistent with WP:Civility's recognition that occasional incivility is a fact of life. Another accusation is that Badger Drink is driving off new editors: "Do we honestly think the allowance of continued incivility for the sake of one good editor is worth losing however many potential new editors are driven off by this behaviour?" This serious charge was made without any evidence. Begin quote Outside view by Panyd There appears to be a cognitive dissonance within the project which says that if a user can contribute competently to articles (pillar 1), then they can completely ignore civility (pillar 4). This should not be the case. Incivility, especially borderline-racist incivility (I don't know what else you can call the perojative term Goyim, especially when used in that context), is not something we should ever tolerate. That this incivility has then been compounded by a refusal to participate in RfC, as well as calling the individual who opened it a vapid, frivolous, and/or completely bogus...two-faced individual, is ludicrous. Why are we allowing this? Editor retention is dropping by the month. New editor rates are also decreasing by the month. This issue is larger than simply the editor to hand but I must ask; Do we honestly think the allowance of continued incivility for the sake of one good editor is worth losing however many potential new editors are driven off by this behaviour? PanydThe muffin is not subtle 22:29, 12 November 2011 (UTC) Users who endorse this summary: As writer PanydThe muffin is not subtle 22:29, 12 November 2011 (UTC) A-bleepin'-men! Turning out quality content is not, repeat, is not a "get out of jail free" card for violating one of our pillars. It's just not, no matter how many people believe we should look the other way when that particular pillar is chipped away at. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 22:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC) Absolutely! The real irony is that surely any editor who can contribute good NPOV prose in an article, or many articles, can make the effort do so so elsewhere in their communications? If an editor were incapable of writing clearly, and concisely, and inoffensively in articles, one might understand it. But when someone who can so obviously do the right thing "where it counts" (content creation) chooses so deliberately not to do it when interacting with other editors, it seems like a real case of waving two fingers at Pillar 4. Pillar 1 is not, and never should be, or be considered to be, immunity from compliance with Pillar 4 (or any others!) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:12, 13 November 2011 (UTC) DGG ( talk ) 18:27, 13 November 2011 (UTC) I've spent years asking for the secret cheat sheet that says how many good contribs let's you tell someone to "Fuck off", or let's you piss all over another user. Surprisingly all the users who spend time defending these "good contributors" can never provide it.--Crossmr (talk) 23:37, 13 November 2011 (UTC) --Jayron32 02:59, 14 November 2011 (UTC) And this rule isn't just stated in Pillar 4, it's also Founding Principle 4, listed in the simplified ruleset, and, my favorite, it's the second of the three points of the Trifecta. Notice that "don't be a vandal" and "don't have a sock" are listed. In reality, "don't be a vandal" is merely a subset of the same principle. These should be treated just as seriously, but we often overlook civility because the direct effect on content is not obvious and some of our content is disputed/controversial. Look at some of our sister projects that have fewer issues with content disputes and vandalism (e.g. Wikisource) and you will find that issues of civility are frequently recognized as far more important. On some of those projects there are no other important disputes.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 15:15, 14 November 2011 (UTC) Especially considering that Badger's contributions thus far aren't very extensive, I think some would agree that his contributions along with his disruptive comments are a net negative. —SW— prattle 17:17, 14 November 2011 (UTC) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:35, 14 November 2011 (UTC) Kaldari (talk) 02:56, 15 November 2011 (UTC) Right. This is systemic problem. See my point above re questioning if (V(BD) >= N x V(A) x P). There's a limit to how much "eternal September" type behavior it is healthy for the this project to tolerate, I'd say. Herostratus (talk) 15:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC) Badger may be a competent editor, but he's not irreplacable. I personally find his attitude to be extremley childish and based on his unwillingness to even participate in this RfC (behavior which, if you'll pardon my expression, is comparable to that of a child covering his ears and going "la la la"), I doubt he's willing to change. -waywardhorizons (talk) 18:44, 22 November 2011 (UTC)This was waywardhorizons's 15th edit. Cardamon (talk) 06:03, 24 November 2011 (UTC) A fair outside-view and dismissal of the "racism" charge was given by editor Cardamon. After quote The ironic & humorous use of "a goyim" was discussed at ANI with mind-numbing/numbed exhaustiveness. The fatuity of this "RfC/U Outside view", disregarding the ANI discussion, suggests that the Panyd and the signatories failed to read examine the diff of the "goyim" joke or the diffs where Badger Drink replied at ANI. Anybody who would write (or support) such a fatuous rant, accusing an editor of racism after the ANI discussion, is unfit to serve on ArbCom.

Obviously

Nobody supports these candidates and most oppose them.

• NWA.Rep
• Hot Stop

A Guide to the guides to the guides: Who guides the guiders?

With too many seats and too many candidates, this election may give first-time voters headaches. Be not afraid! Three angelic editors have provided guides to the guiders, to which I and User:Volunteer Marek guide you:

• Monty845 wrote a descriptive guide summarizing voting advice.
• John Vandenberg voted support/neutral/oppose for each guide. He obviously mistyped "support" rather than the intended "strong support" for this guide. ;) He rightly notes that my participation at the ArbCom case of the Monty Hall problem was important, so much so that an early edition of this guide leaned towards opposing JClemens.
• SandyGeorgia's (obviously flawed!) methodology ignores this guide, but rather summarizes the three guides---by SandyGeorgia, Elonka, and Ealgdyth---I recommended below.

Other guides:

• Wikipedia's best writers have the ability to analyze important ideas and to write clearly. Of course, SandyGeorgia, Ealgdyth, Elonka wrote great guides.
  • I praise Elonka, despite my having criticized her in both of our previous interactions: Elonka's opposition to Worm That Turned cannot be dismissed as "axe grinding".
• Two of the guides make a lot of accusations and are filled with name-calling. After criticism, their most egregious NPA/AGF/Civility violations have been removed, but new editors should understand their authors' personal involvements and depth of anger:
  • Sven Manguard accused Roger Davies of having a "God complex". Sven disclosed that he is more familiar with WTT off-Wiki than on-Wikipedia. Sven removed an unsubstantiated personal attack alleging sock-puppetry, without apology but with the comment that "it was not worth fighting over". Not only did Sven criticize this guide as "having an axe to grind", he also edited Monty's user-space and removed the links to the individual comments.
  • William M. Connolley, who has been sanctioned several times, honestly wrote transparent attacks on ArbCom members, calling individuals by name "crap", called Kirrill Lokshin "crap", calls Hersfold a "lightweight", etc.

Gnu's not Unix

This guide discusses itself and Volunteer Marek's guide, and may well be the first meta-recursive guide in Wikipedia election history. Volunteer Marek's meta-guide discusses only other guides to guides