Wikibooks:Requests for deletion/A guide to cheating during tests and examinations

A guide to cheating during tests and examinations
217.137.110.30 20:17, 6 November 2005 (UTC):Keep: How could you delete this, everyone has a right to free speech, Deleting it is like taking away someones righ to free speech, I think it should stay. (JMiller)

65.96.171.165 added VfD tag, but not a write up here. Next 38.112.6.122 changed it to a speedy deletion tag with only the justification, content serves no legitimate purpose (whatever legitimate means), which I have just reverted back to the VfD. Geo.T 03:50, 27 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep Merge with The Manual of Crime Geo.T 13:46, 27 August 2005 (UTC) - I agree with a comment on the talk page that states that it would be a good reference for instructors. See my comments on /The Manual of Crime/ for my opinion on this kind of thing. Geo.T 03:50, 27 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete - There's no real direction this book could go. The list currently reads like ideas that would come to your head after, say, 40 minutes of thought. They are not even practical enough to be useful. At least The Manual of Crime has enough content to become a real book project, despite my opinion that it's not appropriate for our nice little book project we have going here. But I just don't see this one becoming much of anything. MShonle 05:15, 27 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep - The book is an interesting read and deleting the book is nothing short of censorship. The argument supplied of "spray painting a church group's wall" has two issues. (1) It assumes the person is in a church group. (2) More importantly, the spray painting would be blatant defacement with meaningless drivel. This book is neither defacement nor meaningless drivel. The arguments against this thus run as follows. (1) This book is an ethical violation. (2) People should remain rationally ignorant. To (1), I respond that ethics are particular to people and deleting this for the sake of enforcement of your view of ethics on other people is censorship. I do not believe that you should tell other people what their ethics should be or force them to conform to your views (meaning they disagree but have no more choice). I realize this is a performative contradiction (ie. by posting this I am quasi-violating the latter because I am attempting to force people to conform to my standard of no censorship, which is a form of censorship because it censors censorship). If wikibooks supports free speech, then its policy should prohibit censorship, excepting the case of censoring censorship. To (2), I respond that there are a lot of things you would likely prefer to remain rationally ignorant of; however, that does not warrent their deletion either. --Caudax 09:03, 05 September 2005 (GMT)
 * I know I can't vote here, but I suggest that if it's kept it be renamed to Academic cheating. Thanx 69.142.2.68 06:22, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps instead of deleting this book (if that is the consensus), it might be best to merge it with the The Manual of Crime, or whatever it get renamed to, if that book is kept. Geo.T 10:01, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, you could never write an entire book about cheating; being a subpage of The Manual of Crime (perhaps renamed to "illegal activities" or something vague to be a catch-all?) would be fine. GarrettTalk 13:39, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what this vote means. The justification suggests you want to keep it so long it is merged. Lucidish 04:57, 31 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep or Merge but definitely don't Delete Until you register, your vote isn't valid --Mijokijo 16:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC) Y'all got no scope. First, the idea that cheating a testing system can never serve a legitimate purpose assumes that all testing authorities are good and right, when in fact we know that testing methodology is widely and deeply flawed, and not all test results are used for humane or just purposes. Cheating is basically a form of hacking a system, which I'm going to assume Wikibiblians will recognize as not a black-and-white issue, not least because this book could teach teachers how to spot  it (and might  get them to change some of their more flawed testing methodology). Second, anyone who thinks a book-length work on cheating is impossible has never read a book on the theory and practice of magic/prestidigitation. Trust me, it's more than possible. You could write a book on the different kinds and applications of cheat-sheet alone.
 * I've not seen a more ethically deficient justification for not doing the right thing. If this is really part of your philosophy of life (that nothing is "black-and-white"), you need to take a course in basic ethics. No wonder you do not sign your comments. My vote: Delete - marsh 17:44, 29 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, but who would ever WRITE that book? We have enough trouble getting good books on math and history written (no offence to anyone writing those subjects) let alone something with as small a contributor group as this. We've already got oodles of stubs lying around of ideas that seemed far more likely to be expanded than this does, and they didn't get anywhere either. But it can easily be separated out of the bigger book when and if it gets fat enough, we won't prevent that from happening if it does happen. GarrettTalk 07:50, 28 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete This has gone far enough. You can't justify this sort of material. Get this off Wikibooks! --Mijokijo 19:22, 29 August 2005 (UTC)


 * "keep everything" someone obviously put a lot of time and energey into makeing a coherent and reletivly complete guide to academic cheating. For their effort and considering the nature of an open wiki like this, i think it would be immature and overly judgemental of anyone to think that a section on cheating is morally unethical.  Besides, cheating only really hurts the cheater and the test.  Keep it, because freedom of information is a good thing. (btw i dont think anyone who is seriously planning on cheating is going to read the guide to figure out how to do it)


 * You can justify this under free speech and also out of passing curiosity. I myself would never use this but it is rather interesting to read the wikibook. --Caudax 08:28, 05 September 2005 (GMT)

I put the following reply on the talk page for this book and I felt it should also go here as well:
 * For the record, this book reads very far from what a book on "How to Prevent Cheating" would look like. Just the same way that the Manual of Crime reads nothing like what "A Guide to Home Security" would be. So don't even pretend these "helping out the victim" arguments is somehow a key goal of these books, or that they're even good resources. Most cheaters and most criminals get caught eventually. There is nothing amazing about their techniques, because in the long run they get caught (even Blane Nordahl did). The only thing of note about these activities is the harm it does to their victims. If you cheat at your school, you are lowering the value of your school's degrees for everyone else. MShonle 15:09, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

--MShonle 19:49, 29 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep (or Merge). The project of putting together "free books" necessarily destroys the prospect of censorship -- except in truly outstanding circumstances, like how to be a terrorist or a rapist or what have you. Lucidish 04:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
 * There's a huge difference between editorialship and censorship. Censoring is suppressing the publication or distribution of other people's or organizations' works. Editing is deciding what you yourself want to publish. People are free to get their own servers, install MediaWiki, and publish what they want: WikiBooks can't stop them, because we have no censorship powers. Further, we've also set a long precedent of deleting more than just works with "outstanding circumstances." We've also deleted drivel, nonsense, off-topic books, original research, political group projects, and even works that just weren't going anywhere. It simply would not be fair to the many contributors to WikiBooks who write wonderful introductory texts to suddenly ruin the reputation of WikiBooks simply because we misunderstand what the word "censorship" means. Provided we only control what's on our own servers we are merely editors. MShonle 05:20, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
 * This is an instance of both censorship and editorialship, by your own definitions. Wikibooks can be considered both a distributor and an author. To the extent that it is the former, it is censorship; and the latter, editorialship. Further, I said nothing about those other concerns (nonsense, original research, etc), since they weren't directly relevant; of course those are legitimate reasons for censoring. Just don't kid yourself about what the word means. Lucidish 16:55, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
 * If you're at your church group, and you say that you want to spray paint on the side of the building "All Your Base Are Belong To Us," but the group says no, is that censorship? There's a point where using that label simply isn't helpful. I'm not concerned with the consequences of passersby reading "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" and the negligible or real impact that will have on their lives. I'm concerned about the church group's right to do with their property as they please. By throwing the word censorship around it completely ignores the rights of the group. Instead of throwing labels around we should try to reach consensus. Although we have ethical obligations we should be concerned more about what it is we want to create and express on this site than how better or worse we're making the world. MShonle 17:28, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
 * As part of the Wiki group, I do not think a) the relevant material crosses a threshold where the rights of others are violated, or b) the material was posted in bad faith (as in vandalism etc). That analogy does not apply. The rights of the group are not being called into question.
 * All moral intuitions have to do with consequences. If you truly eliminate that from consideration, given the above, then really your argument hasn't got any force behind it. Moreover, censorship is a decision that ought not be taken lightly -- it is a consideration that has weight. In my judgment, enough weight to spare this entry. To change my vote, I would have to see that there are significant issues that provide counterweight. Lucidish 18:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't necessarily agree with Mshonle, but you are misunderstanding his analogy. He's specifically asking about good faith contributions to a group (and their "property" -- quotes since we're talking about bits...) and whether the group has the power/right/responsibility to define their goals and therefore what happens on their "property". He is arguing that the goal of wikibooks does not include this module, that removing it is not censorship because the group never consented to its existence in the first place (since it would not have met the criteria for something following their goals) and therefore that it is the right of the group to remove it. So the argument he is making is less about harm and rights being violated than the granting of permission based on some form of collective control/ownership. Kellen T 20:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)


 * This censorship point is moot, since deleting this book would be an act of censorship. But who cares? The underlying argument is actually a matter of free speech, whether wikibooks is actually free enough to host this sort of material. Basically, there are two reasons that I can think of to keep this book


 * 1) "Wikibooks is made for distributing information for free. This is information, so keep it! Censoring it is a violation of free speech!"
 * 2) "This book could have some redeeming value. Instructors can use it to find information on how people can cheat and stop them!"


 * As we know, free speech has its limits and restrictions. You can't say just anything you want and claim protection under free speech. So then, the free speech issue actually boils down to whether or not this book is actually protected under free speech and the wikipedia/books philosophy, or whether the subject matter is inappropriate. So then, we must ask, what positive good can this book do? What redeeming value does it have, if any, to protect it under free speech or the wiki philosophy?


 * On the one hand, it can help instructors.
 * On the other, it can help cheaters.


 * The two possible ways in which it can 'help' both oppose each other. It helps the cheaters just as much as the teachers. So then, why have it at all when all it really does it support two conflicting goals?


 * There are three possible scenarios.


 * 1) Student A cheats, Teacher B catches cheater thanks to this wikibook (yay!).
 * 2) Student A cheats, Teacher B never read this wikibook, cheater gets away.
 * 3) Student A doesn't cheat, Teacher B read this book and is prepared, but it doesn't matter since the student is acting ethically (yay!).


 * So then, we can see that this book actually hurts more than it helps, because in the second scenario, it doesn't help the teacher since the teacher didn't read this book, but the cheater did. So actually, this book is only good for the first scenario, but not for any other scenario.


 * But then, there is always the third reason to keep this book


 * 3. For the hell of it.


 * I don't think I need to argue against that point. I think I've explained enough; this wikibook should be deleted. --Mijokijo 16:18, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
 * An interesting analysis, but you seem to have misinterpreted your own scenario. The outcome is positive overall: option (1) is positive, (2) is negative, (3) is positive. And anyway, the point of providing this wiki is that the teacher can know of it if they wished to. It is not reasonable to expect people to control actual outcomes, only to facilitate good ones as best they can. Lucidish 18:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Not quite. (3) actually is neutral, since this wikibook would have no impact on the situation. Scenario 2 is what breaks the deal, since now wikibooks is contributing directly to that student getting away with cheating (by detailing subtle or 'sophisticated' ways of cheating). If there was a way to make this wikibook only available to teachers than this would be a valid book to have on wikibooks, but as-is it does more harm than good. --Mijokijo 01:48, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I have to add (4) Student reads wikibook but does not cheat because the student is acting ethically, in which case all the student has done is merely learned about another topic. I do not believe in enforcing rational ignorance. This is mostly you enforcing your views of ethicality upon others, which qualifies quite correctly as censorship. If this were meaningless drivel or defacement, I would by all means support deletion. However, I currently do not support its deletion --Caudax 08:45, 05 September 2005 (GMT)
 * Yes, it is censorship. It has nothing to do with enforcing views of ethics and everything to do with wikibooks not becoming a vehicle for cheaters to share tips. Try as you may, you can't legitamize this wikibook. "Learned about another topic" my foot. What sort of topic has been learned? 101 ways to get out of studying and doing any work. 101 ways to 'hack the system'. Wow, what a learning experience. --Mijokijo 21:17, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Amazingly, I have already rebutted all of your points (and not for the sake of rebuttal, but because what I said truly is my belief on the matter communicated in a rationalized manner). First, I am saying that it is the proponents of the deletion who are seeking to enforce their views of ethics. For instance, you view it unethical for wikibooks to host books that give tips on cheating; therefore, you wish the book to be deleted to coincide with your views on what is ethical or not. Thus, you are attempting to enforce your views of ethics upon the wikibooks community. You then state "Wow, what a learning experience." This comment coincides with "enforcing rational ignorance" as you are saying that people should rationally remain ignorant of the topic. Whether or not to remain rationally ignorant of a subject is for the potential reader to decide, not another person. I am sure there are a great deal of topics you would rather remain rationally ignorant on; however, that does not mean everyone else should too. Some people are simply, inherently curious and you have no right to determine what is or isn't fit for them to learn. --Caudax 02:56, 11 September 2005 (GMT)
 * Really? I guess I don't have any right to vote then. I must have been confused.


 * Under what conditions should Wikibooks keep a book then? What qualifies this wikibook as proper wikibook material? Simply because somebody posted it here? Or are you saying there is something legitimate to be learned from this wikibook? I have already dealt with the usefulness of this wikibook as a guide for teachers, and it lacks quite a bit for that use.


 * I think perhaps now would be a good chance for you to give us some good reasons to keep this book, besides the whole censorship issue (since I agree this would be censorship, but proper censorship). Just some pleasure learning for those curious as to how to cheat?
 * Your cynisism amuses me as little as my words have amused you. If you believe that what I have stated constitutes that you have no right to vote, then you have conceded that this is solely a matter of whether or not you would have people learn this, in which case I stand by my words; you do not have the right to determine for other people. (Ergo, no, you don't have the right to vote in favor of deletion.) In my opinion (yes I grant it is but an opinion, but so is yours), a wikibook should be kept if it is not defacement or meaningless drivel. The book does not lack anything to aid teachers. Your argument that it is too lacking for teachers is nonexistant; you but argued that it is more likely that a student would abuse it than that a teacher would be able to properly use it. A teacher could certainly use this tool to discern the techniques students use for cheating, even if this guide does not bluntly explain for the teacher how to do it. Furthermore, most prescription medicines have been discovered to be ineffective for the majority of the users, who are inclined to suffer from side-effects instead of acquiring the desired results. By your logic, that should be banned too, even though there are still people who benefit from it. --Caudax 03:57, 14 September 2005 (GMT)


 * I find it ironic that you would disenfranchise me to prevent a case of censorship.


 * This is not a case of life or death or bad health (in which case, one may take the risks associated with drugs), this is a case of encouraging cheating. Your basic premise is, "this isn't a defacement or meaningless drivel, so let's keep it." You merely tried to downplay the potential consequences of leaving this book on wikibooks. Wikibooks' policy disagrees with your premise; wikibooks isn't suppose to be everything to everybody.


 * Your example is flawed. Everybody that takes prescription drugs [normally] has an illness to cure. Drugs normally don't give you the illness you're trying to get rid of or prevent. Keeping this wikibook up is like letting anybody take a drug that can cure their illness, or even cause it (for those who don't have the illness), without permission or supervision. In the end, leaving this drug up will likely cause more people to become sick than to be cured, and in the end more sick then cured people will result. Those people that want the drug to cure an illness can just as easily treat themselves using herbal remedies (learn/think up ways to cheat), thereby going around the drug altogether. --Mijokijo 15:59, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
 * About "leaving this drug up," I have already explained how the situation is identical (in that regard) to prescription drugs. Drugs have been known to give you worse illnesses than the ones you are trying to get rid of or prevent. Unless I'm very much mistaken, by the way, over-the-counter drugs have been proven to be worse than prescription drugs (ie. a drug anybody can take). Also, teachers would have the illness of "cheaters" to "cure." I do not see how my example is flawed.


 * As for downplaying the consequences of leaving this book on wikibooks, I did no such thing; I merely refrained from commenting on the blatantly obvious because it is blatently obvious. There's no point in commenting on that. I have never once disagreed that this book will aid cheaters and that there will be an increased amount of cheaters. However, as you apparently have desires to turn this point into a discussion point, I would like to comment that as wikibooks has been a learning source and as such is more likely to attract readers interested in the pursuit of knowledge than readers interested in beating the system. Furthermore, when it comes to downplaying the consequences of leaving this book on wikibooks, you have done exactly that with the effects such as teachers learning more about how cheaters cheat (and such knowledge is commonly extremely limited) and how other readers might also wish to read this out of curiosity without making abusive use of it.


 * As for whether or not to encourage cheaters, you'll find that an audience that would be tempted by this is rediculously smaller with the general wikibook audience. As for wikibooks policy, feel free to link it and then I'll discuss it. I'm not going to discuss a system I'm not sure how it works because I wont really know what I'm saying and that would accomplish nothing. As for disenfranchising you in the name of prohibiting censorship, I have already explained how the only thing I would have censored would be censorship itself. Anti-censorship has always been an ironic concept. --Caudax 01:03, 17 September 2005 (GMT)

Further thoughts
Is there any interest from the contributors of this book to change the title to "A Teacher's Guide to Finding Cheaters" and rewriting it to present similar information, but always from that perspective? Also, would there be any objections? I think I may strike out my previous statement and vote, because I'm convinced now there is at least a chance a text from this angle could evolve into something constructive that could amount to something. (My vote on record was concerned with how the book could even be developed. An extended list of other things to write, that would provide direction, could help address this concern.) Naturally, people looking to cheat could "read between the lines" and figure out the same material anyway. That's one reason I'm trying to avoid any arguments along the lines of "but if we do this, this bad thing will happen" or "but if we don't do this, this good thing won't happen." This fails because there can be a lot of unintended positive results, and a lot of unintended negative results. For example, for all we know a book on biology might start an argument between a teenager and their parents which might cause the teenager to run away from home. We'd never hold the biology textbook authors (to just use this hypothetical example) accountable for that. The biology textbook author's sole responsibility is to develop books suitable for coursework. Of course, we do have ethical obligations as well, which can override some of these rules, but the topic at hand is sufficiently G-rated to not raise much concern (afterall, don't we remember that episode of the Wonder Years where Kevin cheats?). So, to me, I'm now more concerned with the community goals. I still maintain WikiBooks is primarily a source for textbooks. The cookbook is allowed, because there are courses on cooking. (I also think the Poker and Chess books should be allowed, because there are international organizations and competitions centered around these, and their own libraries would have How-To books similar to what these books can become.) But the further away from this common goal we get, and the darker the territory, the less fair it is to people who didn't want to see the project get moved in that direction. I'd also recommend we hold off on the previous ideas of merging with the Manual of Crime, given now that that book is likely to go, and it wouldn't be fair to delete this book indirectly that way. If we are to delete the cheater's guide we'll need fair reasons for doing so. If we can work together and make the book a Teacher's guide I would see less reason to delete, if any at all. However, I do have concerns about the "original work" nature currently reflected; for example, the section on Karma doesn't seem like it was actually constructed from a primary and secondary source to see what teachers feel about cheating. I think you'd find that teachers at schools that hand out degrees to be equally disturbed by the capacity that cheating lowers the quality of the degree for everyone else. (And thus it is not a victimless "crime" nor one where you "are only hurting yourself".) Perhaps a new introduction could start with that. MShonle 22:09, 1 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I doubt that this book will amount to anything more than a guide for cheaters. It was never meant to be so, it was meant as an aid to cheaters, not teachers. The authors of and contributors to the book have shown no desire to make it an instructive guide for teachers. Unless they relinquish their desire to make a guide for cheaters (their original intention) and decide on making a guide suitable for teachers (the opposite intention; they don't want to empower teachers, they want to empower cheaters), there will be no way for such a venture to be accomplished.


 * You say that we can never know the side effects of a person reading the books on wikibooks. I agree; however, your example doesn't work, since nobody would ever expect anything of that nature to come about. There is no way to even predict that would happen. With a book named 'A guide to cheating during tests and examinations' detailing all the different ways to cheat, how could we NOT predict that the book could be used for bad rather than good?


 * What does it mean to be 'fair' about deleting this book, directly or indirectly? If you mean according to wikibook policies, then I agree, but if we're being 'fair' for the sake of being 'fair' then I think logic has left the building.


 * One more thing. At the top of the article in the big red box it says, "Disclaimer: All of the below material is for research purposes only..." I thought wikibooks wasn't meant for original research? --Mijokijo 12:32, 2 September 2005 (UTC)


 * By fair I just meant that if it were to be deleted, it would be good for us to have a solid reason. All I'm worried about is that I have some doubts in my mind about the reason I first used. No doubt more books like this will come up, so it would be best to have a solid precedence to turn to. I think this leaves other issues for the book, which I think would be legitimate reasons to delete, although some of them could be addressed: (1) The book is original research-- for something that isn't orthodox it should reference scholarly work. I say orthodox because a book, say, in orthodox Economics, the laws of supply and demand are so well agreed upon by each and every textbook that in order to funish sources you just need to name any textbook. (2) The book is probably not valid-- As a result of the first problem there's no way to know if any of the techniques have the desired effect, or if there are real world barriers for them to work. (3) The book is not a suitable instructional resource-- while you can learn from any book that even demonstrates only half-truths, the goal of wikibooks is not to try to cover each and every thing. Simply "being true" is not enough grounds to secure a book's place in Wikibooks. Just like how we don't have books on "That time the worm got into the Pepsi can and what everybody said about it." While it is necessary for an autodidact to read and understand a book on his own, to be successful an autodidact also needs to read the right books. That's part of the value we create here. And (4) The book is slanted in favor of cheaters and promoting cheating. MShonle 14:28, 2 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Agreed, this book has all the makings of being inappropriate for wikibooks and wikimedia as a whole. If the contributors to this book want to promote cheating, they should find another venue to do so in. --Mijokijo 14:58, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the text has the potential to be a good book. I think that it might be a great little text for a stressed out student to happen upon during exam week--you know, for the laughs. It's a perfect juxtaposition--textbook style that simultaneously undermines that which it is based upon. Philosophical questions could be asked: "Would cheating on your Cheating 101 test be ethical?"

It makes no sense to categorize this "Crime" as these acts are not illegal per se--merely against the rules. What must be weighed here is the validity of a free and open society. People are cheating out there every day. People are breaking the rules. You can repress this information, and thus undermine the open sprit of Wiki or you can embrace the fact that the essence of cheating is "thinking outside the box", regarding rules as merely rules, NOT laws. If it weren't for people breaking the rules (or at least THINKING and WRITING about breaking the rules) there wouldn't be a Wikipedia or Wikibooks. There would be Microsoft Expedia and the information that Microsoft Corporation wants you to know would be all there is to know. Coming up with new ways to buck the system is a pastime of the extremely intelligent and extremely bored. It stimulates creativity like no other motivator. Read the article again and ask yourself if it's creative. Can this be a book? Yes. Can this serve a purpose? Yes. Look at the wonderful debate and conversation it's already stimulated!


 * Keep If you outlaw pages like these, than only outlaws will have pages like these. Ewlyahoocom 09:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
 * That's not exactly true. I've suggested several times that a book about conducting examinations (from the teacher's perspective) would be appropriate. There are so many ways teachers can design exams that most of these "tips" are rendered useless. For example, printing out different versions of the test and passing them out so no two people next to each other have the same test. Also, forbidding students to wear hats with bills on them, unless the bill is turned around backwards (because they can write cheat sheets on them). Additionally, asking for student IDs when the exams are turned in, to match face with name. Most of the worthwhile content of this book could be rewritten in a more appropriate format, in addition to providing sections for teachers to beat cheaters. --MShonle 17:25, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Explicit or Manifest Motive behind a Wikibook
Those interested, please read my post with the same title in Votes for Deletion/Manual of Crime. The same ideas apply here too.--200.40.105.227 09:41, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Text moved from ../
On this I count four deletes, two and half keeps, and one merge. But beyond the vote counting I see a consensus to delete. Given my heavy participation in the discussion I don't think that I'd be seen as impartial. Does another admin agree? MShonle 02:09, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Remember that the presumption is to keep. You can list it here again next year. AlbertCahalan 17:52, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
 * It's a clear delete to me... The contributions of the "keep" voters and the reasons they supplied simply are not impressive. No other admin seems to want to delete, however. --MShonle 18:48, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Umm, who exactly gave you the right to decide that their reasons were inadequate and thus don't count? If admins have that right, it makes me seriously leery of the future of this project.  It doesn't matter if you don't like their reason, they have one, their vote is valid.--Gabe Sechan 21:06, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
 * All admins can decide how heavily to weigh votes. Just look at the keep votes; some are anonymous or from users with virtually no edit histories. On the other side, the delete votes are from significant contributors and members of the community. Perhaps you should see Jimbo's video yourself to see how important decision making like this is. I would be more leery of the future of this project if significant contributors actually believed the cheating book, in it's current state, should be kept. --MShonle 22:13, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
 * "Merge" can be understood as a variety of "Keep". That would be four to three and a half. I'm no admin, but that's not a consensus. Lucidish
 * For what it's worth the merge vote is arguing to put it into a book that will be deleted. That is not the same as a keep. I read that more as "assign my vote to what the result of that vote is". But who am I to presume what they really meant? That's why I counted it separately. Beyond that issue, consensus does not mean "unanimous". It's the wording and the arugments brought forth that carry the weight, not raw vote counting. For example, suppose something controversial was up for deletion and three known contributors with high community reputations brought forth many well-reasoned arguments to keep, while a dozen poorly-argued and anonymous IPs and sock puppets made insults and voted to delete. Consensus can only be determined from the reasonable members in the discussion, so in this scenario that "vote" might very well result in a keep. It's not the best process around, but it's what we have. There are discussions about changing the way books are voted for deletion. But just using common sense and seeing the diversity of the community that wants to see this book deleted I think it's pretty clear we don't want this book to be part of our project. MShonle 02:19, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Of course consensus doesn't mean "unanimity". But neither does it simply mean mean "a majority", or -- as in this case -- "a very slight majority". Again, it seems obvious to me that "merge" is a variety of "keep"; yet another place we part ways.
 * Also: plenty of arguments have been presented in defence of keeping the article or merging it. And the Wikipedia ethic says nothing at all about this ad hoc criterion of "known contributors with high community reputations". Unless I've gravely misunderstood the purpose of Wikimedia, all votes count equally. I will operate under that assumption until I hear otherwise from the administration of Wikimedia itself. As before in the discussion on censorship, none of the points you raise about sock puppets etc have any bearing on this particular case, or even abstractly on the notion of giving weight to legitimate members.
 * It is not clear that this page ought to be deleted. Rather, it is obvious that there are diverging opinions. The evidence speaks quite plainly to that. A deletion at this time would be by fiat. Lucidish 20:51, 19 September 2005 (UTC)


 * That's not quite accurate. For example, Jimbo in this video clearly says that all votes are not equal. (Jimbo is the founder of Wikimedia.) The whole video is well worth watching! --MShonle 20:58, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I think the text has the potential to be a good book. I think that it might be a great little text for a stressed out student to happen upon during exam week--you know, for the laughs. It's a perfect juxtaposition--scholarly text style that simultaneously undermines that which it is based upon. Philosophical questions could be asked: "Would cheating on your Cheating 101 test be ethical?" It makes no sense to categorize this "Crime" as these acts are not illegal per se--merely against the rules. What must be weighed here is the validity of a free and open society. People are cheating out there. Every day. You can repress this information, and thus undermine the sprit of Wiki or you can take the very slight risk that some idiot will read the book, interpret the text as serious and utilize it's methods and then suffer some publically embarassing consequences which could undermine the public perception of Wiki. In the end, the argument really is much more simple: can this be a book? Yes.

I don't know where votes go anymore
But here's mine: Delete. This is not a textbook, nor ever will be. -- LV (Dark Mark) 18:28, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Keep. The text isn't very good (yet) but I'm all for keeping subversive texts. Funkyj 23:13, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete. Under the same rationale for deleting How To Ride The Bus For Free. Kmf164 17:09, 14 March 2006 (UTC)