Wikipedia talk:Proposed policy on userboxes/Archive One

• Archive 1

Although I do understand the importance and usefullness of having userboxes, we should keep in mind that Wikipedia is a developing encyclopedia, not a Myspace or a blog. Userboxes should definitely be used, but there should be limits/policies of what we can put in those userboxes.Osbus 20:05, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Fresh start

In light of the fact that we were heading down a spiral to nowhere, I've reset the debate to look for a discussion to see if we even want a policy, rather than confusing policies about not wanting policies, and trying to keep track of an incredibly complicated vote/debate we had going. If I've been a dick in doing this, say so here, but also say why, and try to see if we can get a genuine discussion going rather than a straw poll. Thanks. Harro5 06:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Begin from fundamental principles

My suggestion, for what it's worth, is that we stop trying to write proposed wordings of rules and "voting" on them. Rather, I think an approach would be to try to get principles (based on core WP values and well accepted precedent) articulated and arrive at consensus (or realise that it can't be arrived at for a particular facet) for the various underlying fundamental questions around userboxes. In fact I thought that was what would be done first, but when Kelly presented a draft I thought, hey, maybe this is farther along and went straight to proposing mods. So if no one else does it by tomorrow, I'll try to make a subpage of the project page that has some principles that we can try to agree on, and ask people to edit them rather than "vote" on them. It's what I should have done in the first place and I apologise to the community for not having done it when I created the page by copying material from WP:VP that User:TantalumTelluride posted, material that I really thought was a good starting point for articulating principles. ++Lar: t/c 06:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. We need to have a knock-down drag-out brawl over whether to even have a policy first. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 07:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

That's what this is now set up for. Brawl away, to quote you. Harro5 08:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I think User:Lar's idea may be a good one. I see much of the controversy here as stemming from differences in how people view user pages. The question becomes, what is the fundamental purpose of a user page? Some people appear to emphasize the personal, individual aspects -- free expression, free speech, all that good stuff -- as well as community-building. Others (myself included) appear to focus on the ultimate goal of Wikipedia to be an encyclopedia, and consider anything not conducive to that goal as inappropriate. I suspect reaching consensus on this point (if possible) will make much of the rest of this moot. --DragonHawk 03:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It should also be noted that some users consider the personal, individual aspects of a user page as part of the community-building process, which in turn serves the goal of creating an encyclopedia. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Note that "My suggestion, for what it's worth..." was written before the refactoring and restart that user:Harro5 so admirably carried out. I think we are doing better now than we were, but I note that people still are engaging in back and forth on the page. My understanding of how one does policy proposals is that the proposal is a draft, worked on, and that comments occur on the talk pages. So we still could do better at moving comments here, IMHO. That aside I think I want to amplify what User:DragonHawk and user:Josiah Rowe say. The GOAL here is to write an encyclopedia, just as the goal of an automobile factory is to make automobiles. Yet automobile factories have break rooms and candy machines and places where people hang out and talk, and even after hours clubs and activities and on and on and on. Those all have to be evaluated in the context of "do these activities enable the making of better automobiles"? If they do not, they should go. My assertion, and the assertion of many of us, is that much of the WP community (barnstars, april fools jokes, WP:BJAODN, wikimeetups, and many many other things) help editors be better editors and be more prolific editors. WP is not a free speech zone but userboxes, unless they are hateful, are part of commmunity. Yes, like pop bottles from the breakroom in a factory, they can be misused, but it is the misuse we should censure, not the tool. Fundamentally, user boxes, even ones that show POV, are part of WP community and should be cherished. IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 04:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well said, Lar. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well said indeed. I'll also add that on Wikipedia there's even more reason to have "break rooms" than at factories, as it's a lot easier and cheaper for us to have to them. Yeltensic42.618 ambition makes you look pretty ugly 15:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, DragonHawk makes a good point about differing perspectives on userpages. But here's something to think about: allowing more personal, individual userpages still means that other editors are free to have more "encyclopedic" userpages if they want; on the other hand, being stricter and forcing everyone everyone to conform to the latter obviously means that the former isn't allowed. See what I'm saying? The inclusionist way simply allows more options; no one would be forcing you to add unencyclopedic features. Yeltensic42.618 ambition makes you look pretty ugly 15:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Protect all existing userboxes as long as this discussion continues

After Kelly´s action some time ago, now all religious userboxes have been speedy deleted. Without any warning or discussion. I think this is outrageous and all userboxes should be protected from now on against this kind of admin vandalism. Larix 09:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Both sides in the argument have agreed that there are some userboxes which have got to go. Protecting the lot makes no difference to deleting them; it's purely symbolic. However, symbolically, it does stop administrators deleting userboxes which do need to be deleted. Rob Church ^Talk 10:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

There is absolutely no concensus on how to deal with pov userboxes yet. So it is appalling to just massively delete these ones. I'm not talking about wikipedians who believe in santa here, but about humanists, muslims, jews and so on. Larix 10:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I find this very upsetting. I fail to see what urgent threat is posed by these userboxes that could not wait two or three days until we hash out some sort of preliminary policy, and I am extremely offended that whoever deleted these userboxes didn't have the common courtesy to post a message somewhere explaining what he/she was doing and why. After the RfC, there is no excuse for that kind of behavior and I don't see how it serves any purpose other than to irritate people. (It's worked; I'm irritated.) The point about userbox proliferation has been made, and the people here are working to remedy the problem. Mass userbox deletion with no explanation given is absolutely uncalled for. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 10:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and even if we had decided that these templates should be deleted, many of the proposals on the table suggest that users should be given the chance to place the code directly on their userpages; deleting the templates AND the pages at Wikipedia:Userboxes prevents this. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 10:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It is User:Tony Sidaway. deletion log. Larix 10:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes should not be speedied, especially while such discussions are ongoing. Such behavior is certainly uncivil, and should be treated as such. Kaldari 13:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not certain that 'both sides have agreed that there "are" some userboxes which have got to go'. This seems to be a bold statement. I think that under the current circumstances, boxes should not be restricted. There is already the TfD process for removing templates, and it should work quite well for userbox templates. It would be nice to avoid speedy deletion in user space. --Dschor 13:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure that general consensus supports any userbox being placed on a user's page, as it is free to be POV. The issue comes from templatised userboxes, and their listing at WP:UBX. I know what my POV regarding categorisation is - that is laid out in proposal #4, but achieving consensus here is going to be very difficult. The final solution would be to ban templatising any userbox, and forcing users to create individual ones for each's page... but that wouldn't be very popular methinks! Deano (Talk) 17:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Can't we just not put POV userboxes in categories? This would stop those attacks that happen. The userboxes would still be listed at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Beliefs so users could find them easily, but people wouldn't be able to target large amounts of say...Christians, so attacks would reduce or maybe even dissapear as POV bashers would only see a person's POV if they actually went on their userpage (which they wouldn't know to unless someone said that they has a particular belief, and the attakcer saw it) , instead of finding them on a category. - «ßØÛ®ßÖѧ3» ^{Talk | Contrib's} 16:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• It's not just categories ... there's also the "What links here" page on templates, which would be just as useful for creating POV groups or POV attacks. Userboxes would also have to be subst'd to get rid of this problem. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 21:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

(Note:I'm pro-userboxes). Substing out a userbox is not even a fix, and remving image to avoid what link's here isn't either, as you can always just run a search for the text of the user box, and get a hit list of all the users that way. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 03:32, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

2/3 of my attempted edits in the last 5 hours have failed due to server load. I do not know how much that is due to failure of the userboxes we love to comply with WP:AIM, how much is normal for this time of day (I usually editing late nite), or other purposes. Meanwhile the community disruption continues with more players taking over what User:Kelly Martin had quit doing pending resolution of the RFC. User:AlMac|^(talk) 20:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Use of wikipedia for nonencyclopedic purposes

Little pretty boxes are not the issue. Use of wikipedia for nonencyclopedic purposes is a key issue in the use of pretty boxes. Deal with the real issues and the derived cases take care of themselves. To what extent social behavior on Wikipedia enhances encyclopedia building is highly subjective and no one should contemptuously or arrogantly or high-handedly act as if their assessment is unquestionable. Voting can not make unencyclopedic behavior acceptable, but what does and what does not help build the encyclopedia is no one person's right to decide. I think the real issues are in that mess of words somewhere and policies on pretty boxes are beside the point. WAS 4.250 13:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

WAS 4.250 cuts to the crux of the matter. I think in that:

1. Use of images that are being used outside of FU Wiki policy should be speedily deleted (eg templates)
2. Userboxes are a fad. I saw what others were doing and started adding my own before I saw how silly some had gotten IMHO...but that's just it: my opinion. What does it really matter if someone writes "I am a christain" on their userpage or puts/references a pretty box with a symbol of a cross on it.
3. Meaningless issue for us to continue wasting time on and too time consuming to police. Let people build userpages as they see fit as long as it does not violate the userpage policy, which is???? --Censorwolf 20:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
4. which is WP:UP, I believe. ++Lar: t/c 05:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for thr reference, I couldn't find it before I made the post --Censorwolf 17:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

What about the Babel boxes? This entire discussion inspire me to re-read WP:UP, and I decided to remove everything from my user page that wasn't related to writing an encyclopedia. I realized that meant removing not only the religious, political, etc., user boxes from my page, but the Babel boxes as well, because frankly, the fact that I have only a basic knowledge of Lower Sorbian is about as relevant to writing an English-language encyclopedia as the fact that I eat meat and was born in the year of the Monkey. If the consensus is that userboxes must be relevant to writing Wikipedia, doesn't that mean the Babel boxes have to go too? --Angr (tɔk) 12:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Babel boxes are relevant to the writing of Wikipedia. English Wikipedia may be written in English but a lot of the things we write about (and even a lot of the sources that we use) aren't in English. If someone finds a source in Lower Sorbian but they don't speak it, and you have the Babel box, maybe they can come to you for help with it? That's one possible use of the Babel boxes. But let me reiterate that I fully agree that all Babel/user boxes must be relevant to writing an encyclopedia. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 21:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I contend that most babel boxes are un-encyclopediatic. On the English site it is only useful to denote if you 1) are not fluent in English or 2) if you are fluent in another language. In the first case, if you make changes to an article, and another editor notices that they don't quite read right, he can check your user page and see that problem wordings are probably just grammatical errors. In the second case, it does allow someone to search for a translator. Any claims that I speak less-than-fluent non-English languages are irrelevant, and one should take as a given that an editor is fluent in English unless he signifies otherwise. This same in-kind principle applies to non-English Wikipedias. (However, I am far from convinced that all unencyclopediatic userboxes should be banned.) — Eoghanacht ^talk 16:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Some hard facts would be helpful

Here is some information I think would make it easier for us to resolve this issue:

1. We need to quantify the effect that userbox templates have on Wikipedia, in terms of sever load or whatever. This will give us an idea of the urgency of this task and how widespread the change needs to be. I have seen a couple of people make comments vaguely linking userbox proliferation and Wikipedia's fund drive, but correlation does not imply causation. Let's get some hard facts on how userboxes affect Wikipedia.
2. We need to come up with specific instances where userbox templates have been used for various purposes, good or bad, so that we can evaluate the non-technical issues that have been brought up. If userboxes and their corresponding categories are being used for vote-stuffing, provide examples. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 20:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree for the need for hard facts on server load. If it is 0.02% of the load, then I say let's be open minded and let people have some fun. But if it is 2% of the load, then I would probably agree to delete even the userboxes I created. — Eoghanacht ^talk 20:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• As a rough estimate, I think the number must be way below two percent, maybe even lower than 0.02 percent. Have a look at Wikipedia:Navigational templates, and that is only a small percentage of the templates we have.--Fenice 21:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• I do agree that some hard facts would be helpful. However, I also feel that server load is a legitimate concern, particularly as userboxes are editted (and recently, deleted and undeleted) with a relatively large frequency, forcing many pages to have caching issues. My view is that a simple "fix" to this would be to encourage users to subst: userbox templates (I've already done that on my user page) - which, incidentally, also affords a certain protection of their userpage is someone decided to vandalize (or delete) their userbox template(s). I say "encourage", not "require" - I don't want to see m:Instruction creep either. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 21:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• • It is true that the boxes are frequently edited at this point in time. (The image in the firefox template seems to change every other hour.) I assume that this is so because the idea is still very young, and the really useful boxes are still being developped. (Useful boxes would be project affiliation, and we have no boxes yet that tell us something about peoples expertise.) I am sure there will be less editing once the userboxes are more complete.--Fenice 09:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

A third way

As Wikipedians, we must always try to make compromises in a fashion that addresses as many people's concerns as possible. As can be seen above, many people have concerns that they feel are best addressed by regulating userboxes in certain ways. Similarly, others have concerns with the idea of regulating userboxes. It is the intent of those working on this proposal to address as many of these concerns as satisfactorily as possible, so we may be advised not to limit ourselves to either "drawing up a set of regulations" or "not doing anything at all". There may be a third way to resolve this.

• I had this suggestion on the proposals page, but it got lost in the crowd: "Could there possibly be a place like Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals where people propose new userboxes and they are created or not based on that vote? Then, we could create a speedy delete criteria for any new userbox created that hasn't gone through this voting process. At least that would regulate it more than the current scheme (Wikipedia talk:Userboxes/Ideas) which basically sees people say, 'Can someone make this?', and it's done. This keeps the deletionists happy by slowing down the influx of new userboxes, and also allows userboxes on all topics to be created." Harro5 10:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm glad people are looking for a compromise, and there is certainly something to say for your idea. But I do think we need a decision wether userboxes with a pov are allowed or not - otherwise I'm afraid we'll be debating the issue forever, for every userbox created (and probably afterwards proposed for deletion again).... Larix 11:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Agreed, the root question needs consensus. See below. (and feel free to refactor or move it if necessary) ++Lar: t/c 20:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I still think that fails to address the concern of instruction creep, and especially process creep. Also, why institutionalize such a silly fad? — Phil Welch Katefan's poll, which she herself considers ridiculous, as it's about whether we like the rock band Rush 11:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Doesn't that just destroy the spirit of anyone can edit? Ian¹³_ID:540053 19:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
    • It's obviously not just a fad. This "fad" has contributed to the loss of two Wikipedians already (Firebug and someone else) and an ugly fight on WP:RFAR. The spirit of anyone can edit means you can contribute to Wikipedia building an encyclopedia, and you must do so with the bounds of policy and the five pillars. We need to work out if making userboxes with a POV falls into these bounds. Harro5 21:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment: no regulation, please

Regarding the proliferation of user boxes, I find this an endearing and valuable community-building aspect of WP. Since there are few tangible rewards for working on wikipedia, camaraderie is really really important. I think we should enforce that they are all of the form "Template:User ___" but other than that, allow freedom within the normal wp policies.

Regarding POV on user pages: I believe that WP policy allows for POV in the User: namespace (and thus templates used in user space). Moreover, I find specific value in people placing their personal biases and alignments on their user pages. I am under no such delusion that we can ever really escape POV (we can only do our best to approach NPOV), so it is very helpful when checking history or contributions to see where people are coming from. Brighterorange 20:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I have not really made up my mind, nor do I think this is too important. However when I see things like:

{{User against scientology}}

I think when we get to the point of boxes like this we need to have a policy regulating linking users opposed to certain ideologies. What should be done about things like that? It does seem to be getting out of hand. gren グレン 21:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be an unhealthy amount of boxes denouncing groups rather than supporting your own. Template:User GWB for example. This doesn't need to be on userpages, and belongs on blogs. Wikipedia needs to stay focused, and if your a new user who sees someone revert your edits to Bush's article for example, and go to their userpage, and see that userbox, it's likely you will start a partisan argument about doing the work of the Democratic Party, or being a communist, or some ridiculous thing like that. These userboxes aren't just "fun", they are clear statements that I edit articles with a specific POV related to this debate, and so am going to take badly to opposing views, even if I'd like to claim otherwise. This isn't good for anyone, and so we need to be careful how much free reign e allwo with these templates. Harro5 21:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll agree that such sentiment is unhealthy. But do you think that a policy against such userboxes really addresses the underlying problem? Every editor has POV. Being up front about one's POV in userspace but striving for NPOV in articles is the best scenario, in my view. I don't think a "don't ask don't tell" policy (if that's what you're proposing) does anything except make the problems more insidious. Brighterorange 22:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that the user space is a suitable place for such sentiments. An attempt to censor userboxes is harmful to the purpose of user pages. I for one would rather have this information, and appreciate the opportunity to make my POV clear to the community, even as I make my best effort to maintain NPOV in the article space. Censoring user page content that does not violate policy is a poor precedent. --Dschor 23:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

That particular user box violates several policies and should be deleted. Kelly Martin (talk) 23:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you list some policies that it violates? Sorry, I am arriving to this discussion late, I guess. Brighterorange 00:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It shows a POV. But I don't think it has been clearly shown that having a POV is disallowed in userspace, has it?. Near as I can tell it is not an advocacy, it is not asking other users to dislike Scientology. Jimbo has asked us to deemphasise external beliefs, so it's not a box I'd choose to use, and it's in a category that I would put on the "discouraged" list (I support the notion of discouraged sorts of boxes, although I confess I have a FSM box and an atheist box on my page), but I would not ban/delete it. It MAY contain a copyrighted image (I haven't checked). However the MOST damning thing about it is how bright yellow and orange it is. Those colors are so jarring they must not be suffered to be shown together. (K, kidding about that last part. But they ARE jarring!) ++Lar: t/c 00:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

What I'm having difficulty figuring out is why many of the userbox opponents a) think that having a POV keeps us from editing NPOV (seriously, almost everyone has a POV on something), b) think that prohibiting userboxes and/or having "don't ask don't tell" keeps anyone from having a POV, c) think that having little decorative boxes on our userpages keep us from writing an encyclopedia, d) think that liberal Wikipedians and conservative Wikipedians necessarily must hate each other, and e) dislike it when userboxes or cats are used to inform editors of a discussion going on (a good example is this discussion, which I and other editors find out about by being contacted through the cats in question). It appears that the only inherently negative use for them is to gang up to win edit wars on articles, something we already have policies to regulate (and not a good reason to delete the boxes or cats, since most good things can be misused, eg "let's make computers illegal since they can be used to send out viruses"). Yeltensic42.618 15:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

File:Naziswastika.png

This user is vehemently against Jews.

This user is vehemently against Blacks.

Not to be apocalyptic but, what exactly is the line here? I would hope most users would find that unacceptable on a user page? I don't think it would surprise many to know that we do have bigots here. There's a difference. Liberals and conservatives can get along. But it's a different matter for Scientologists and those "vehemently against" Scientologists to get along. Not that they couldn't but, when you needlessly incite that tension it's silly. gren グレン 16:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

If a user puts "Vehemently against blacks" on their own userpage, I'm just as happy to know about it; and I will evaluate their comments accordingly. Putting it on someone else userplage should be discouraged; but I think existing policy will do that. Septentrionalis 23:31, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Ditto Sept. If someone actually feels that way, I'd much rather they admit this bias openly than keep it a hidden agenda. Not that the majority of such people ever would (admit it). But frankly, being willing to expose your own bias can be positive to the WP mission, because others will have more info upon which to frame your arguments on such issues. If someone hacking at the Coretta Scott King page had that latter userbox on their page, I'd have some info on how I might perceive their edits. But of course, existing policy on WP:PA and other problems would already eliminate egregious cases. There is nothing here requiring a new, userbox-specific policy. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 18:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

To me, the line is when a userbox can reasonably be seen to cause offense, such as a userbox that says the user hates Jews/blacks/Scientologists. The definition of 'reasonable' should, of course, be left to the community on a case-by-case basis, but that's where I feel the line in the sand should be. Lord Bob 16:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Definitely, we need to get rid of hate templates like those. I was talking about the opponents of userboxes that merely say "This user is liberal", "This user is an atheist" etc. Yeltensic42.618 16:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

What about user boxes that say things like "This user is vehemently against abortion"? How about "This user is vehemently against killing babies"? Where do we draw the line? Serious question, here. (Please note these are examples I made up; the specific example is not the point.) --DragonHawk 21:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

To work with your example, the line occurs just about right in the middle. Stating "This user strongly opposes abortion" is a harmless statement of principle and is fine by me. Stating "This user strongly opposes killing babies" is setting out to offend, shock, or cause trouble, and is a bad thing. Lord Bob 17:27, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The line is described in existing wikipedia policy and guidelines concerning User Page content. Those boxes would & should be deleted.TCorp 17:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, you don't need userboxes to be offensive or POV. See User:Deeceevoice. — TheKMan^talk 23:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

TCorp, which box are you talking about? The two I created are just code and not boxes... but the "vehemently against Scientology" one is real. That's my problem with this. There is no line for divisive boxes. I would have deleted the against Scientology one as uncivil and bordering attacking if I hadn't know there was controversy in this I didn't want to be involved in. My issue is here. Oh vell.

And DragonHawk, that's what I'm trying to get to. Where do we draw the line... and there seems to be existing policy that is very related to the Scientology one... and definitely to the two fake ones I created. It just becomes problematic when confrontational ones are being kept. I suppose in the long run we will see. gren グレン 04:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I was talking about the ones you made. I know that they're not boxes, but I said they should have been deleted. I also voted delete on the scientology box, but not because I'm for scientology, but because I don't like Anti-boxen. I suggested the box be edited to read: This user is against all brainwashing cults. TCorp 15:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

As long as derogatory terms regarding ethnicity, etc. does not occur in userboxes, I see absolutely no reason, whatever, for deleting them. This whole issue is about freedom of expression. Right now, I can think only of a very few possible userboxes I'd be in favor of deleting, like if someone made one that stated: "This user is a paedophile and proud of it" or "This user hates all non-caucasians". PC-fascism (that's right, the one does not exclude the other) is seriously uncool. Let's not surrender to it! The 'pedia wants to be free... What's the difference between stating your views on the universe on your userpage in plain text and stating them in a userbox?! That like-minded people can find each other easier with userboxes and gang up on users or groups of users that they're opposed to, regarding one or more issues? That's just totally absurd. Like-minded people find each other all the time anyways. All you have to do is check out who's editing what you also edit, and somewhere in there there'll be someone you sympathize with. So let's not try to stop a river with our bare hands, to quote a Taoist saying... Kind regards, --Twisturbed Tachyon 16:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

First of all, comparing the rational dislike of an obnoxious, glorified UFO cult like the Scientologists to Nazism's racism and anti-Semitism is far more offensive than the actual anti-Scientologist tag.

Second, to use the oft-quoted SCOTUS line: sunshine is the best disinfectant. An open project such as this is going to inevitably attract evil people (like real bigots) who wish to bend the project to their evil own ends (like making bigotry seem acceptable). But why bother worrying about the overt things such people do like flying their own userboxes? If a bigot wants to express their bigotry through a userbox, then I say be my guest - you want to mark yourself as a bigot, then look forward to thorough checking of your facts and plenty of reversions. It's the covert actions - putting in advocacy of racism under the cover of NPOV, or through sock puppetry - that really threatens Wikipedia's integrity. --Daniel 06:44, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

The point is you have to judge the merits of a belief system in order to differentiate like that... and why would wikipedia be judging the merits of two different belief systems? What I did was satire to make a point. A more reasonable exmample is "This user is vehemently opposed to Islam". It doesn't carry the racial baggage of Judaism so it's clearly along the same lines. The thing about bigots is they don't always edit on the pages of what they are prejudiced about. I could hate the Rastas but you wouldn't see it manifest because I don't edit pages relating to the Rastafari movement. If I happen to be editing Donsö it doesn't matter in the least that I'm a bigot. However, if I have a tag that says I'm opposed to the Rastafarian movement and a Rasta is editing the article it creates unneeded tension. Even on related articles it creates unneeded tension because it can automatically make you defensive acting. Integrity of the article is threatened equally either way. Civility is much more likely to be threatened if people use those boxes. gren グレン 14:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, gren グレン, in your example, let's imagine you really did hate them, and stated it in plain text on your userpage. Let's say the imaginary Rasta had a picture of Haile Selassie on his/her userpage. Would that not create tension in the same manner? What's next, that we disallow people to put any pictures or statements in writing about their religion, etc. on their userpages? --Twisturbed Tachyon 16:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I read this wrong the first time so let me just make sure I'm getting it right. Instead of having a userbox you have it in plain text. Well, firstly it's not institutionalized in templates so it's a purely individual action. There are no categories to link users together by this. Having the code on your page with no template doesn't even bother me as much as having the templates. It also allows for personalization and hopefully you can discuss your views rather than advertise them. I would not advise users having such things on their user page but I do think it's a step above having it in a template. I also think individualization of that kind of thing makes it better. It's not mob response it's personal opinion. Those are the main differences I see. gren グレン ^? 21:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Plain text, you got it. I just don't see the difference between expressing your views on politics, religion, etc. in plain text on a userpage and expressing them in a userbox. Some users will always oppose each other when their differing opinions clash, regardless if they have userboxes tagging their various orientations or not. Conflicts will always arise, one way or another. Like-minded users will continue to make contact, userboxes or not. Instead of trying to avoid the inevetable, let's deal with it and make the best of our individuality.--Twisturbed Tachyon 14:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I always found the userboxes a little off-putting, because I'm a little ambivalent about the whole idea of a Wikipedia "community". It's good for people to be able to find each other and organize themselves, of course, but I think it's a bad idea for people to acquire reputations. Presumably everyone should be equal here, and I think it's unfortunately very tempting in some situations (edit compromises, etc.) to treat people differently based on their standing in the community. I think userboxes are potentially a force for this kind of de-equalization, but after reading this whole damn page and changing my mind several times, I think that having regulations would have more of a de-equalizing effect than any userbox ever could. The more rules there are to enforce, the more authority people can acquire. Equalpants 14:01, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Policies relevant to the userbox debate

I agree with User:Lar that policies can still be relevant even if they don't necessarily apply. Remember also that policies can be changed. So, references to existing policy should not be considered a finding of law, but rather, a pointer to existing concensus which help guide us here. So, to that end, I will add added some sub-topics for individual policy/guideline pages. --DragonHawk 07:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

User page guidelines

User page guidelines

• Commentary on what should and should not be on a user page. Ultimately, it appears inconclusive for this discussion. Opinion pieces not related to Wikipedia are discouraged, but community-building is encouraged. --DragonHawk 07:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I think the most important bit of WP:UP with regard to this discussion is this:
    • "The Wikipedia community is fairly tolerant and offers fairly wide latitude in applying these guidelines to regular participants. Particularly, community-building activities that are not strictly "on topic," may be allowed, especially when initiated by committed Wikipedians with good edit histories. At their best, such activities help us to build the community, and this helps to build the encyclopedia."
  • The same section does discourage "opinion pieces not related to Wikipedia or other non-encyclopedic material", but I don't see how a box stating that a user is a Baptist, a Communist, or a Spaghetti-Monsterist constitutes an "opinion piece". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I didn't phrase that very well. In general, I think WP:UP supports the ability to maintain a personal user page with personal opinion details. However, it also repeatedly emphasizes that the overall idea behind user pages on WP is to facilitate the maintenance of an encyclopedia, not to simply let people describe themselves for the heck of it. That's all I was trying to get at. --DragonHawk 02:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
      • That's fair. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

No personal attacks

No personal attacks

• A personal attack is a attach on a particular person. By extension, it could be argued that user boxes should not be used to attack a particular person or group of persons. --DragonHawk 07:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • or a group of persons as defined by a philosophy, religion, ideology, etc. ie. it is one thing to say that we are for or against some label, it is another thing to rephrase the label in a hostile manner.
  • pro or con X may be acceptable, "kill all the X" or labeling the X as some kind of killers, is certainly not, User:AlMac|^(talk) 23:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • The concept of group attacks (or impersonal attacks, as someone called them) needs to be well defined, otherwise "group attack" can be invoked to delete virtually any unpopular POV that can be presented as an implicit attack on those holding the contrary view.--Chris 20:00, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Copyright policy

Copyright policy

• In the debates that I was involved in regarding userboxes, mainly the Democrat and Republicans, editors who were pro-userboxes states that the Fair Use of images extended into user pages. However, the same people often say that NPOV does not apply to user pages; so where is it that certain policies inexplicably end? Fair Use is not just a guideline; the images are copyrighted, and copyright owners can sue. It's in place for a reason. Eightball 03:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree. I strongly feel that userboxes cannot, must not have copyvio problems. Fair use is for purpose of review and commentary, and nothing else, and I'm not sure I see how showing how you feel about Pepsi, for example, is fair use by any stretch of the imagination. I think the mechaniasm that has been proposed (see the archived older version of the proposed policy page) for sheperding userboxes through a creation process would help address this. ++Lar: t/c 04:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I also agree with Lar very strongly. I know that Wikipedians are creative people, so if people wish to have an icon on their userbox, they should try to be creative and come up with their own icon. However, with some of the recent problems we have been seeing with the servers, it would be each template's creators wishes to include an icon or not. However, it must be under a free license, not fair use. Zach ^{(Smack Back) Fair use policy} 04:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Agree - copyright is an issue for WP as it hosts the images. Copyright violation in a userbox should be speadily dealt with as for any other image copyright violation (i.e. the image should be deleted), as for the rest of the userbox - its validity is discussed elsewhere here. David Ruben ^Talk 00:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• I think maintaing the GFDL requirements on userpage content (images included) would be beneficial. It would mean that the content of userpages can be freely reproduced without having to verify the copyright status of every element in the page. Screenshots of Wikipedia pages (with images) already appear in media and publications. A third-party would not expect to recieve a C&D from another third-party for publishing something obtained from Wikipedia, even if it's from userspace. This would cast doubt on the veracity of our other copyright claims. —Daelin2006-01-06 10:36:22

Meta Template policy

Wikipedia:Avoid using meta-templates

According to WP:AUM and WP:AMT (are these two redirects to the same place? [Yes. --DragonHawk]) certain design features, of templates inside templates, contribute mightily to server load, making it difficult for us to edit anything on Wiki. There's also reference to abuse of Categories, which I interpret as applying to WP articles as well as to userboxes.

In my POV opinion, like copyright violation avoidance, server protection policy should be an exception to consensus building.

Now for people like me, who are newbies at image manipulation code, and who get our stuff by copying what someone else got to work, then tweaking one piece at a time until it works, what we need is a HOW TO on getting stuff that does not violate WP:AUM and a version of that page for Dummies unfamiliar with the programming lagnuage involved. User:AlMac|^(talk) 17:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

NPOV policy

NPOV policy

• WP:NPOV - many userboxes offend against WP:NPOV - NPOV is a concern for articles, not User pages.
  • I will continue to argue strongly that userboxes should be allowed to show POV, but I nevertheless feel that NPOV is a policy that is relevant. it's relevant in that it doesn't apply as strongly (or at all) in userspace and should be mentioned in the list of relevant policies. (while you could argue that every policy that doesn't apply in user space could be mentioned, the POV/NPOVness of boxes seems to be a critical thing that this debate turns on. I think CIVIL bears mentioning here too for the same reason, and it is in fact mentioned just above that bullet. ++Lar: t/c 00:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • It largely depends on what namespace the template is created in, doesn't it? That's a bit of a technicality, but I think it might be true anyway. Harro5 03:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• NPOV has been getting brought up a lot in this discussion. Previous concensus appears to be that user pages are explictly allowed to contain opinion. I see the fact that template namespace is not user page namespace as a technicality; user boxes are, by definition, intended for user pages, and thus can be considered part of user space. OTOH, it does seem somewhat counter to the spirit of the Wikipedia project to fill one's user pages with POV just because we can. Spirit vs letter of the law and all that. --DragonHawk 07:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Might I suggest that we create a new "namespace"? Although MediaWiki requires the creation of entirely new namespaces to be done on the server, namespaces may be simulated by the creation of WikiLinks that have a section preceeded by :. For example, we could then put {{User Template:someuserbox}}. While that might be less than optimal (because then template transclusion would require the User Template: prefix), it would take POV userboxes out of the Template: namespace. Robert Paveza 23:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Personally, I don't think the real issue is with the namespace. The namespace distinction is mainly technical. The real issue with NPOV here, I think, is about the intent of Wikipedia. I think, in general, the idea is that POV should be allowed on user pages because that helps others understand one's contributions, and thus contributes towards harmonious editing. However, I don't see that policy as carte blanche to fill one's user page with POV. --DragonHawk 03:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
    • When a group of editors all understand each others' POVs, then they have a much better chance of attaining a NPOV together. For example, if I'm editing depleted uranium, as I sometimes do, then someone who understands my point of view (against it) has a better chance of calling me on my critiques, which keeps me honest, and asking for sources. Similarly, over in global warming, if someone doesn't like my graphing, then it helps if I know their POV so that I can respond to their concerns. When we know each other's POV, then we know how to meet half way. So I would say that user page POV is essential for achieving NPOV. —James S. 11:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reading the page now, it says "Having a POV is not the same as advocating one." That's the dumbest statement I have ever heard. Eightball 03:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I've rephrased that to "Expressing one's point of view is not necessarily the same as promoting it," which I think is the intent of the original remark. I would hope everyone can understand that distinction. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Now I believe that is a good point; the original wording, to me, essentially just switched adjectives. Thanks. Eightball 20:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Apart from the fact whether particular userbox can divide the community, unequal treatment of it or the opposing one can further increase the tension. -- Goldie (tell me) 06:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not ...

What Wikipedia is and is not

... an indiscriminate collection of information

• Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Taken to an extreme, perhaps the whole user box system should be scrapped. Maybe they're really just not appropriate for Wikipedia. (I don't really think this myself, but it's a point worth considering.) --DragonHawk 07:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

... a soapbox

• Wikipedia is not a soapbox. I think this one is very apropos. Sure, it is mainly focused on articles, but the key point is that The Wikipedia project, as a whole, is not a soapbox. Using user boxes to push one's personal agenda seems very much against a core principle here. --DragonHawk 07:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

... an anarchy

Wikipedia is not an anarchy

• Choice bits here: "Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech" and "Wikipedia ... restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with the purpose of creating an encyclopedia." This is more indirect evidence that the "POV is allowed on user pages" rule perhaps only goes so far. If these user boxes really are interfering with encyclopedic activities, this suggests they do not belong. --DragonHawk 21:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • That's a valid point. However, it should be kept in mind that it is far from proven that user boxes are interfering with encyclopedic activities. A better argument has been made that user boxes with embedded categories are interfering with encyclopedic activities, but even that is questionable. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Key policies

Policies and guidelines

• Respect other contributors. This is one of the four "key policies" listed, but has no single page of it's own (it actually has several). This policy is extremely relevant to this discussion, I think. I think it's clear that anything, user page or otherwise, which fails to respect other Wikipedians is Not Good. --DragonHawk 07:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Categories of User Boxes

With respect to categories that user boxes are in, can we agree that

• this is a good thing when the user box describes a skill that is in demand, to help Wiki encyclopaedia development, like being able to translate between 2 languages.
• this is a bad thing when it identifies an interest sub-group that could be used to subvert consensus, or help support general vandalization, and cliques of either ordinary editors or administrators.
• there is a grey area in between where people say they interested in editing certain topics, or have certain qualifications that can help with verification.

There is an issue of enforcement. As newbies learn how to put things in categories, and use the Special Pages to find stuff that needs better linking, this policy will be violated. People like me who have been members for 6 months, still have lots of Wiki stuff to learn, so in some areas we newbies, in other areas we not. User:AlMac|^(talk) 17:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

No, we cannot agree to the above. Categories do not make POV edits. Wikipedians make POV edits, and when they do so, such edits are reverted to maintain NPOV. Userboxes are part of user space, and involved in user categorization. There is no compelling reason to remove the category associated with a userbox. Ever. --Dschor 22:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment by User:Eightball

In an edit summary just now on the project page (attached to this edit that changed what was lined out around NPOV as an objection, Eightball said "Many say that Fair Use extends to userpages, but NPOV does not; this is contradicting. Either they both do, or neither do."

• My response: In my view these are different things. Fair use is legalistic. ALL publications, websites, etc, at least those in the US, have to abide by Fair use, or may get sued. It applies to ALL content, and specifically, it applies at WP in articlespace, templatespace, categoryspace, userspace, you-name-itspace. (and yes I possibly run afoul of Raul's rule about who knows copy law and who doesn't). NPOV is a policy of Wikipedia. It applies where it is chosen to apply. It's an unshakable policy, with respect to articles. Jimbo has said it is not negotiable. However he did NOT say it applies to userspace, and common convention here, as this newb sees it, is that it is OK for users to say they have a point of view. That's getting to the crux of the problem. Is it or isn't it OK? I think it is, I think policy and precedent here say it is too... see WP:UP. (as an aside, it may be under this interpretation that templatespace can't have POV, so all boxes that did assert POV would have to live in userspace and not templatespace)++Lar: t/c 04:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• I'd like to note that NPOV does not apply to talk pages the same way it does to articles, either. As far as I can tell, users are free to make their personal POVs clear on talk page discussions when they are relevant to editing of the article. In fact, I don't see how we could have productive discussion without this. Here are some examples of edits I've made to talk pages expressing my POV: "I really don't think this section is going to work out"; "If people were to come forth with examples of the term "heteroflexible" being specifically used in the news media and so on, I think that would be grounds for re-opening the debate on this topic"; "The assumption here that any criticism of Christianity must be based on false premises seemed offbase and not at all NPOV to me"; "I also believe that practitioners of my own religion, Hellenic polytheism, should be willing to walk hand in hand with Wiccans, but I would not add information on Hellenic polytheism to this article because it is not relevant." Thus, NPOV, as it is being interpreted here, already does not apply to portions of Wikipedia. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 05:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Excellent example. Arguably trying to speak NPOV-ishly in that context would be impossible and worse, useless to making progress. Another place where POV comes up is in (x)fD... if only to disclose one's leanings and perhaps establish credibility on the topic of notability, although that's controversial.++Lar: t/c 05:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • My counter-response: First off, Fair Use is considered a guideline on Wikipedia. I'm not refering to the legal equivalent, I'm refering to Wikipedia's interpretation of it, and the way it is applied. I am not trying to interpret the policies and guidelines any differently than they already have been. My _only_ point is that the proponents of userboxes are choosing where to apply certain policies and guidelines. It seems to me that if I did the same I could "choose" to ignore half the policies of WP; if enough did this, it would destroy the system. The policies are in place for a reason. Editors are creating userboxes with copyrighted images, saying Fair Use extends to userboxes, while they also violate NPOV, which they say doesn't extend to user pages (Fair Use, in my, explicitly excludes user pages, while the wording of NPOV seems more ambiguous). You can't be allowed to pick and choose your guidelines. Eightball 06:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• • • • You won't see me supporting that stance. I think all fair use images need to be removed from userboxes, forthwith, and do not see fair use as a valid defence for inclusion copyvio images in boxes (as I have said already, rather emphatically). But they ARE being removed. the Userbox project is cranking through all the boxes and fixing them. My point is that violating Fair Use can get WP sued if someone pushed the matter. Violating NPOV is not likely to get WP sued. Hence they are different. But to your point of picking and choosing, I agree, there should not be picking and choosing. That's not the same as deciding which policies apply to what by applying principles though. ++Lar: t/c 07:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• • • • Fair use images can't be used on userpages because WP:UP specifically says so. Do you see anything in WP:UP that says, "Userpages must be NPOV"? I didn't think so. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 07:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• • • Well I'm glad we could come to a conclusion. Eightball 07:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC) (quietly hums the Golden Girls theme song)

Bit of a refactor

I tried a bit of a refactor here: Policies relevant to the userbox debate to try to capture that some people might think these policies are relevant, because there was a lot of back and forth and maybe this is inclusionary enough to be good? ++Lar: t/c 05:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Basically a user conduct issue

From my perspective, the actual problem seen at least by Tony Sidaway is that userboxes are being used to rally POV crusades (especially regarding deletion). I would prefer a policy to deter this behavior directly, whether carried out through userboxes or not, by blocking/banning the users engaging in it, rather than deleting the userboxes themselves, which 95% of users seem able to employ harmlessly. Deleting the userboxes is at best a stopgap, as users who are operating with the intent of deliberatly subverting neutrality will surely find another way to do so. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's a stopgap. But the least we can do is to deny the enemy of consensus and neutrality the free use of the most powerful tools at our disposal. If I want to tell the world I'm a Bigendian I'll do so, but it would be wrong for me to add a "Bigendian Wikipedians" category to my userpage enabling all of us Bigendians t operate as a bloc. This is what userboxes do. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

If userboxes did not add to categories would that be as good (or almost as good) of a stopgap as deleting them altogether? I suspect that the dedicated team of editors at the Userbox project, if that were the consensus, would have that fixed in nothing flat. The speed at which they are fixing the fair use issue, and at which they are fixing the multilevel template substitution issue, is nothing short of remarkable (as well as amazingly commendable). PS, Tony, I for one am glad you are here and talking about this. Very glad. Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 07:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that as a stopgap it is harmful to other concerns as well, both in that it pointlessly alienates the many people who manage to use these userboxes harmlessly, and in that it deprives us of the utility gained by having people organized into these categories when they are employed productively. I don't see any reason to undertake this solution to the problem, which has these obvious flaws, when we could attack the problem directly without causing collateral damage. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

WikiProjects do EXACTLY the same in some cases. - But they're not banned or with possible policy to stop users "grouping" together: This happens anyway in the long run:

For example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam:The Muslim Guild (and it's splinter WikiProjects for Shia and Sunni) looks like it's the Islam equivalent of the Catholic WikiProject Sidaway doesn't like so much (there's already a Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam for people that don't necessarily follow the religion)

Stuff like this will always happen on Wikipedia, what you are trying to do is stop people grouping together by view by making it harder to find people: This is silly, it happens anyway on Wikipedia --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 07:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

You don't have to be a Muslim to be a member of Wikiproject Islam, any more than you have to be a resident of Indiana to be a member of Wikiproject Indiana. Wikiproject membership is an indication of interest, not of belief. That's the difference between the two. I support userboxes to indicate Wikiproject membership (and you will note that I have three such userboxes on my user page). Kelly Martin (talk) 16:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Assume Good Faith - TCorp 00:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree its not userboxes which is the problem, also its not users grouping themselves together. What is the problem is when users group together in an attempt to go against the core NPOV policy, that is when userboxes are used as find users to swing a vote for a particular POV. Even if userboxes were removed users would still find ways to group together and these could happen outside the sphere of wikipedia where there is less chance of regulation. What is really needed is a Wikipedia:Policy on cordinated actions by factions or something like that.

Userboxes do actually offer a means of identifying factions. If you suspect a cordinated action then you could actually prove that it is such though looking at their userboxes. Better to keep things in the open than create secret societies.

Luckly we have a strong consensus policy, to prevent a vote for delection all which is needed is one post pointing out the coordinated action of other posters and the vote should fail. Ultimately coordinated actions against NPOV could result in users being banned. --Pfafrich 09:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

That policy will simply result in an organization by cells. No one would say talking to two other people on their User:Talk page was "coordination", yet if those two talk to two more, and so on, you've got a regular get-out-the-vote drive. Beware of the law of unintended consequences. Endomion 20:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

refactor

( Moved MSK's "counterargument" to talk page ++Lar: t/c 07:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC) )

Tony added this:

• • Neutrality and Consensus - userboxes can easily be used by POV pushers to enable them to contact a large number of like-minded people so as to destroy the effectiveness of our neutrality policy by subverting normal consensus-based decision-making. Case in point: 9 out of 11 keep voters in the Catholic Alliance deletion debate did so after being contacted by the page's creator who found them through a userbox declaring them to be Catholics and placing them into a category that he was able to scan at the press of a button. (this has to do with usage)

MSK replied:

• • • Counter-argument: People will always find other Wikipedians with similar beliefs or interests and form groups of friends in their time on Wikipedia anyway, this only speeds the process and gives less of an advantage to newer users who haven't been around long enough to develop a network of Wiki-friends. Also categories help find other users knowledgeable or interested about the same subjects to help improve articles that might otherwise be neglected. It's not so different from a WikiProject or from users in fact stating their interests on their user page without using a "user box" for it as has been going on for a long time, or user categories without matching userboxes such as those in Category:Wikipedians.

I suggest refactoring it into a point in one of the pro/cons as it's not a policy point per se. The points are points, they should be countered in the pro/con section. IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 07:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, done now - hope that's better --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 07:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The example about '9 of 11 keep voters' is fallacious, anyway. If you want to demonstrate a POV bias, what matters is not the percentage of voters that voted Keep because they were contacted, but what the overall vote of those contacted was. this page mentions that over 40 people were contacted. So 9 of them voted keep — what did the rest do? squell 21:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Community

One thing user boxes let us do is build communities. Communuity building yields two major kinds of benefits. One is that people interested in the same things, or sharing knowledge on the same subjects, can collaborate better as a community. Experts on, say, geology, can coordinate their efforts, distribute the load, and check each other's work. Such a community can even be a resource to outsiders -- to continue my example, if someone else needs to check a geological fact, they can go to the geology community. Most or all of the WikiProjects are fall into this category. The other benefit from community building is less tangible. By making Wikipedia a place people feel like they belong, where they want to come to, we increase the overall quality and quantity of contribution. These are all Good Things, and reasons why User Boxes can be Good Things.

However, as a counter point to all that, it should be noted that putting people into groups does not always build community; indeed, it can do the opposite. Grouping people can divide people. Any time you create a group that is "in", everyone else becomes "out". This is an ancient human behavioral pattern. Being a member of a group that others are not a member of can be powerful and addictive in all the wrong ways.

So, I think one key thing to look at here is: Does the group created by a user box bring people together, or push them apart?

Given that criteria, I realize now that perhaps some of the user boxes on my own user page are, perhaps, not as nice as they should be. Rather then saying "I contribute with Foo", perhaps it would be better if I just said "I know a lot about Foo".

--DragonHawk 07:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Please be careful in refactoring

MSK while you refactored helpfully, I think this point got lost from the policy points

• • Neutrality and Consensus - userboxes can easily be used by POV pushers to enable them to contact a large number of like-minded people so as to destroy the effectiveness of our neutrality policy by subverting normal consensus-based decision-making. Case in point: 9 out of 11 keep voters in the Catholic Alliance deletion debate did so after being contacted by the page's creator who found them through a userbox declaring them to be Catholics and placing them into a category that he was able to scan at the press of a button. (this has to do with usage)

So I put it back. It's a valid policy concern whether you agree with it or not, and we must be careful not to lose text accidentally. IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 07:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Didn't mean to delete it, sorry

I was just about to add it back then came back after realising you had already hah. Didn't read properly }. Ok, I tried to make it a bit more NPOV: It must be noted that most of the "applicable policy" bit is things from the "concerns about not regulating userboxes" bit. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 07:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Ya, it does (read like a personal view) at that, even after you AGFed it... See if Tony's willing to move it out of the policies list and into the appropriate pros/cons section would be my suggestion. (the pro/cons sections still don't quite seem to have the right titles either but they're clearer than they were, the reason there are two sections are to separate userboxes from stating preferences/viewpoints, it's possible there are things about a box that is completely preference statement free that are good or bad) ++Lar: t/c 07:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that if you look at the case objectively, userboxes on political stances have any detrimental effect. It's mentioned above that Catholic users had been called in and therefore artificially made it seem as if the article's Catholic POV was correct. However, it seems that these are currently userboxes on a broad range of stances, and each of them has significant numbers of users. So, if the dispute was, say, between Catholics and Atheists, and a single Catholic user called in others found via userboxes, what prevents the Atheists from doing the same, for example? Additionally, there is a big cost to this in terms of freedom of expression. Wikipedian user pages should not be censored against this type of material, particularly since people have been allowed to write personal points of view on their user pages since Wikipedia began in 2001. For that reason, I believe that advocacy through userboxes is not a bad thing at all; in fact, it can help make the Wikipedia community much more vibrant. Not to mention the many social reasons why userboxes are important - they enable Wikipedia users to know each other better and, more importantly, they enable users to check each other for NPOV problems. For example, if I'm having a dispute or discussion about an article with another user, and that user has userboxes which indicate political and religious POV, I know where that user's stance is coming from, and I can therefore argue with him in a much more efficient way, thus resolving the dispute much faster. Understanding and knowing other users during a dispute is, in my opinion, the best tool to lead to efficient resolution, without descending into alienation and mutual revert wars and insults. Ronline ✉ 11:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Vote stacking as an argument

(in response to Ronline... but started a subsection to make editing easier)

If people are vote stacking I don't think the counter argument is to encourage opposing groups both to stack, as Ronline seems to be advocating (sorry if I mis read but that's my take). WP:NPOV doesn't mean ( POV vs. Opposing POV ) duke it out to see who can win, it means NPOV. NEUTRAL, not paired opposing.... That said I think there is an analogy with gun control here, those advocating userbox prohibition may not like this analogy, sorry. I oppose gun control for the reason that I don't think it works, and because it's going after the tool, not the tool user. Userboxes don't cause vote stacking. Users do. Getting rid of userboxes won't stop votestacking. It may make it marginally harder but it won't stop it. If we want to totally stop vote stacking without going after the people doing it, we have to ban every tool that can be used to do it. No email links, no categories, no searchable text on user pages, no posting what your IM handle is on your user page, etc etc. I think the right thing to do is to maybe make it a little harder to stack (mild: disallow automatic categorisation, stronger: require subst for all boxes so that even what links here can't find usages), not to ban expression of POV on user pages. If user boxes are banned completely I am going to still list my affiliations and beliefs on my page, by hand I guess, until and unless WP:UP says it's against policy to do so. ++Lar: t/c 23:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• The theory is that Wikipedia is more of a sociocracy than a democracy. The problem is that we have situations in which we permit majority-rule voting. That is, we're having votes where we should be having discussion to reach consensus. That actually violates NPOV, as we're suppressing minority opinion rather than accurately representing it. The "problem" with userbox/categories is that they enhance this problem. Userboxes/categories also enhance our ability to locate consensus on issues. Fix the problem, not the symptom. —Daelin @ 2024–11–30 19:38
  • One of the "problems", or rather contradictions, on this site, is that although there is the "consensus" poliicy, people are being asked to either "keep" or "delete" an article, template, etc. That sure sounds like VOTING to me. --CJ Marsicano 17:02, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Ya, it does, doesn't it? That wording choice confuses me too, except there are really no better shorthands available. What you are really doing when you say keep is expressing your preference, your opinion. For your keep/delete to carry much weight with the closing admin when he or she evaluates consensus, though, you should try to either introduce new points, or at least reference the logical support points made previously (one way is to refer to the editor that made them by name). Keep posts along the lines of "OMFG don't delete, are you crazy!!!11!!1!!!" tend to carry a lot less weight than ones that refute the reasons the editor proposing the delete gave, with calm, logical, reasoned statements, or even better, verifiable facts. (and vice versa when advocating delete) This is a difficult concept to grok, and not one that I am sure I've completely grokked yet myself. But it's an important one to keep in mind. IMHO.++Lar: t/c 03:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
      • It's a nice theory, and there are a few admins who really do discount editors who give bad opinions in AfDs. The trouble is that most admins are afraid to discount the opinions of editors in good standing. --- Charles Stewart 04:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Um, remember, I'm a newbie. (see my contributions: click on the c in my siggy, or run the edit counter on me, not even 1000 edits yet!!! ...). I'm referring to what NEWBIES need to do to make their opinions carry more weight. They need to show their work, so to speak. I'm actually fairly OK with giving seasoned editors more credence (see the webcomics RfAr, where I strongly argue for automatically giving experts a bit more credence until they blow it. That wasn't a very popular viewpoint.) So maybe you're saying that closing admins do value old hands more and let them get away with "delete, nn fancruft" instead of a more reasoned explanation or verifiable points? ++Lar: t/c

Some concrete examples of belief and conviction-based userboxes being abused

I've mentioned how I think that belief and conviction-based userboxes will be abused and I've given one good example where 9 out of 11 keep voters on an article up for deletion voted after their talk page was spammed.

Perhaps people are saying this was a one-off, a fluke, just one user who overstepped that mark. Not a bit of it. Only the previous week, the following two incidents took place and again involved (to some greater of lesser extent) someone looking in a user category planted on a page by a user box and then spamming the talk pages.

Of course we don't know how many times someone has abused these categories in a savvy way, contacting people by email instead.

I'm sorry that my examples are all based around similar issues. It's not that I have a thing about Catholics (I was raised as a Catholic myself), but that (including the example that I gave before) these are the three examples that come most readily to hand. I remembered the Pitchka one from last month, and found the Chooserrr one while looking for it. I don't even strongly disagree with the opinions expressed in the talk page spam, but I do think that this manner of approach severely compromises our policies on consensus and neutrality. s

• Pitchka (talk · contribs) (aka Dwain) between 2336 on 15 December, 2005 and 0254 the following morning contacts the following editors:
  • User:Tobit User:Burwellian User:Nainfa User:Sebastian Prospero User:Tdxiang User:Psy guy User:PaulHanson User:Patsw User:Mred64 User:Merovingian User:Lacrimosus User:Klemen Kocjancic User:Kakero User:Jrquinlisk User:JohnAlbertRigali User:Gentgeen User:GVOLTT User:Getcrunk User:Eoghanacht User:EliasAlucard User:*drew User:Dcgomez User:Yo Mama 5000 User:Canadian Mike User:Hollow Wilerding User:Bryan Nguyen User:Brisvegas User:Avalon User:Victor User:Army1987 User:Str1977 User:Acetic Acid User:Sawran User:Jakes18 User:Chooserr User:Anti-Anonymex2 User:Dominick User:Christopher Erickson User:Elliskev User:GreatGatsby User:Ironbrew User:Shanedidona User:Sherurcij User:WikiSceptic User:Thomas Aquinas User:TheQuaker User:Sbwii User:Speculative catholic User:Musical Linguist User:Jack Cox User:Danthemankhan User:Kinneyboy90 User:Hégésippe Cormier User:EvKnight13 User:Danthemankhan
  • The wording: Pro-life celebrities category up for deletion!. Hi, I see that you are listed as a Pro-Life Wikipedian, well the Pro-life celebrities category is up for deletion. Category:Pro-life celebrities The abortion zealots don't want anyone to think that any celebrity is actually pro-life. Dwain
• Chooserr (talk · contribs) contacts the following people listed as "Pro-life" between 0700 and 0702 on 20 December, 2005:
  • User:Musical Linguist
  • User:Thomas Aquinas
  • User:Dominick
  • User:Elliskev
  • User:*drew
  • The wording: Sean Black has removed an informative section from the Contraceptive patch article describing a law suit which is currently taking place and some of the risks involved in using such barbaric devices. Since you are listed as Pro-Life I was wondering if you might restore the original version, for I don't personally want to get baited into a 3rvt ban. Thank you, Chooserr

--Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

WikiProjects do exactly the same: grouping Wikipedians together by interest, political or religious affiliation, and also this is just a more conspicuous way of things that already go on without userboxes: People naturally form groups of friends and some do tend to pick up this "pack reverting" technique, categories or no --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 08:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Two counterpoints to your response:

• Wikiprojects are bound by the neutrality policy and may not have closed membership.

• Wikipedia Categories certainly don't have closed membership either, though.
• People may not be allowed to blatantly push POV on WikiProjects, but they can still link to relevant articles with the intentions that those people with that particular POV will revert war because of the very fact they're in a particular Project: In fact Categories are much more inconvenient to gather large amount of editors to sway votes etc because there is no centralised message board, each person must be contacted individually. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 09:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Putting a message on a WikiProject page is not the same as spamming a score or more of user talk pages.

It has the same effect though, not taking into account the actual disruptiveness of spam. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 09:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the issue here is very different. Because people have general freedom of expression on user pages, it is important to ensure that this doesnn't leak into the category space and enable pushers of one point of view or another. That is what the belief-based userboxes do (I've no great objection to the vast majority of userboxes). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe, but the problem is it can sometimes be helpful for good faith actions like trying to find people with similar interests to contribute with though --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 09:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

In this case it seems the userboxes were used to preserve NPOV. By calling for deletion maybe it was the pro-choice who were trying to push their POV? (Don't know what I'm on about!) --Pfafrich 09:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

In response to Mistress Selina Kyle's point, I completely agree. I have a Template:user advogato userbox on my own page that I constructed myself. It identifies me as an apprentice member of the Advogato community, which describes itself as "a community resource for free software developers." However this is not quite the same as a box identifying me as a Bigendian in politics, an Omnian in religion, and that I believe in the rights of fleebles to graze unfettered on the hills. These latter are the kinds of userbox that could lead to abuse (and have already done so). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it is very important to maintain these userboxes, because it does lead to a more balanced POV for Wikipedia overall. In fact, people will really only "canvas" others of a similar point of view to come when the opposite point of view has more power in a dispute. For example, if a certain article is given, say, a religious slant, Atheist Wikipedians will be able to organise themselves much better to ensure that the article goes back to being NPOV. Ronline ✉ 11:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is more akin to a sociocracy than a democracy; we want power of logic to be the most important, not power in numbers. The ability to canvas like-minded users is only good if those users add additional logical arguments to the disucssion, and is not useful if they simply vote "me too". Also, allowing votes to swing one way simply because there are more members on that side will tend to promote more systemic bias, not less. --Interiot 14:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It's an interesting assumption that such unscrupulous methods would only ever be used to redress "balance", but the underlying assumption that people have any business at all editing Wikipedia from a pro- or anti- atheist/circumcusionist/abortionist/bigendian/antidisestablishmentarian point of view is fundamentally wrong. Every single edit by every single editor must be written from a neutral stance and in the interests of Wikipedia. Organising raids on articles by one side or the other would be the death of neutrality and an end to consensus. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Your lip-service to consensus seems not really compatible with the way you've behaved in this discussion till now. I quote you from your talk page: 'what the community thinks is not important.' Larix 13:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

You misquote me slightly. "It's an encyclopedia, and those buttons threaten its identity. It doesn't matter what the community thinks, we must act in the interests of the encyclopedia at all times." There is no consensus on whether these items are fit for Wikipedia--far from it. I put the interests of the encyclopedia before those of the community, every single time, as any good wikipedian is required to. If there exists a consensus to permit destructive actions, I will still not feel obliged to permit Wikipedia to be destroyed by its community. I stand by those words and I expect you and every other Wikpedian to do the same. Otherwise this really is just another Livejournal. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

You are defending your personal interpretation of what's in the interest of Wikipedia (apparently considering yourself far above the community) and do that without any concern for consensus, thereby carelessly disturbing hundreds of userpages. Actions like these are far more dangerous then a single userbox. Besides, you keep arguing they all have categories attached but you very well know most of them don't. Larix 13:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I think the benefit of the community is for the benefit of Wikipedia. It's time we realise that the more we mistreat the community and expect them to work like robots "for the good of the encyclopedia" without any other form of reward, the less this project will work. This reminds me very much of Romania under Nicolae Ceauşescu - "every good Romanian must always put the interests of the Party before his or her own interests". It simply doesn't work that way. This encyclopedia's direction is inspired very much by what the community thinks, since they're the ones writing it. Ronline ✉ 00:17, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not getting the difference between having the Advogato userbox on your userpage and having userboxes reflecting your political and religious beliefs. Neither is relevant to writing Wikipedia; both can help people with similar interests find you. For that matter (as I mentioned above) how are your Babel boxes relevant to writing Wikipedia? --Angr (tɔk) 13:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Babel boxes identify me as a native speaker of one European language, a fairly skilled speaker of another, and a basic understanding of a third. Someone wanting a rough translation of a foreign language article may look for people with such skills, and I have gone to people with such skills myself in the past when I needed them. Advogato is a community of free software specialists, people who produce most of the software, from PHP, Mysql, Mediawiki, Apache and Squid, that powers Wikipedia. Being part of that community says something about my skills and experience in such matter (though not nearly enough, since I've been in the business for 30 years). Think of it as a Project Babel for software developers. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so Advogato is directly related to WP. But as for the Babelboxes being used to find someone with language skills: someone looking for information about a religion or a political stance can use religious and political userboxes to find someone knowledgeable in those areas. I don't see any harm in the userboxes, but if the consensus is to get rid of non-Wikipedia-relevant ones, won't the Babel boxes have to go too? --Angr (tɔk) 13:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Surely we agree that it is the linked categories that are the problem, not the userboxes themselves. Therefore, removing automatic categorisation from any userbox template would resolve this issue. I really hate to bring this up, but policy proposal #4 set out this very point - categorisation should only be allowed for certain, specified areas (see proposal. Deano (Talk) 13:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The Babel boxes also have linked categories. Why should a person be allowed to be in Category:User en but not Category:Religious socialist Wikipedians? --Angr (tɔk) 14:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

One is POV, the other is not. POV categories should not be bundled with userbox templates. That is crucially important. The others are useful to Wikipedia. Deano (Talk) 14:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Language boxes are not necessarily POV, but they certainly can be. If you have a user from Northern Ireland who identifies as a speaker of either Irish or Ulster Scots, that's going to be a pretty good guide to their politics the majority of the time. --Angr (tɔk) 15:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

We saw a demonstration already (albeit hypothetical) of a language box possibly enabling POV-push-rallying. I would say that computer languages, hypothetically, could be the same thing. If someone starts pushing the POV (in the COBOL article) that COBOL rocks and Java sucks rocks, someone else could well go around finding all the people with Java boxes and rally them to fight back. Ditto Advogado... I work for a company that gets 250,000 USD or more for some of its licenses... couldn't Avogado advocates possibly engage in POV pushing against my employer (hypothetically). The point here is that any way to find users that claim something about themselves is possibly a way to enable POV-push-rallying. I am willing to see restrictions on boxes that incite hate speech but not on boxes in general. WP is not a free speech zone but if you are going to say Avogado is an OK affiliation but FSMism is not an OK affiliation to advertise, I'll fall back on the what the US supreme court said, the line ought to be where it's hate speech we are talking about. Else your unfree speech maybe is better than mine? Again, I think this is trying to address the tool, not the tool user, and addressing the tool this way fails to WP:AGF. IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 23:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• First, the number of votes doesn't matter in AFD so much as the content of the vote. Second, if you suspect bias, just click on their signature and check for a userbox! --Mareino 15:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Very true, in theory anyways. Consensus is not based on the number of votes. If 100 people vote one way on an issue without justifying their votes, and 10 vote against them with reasonable, sound and neutral arguments, the issue should be resolved in the 10's favor. See Wikipedia:Voting. ~MDD4696 20:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we're forgetting about something. First of all, I think we all agree that Wikipedians who want to muster the vote to support their POV can and do do this with userbox categories, and can and do do this with mechanisms other than user boxen and their respective category. But, likewise, they can be used to help the project: I see on my user talk page right now a solicitation to help get an article up to FA status because I was in Category:Atheist Wikipedians (I don't display the userbox, but the category is attached to a userbox). We need to consider both the good and the bad on this one. Lord Bob 16:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that most important issue against userboxes is that POV-pushing. However we should not ban the tool, but rather ban the action. POV-pushers will simply find another tool. And userbox categories can be used to great effect to enforce a ban on POV-pushing. It will be much harder to ferret out bands of POV pushers without userboxes.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 19:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

From what I gather, Birgitte, you're proposing that we ban, say, liberal users who have a liberal userbox to vote on the deletion/keeping of liberal-related articles. That is, that the action of informing like-minded Wikipedians in a dispute should be banned, rather than the userboxes themselves. However, do you realise that that turns Wikipedia into a police state? Seriously, it is a significant breach to user liberties to say "you're not allowed to tell like-minded people of a vote going on". From the point we do that, we'll have the equivalent of a thought police monitoring Wikipedian users. That's simply unacceptable. Wikipedia grew on this notion of freedom, both freedom to use, to edit and freedom in general. Wikipedia has and is at the moment a free community and a free encyclopedia, and this has enabled it to grow substantially. The moment you try to impose bans on certain activities, the more disgruntled the community will be and the more the project will suffer. Not to mention that there will be a growing dislike between admins and other users, leading to the creation of a "ruling class" in a system that is by definition quite absent of hierarchy. And, the more restrictions you impose on the community, the more it will not be able to meet the goal of building an encyclopedia but will be forced to learn all the new rules, consider whether the action they are doing is "legal" and then argue with admins if they believe they were treated incorrectly. It all amounts to a huge level of bureaucracy. Ronline ✉ 06:08, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

From what I gather, Birgitte, you're proposing that we ban, say, liberal users who have a liberal userbox to vote on the deletion/keeping of liberal-related articles.'That is not what I mean. I think we should ban vote campaigning. Although there is no problem with people leaving a message like Be aware Example has been nominated for deletion. It is really important that all the disscusion about why an article should be deleted or kept stay on the same page. And also that the proccess is transparent. Maybe it is unenforcable. Maybe it would be enough that when something seems fishy someone would be able to track down through userboxes what prompted the POV pushing and copy that disscussion back to the relavent site. Userboxes will not make an editor a POV pusher, but it can help those who respect nuetrality find the POV pushing disscusions and join in to inform them why it is a problem and maybe educate them or shame them into reforming--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 20:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I just read what I wrote again perhaps ban is the wrong as I don't imagine blocking people for this is a good idea. But to have guideline against vote campaigning is more what I mean. I don't see why this should make any problems between admins and non-admins if there is no banning. In fact just because someone has a liberal user box doesn't mean they are a POV pusher but having one may attract POV pushers to them and then they educate such people about the importance of nuetrality and if they realize the POV pushers doesn't care they can keep an eye on them. I believe most editors agree with and support NPOV and it is probaly easier to convince like-minded POV pushers to reform than opposing POV pushers. In general userboxes can be a tool to rid us POV problems and getting rid of them will not prevent POV gangs from forming.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 21:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)