Wikipedia talk:Unacceptable userspace material

Going to end up a long list

I think this is going to end up a long list of "do nots", ever growing with each troll's attempts at gaming the system. (For instance, "The rule didn't say I couldn't promote bestiality in my userbox!", "It didn't say I couldn't say I supported the 9/11 attacks!", ad nauseum.) I think we're better served saying what is appropriate, and limiting templates and categories to that, rather than trying to plug all the holes in a seive. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 21:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Then we should consider criteria that would include those topics, if they are in fact deemed unacceptable. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 17:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Examples

• personal attacks (you are ignorant.)
• racist sentiments (blacks score lower on IQ tests)
• sexist sentiments (girls can't play tennis as well)
• homophobic (evolution weeds out gays)
• opposing any religious beliefs (christians killed witches)
• anti-cultural sentiment (arab society is against freedom)
• sentiment asserting superiority (western culture is better)
• pedophilic materials
• attempts to defraud others (accept god = go to heaven.)

*attempts to incite violence (Iraq has weapons of mass destruction) WAS 4.250 21:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good idea. WAS 4.250 21:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, looks like needless instruction creep to me. "Derogatory sentiment" is basically just a restatement of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL; "Objectionable material" (or at least the fraud and incitement to violence bit) is probably covered elsewhere, as well. As for "Administrative circumlocution," point 1 is contrary to accepted practice, and point 2 is nothing more than a vague version of WP:CSD#R2. —Andux^␅ 22:03, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, WP:NPA specifically refers to derogatory comments aimed at a particular person. As written it has no effect on a "This user believes that black people are ignorant" userbox. As for "probably covered elsewhere", don't presume, show where. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 17:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't know if they are specifically banned anywhere (I can't find it, anyway), but it seems like common sense to me. —Andux^␅ 08:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

And that's the problem with common sense -- we assume it is common, until we find out that in fact, it's not so common as we'd thought and is in fact potentially very subjective. Which is part of impetus behind this proposal. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 21:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

WAS: I think all of the examples you state would be divisive, polemic statements, and thereby damaging to the WP community. So... I don't see what you proved, except for my point. As for those templates (which frankly appear to be redundant with each other), are they actually accepted practice, or simply unchallenged practice? In any case, I recommend reviewing the sagas of User:Boxes and User:Userbox as well as the discussions surrounding Wikipedia:Use of userboxes, Wikipedia:Userfying userboxes, as well as WP:AN/I. It is not entirely accepted practice to put templates in userspace, at least not userboxes. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 17:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Case by case:

• personal attacks (you are ignorant.)
  • Of course. WP:NPA.
• racist sentiments (blacks score lower on IQ tests)
  • Not entirely polemic, if it can be sourced, but not really a good thing for userspace, is it?
    • Grey's Psychology cites research that says that people in lower socio-economic status perform worse in school and achieve less in life... in America, a lot of people of african descent are of lower socio-economic status. (wow, that psychology course _was_ useful for something...)
      • Then the statement equates being black with being in a lower socio-economic status, which does not follow, therefore it is polemic/argumentative as a stereotype.
• sexist sentiments (girls can't play tennis as well)
  • Subjective measure of superiority. Also questionable )Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Martina Navratilova, etc).
    • "girls are weaker than boys" which, on the whole, if from genetics or upbringing, is the case afaik, counter examples are easy to find, but Andre the Giant does not prove all men are giants, either...
    • "girls can put up with more pain" well, have a higher pain threshold, but... I'm reasonably certain that this is a fact too...
      • Subjective, because girls are stronger than boys in certain ways, and again, this is a generalization, based on a stereotype, which does not follow. An arbitrarily picked boy and girl will by no means show more strength in the boy than the girl.
• homophobic (evolution weeds out gays)
  • Kind of untrue considering there are still gay people after millennia of evolution, isn't it?
    • "The world would be better without trans-sexuals!" One way to achieve this is to somehow arrange for trans-sexuals to retroactively have been born into a body of the correct gender...
      • Pretty subjective and argumentative. If anything is polemic, that is, compare to "This user is an atheist".
• opposing any religious beliefs (christians killed witches)
  • Historic facts, sourceable, aren't polemic. How you interpret and how you wield such facts can be. Of course, the whole "witches" thing is up for debate, since most of the Salem "witches" did not admit to any witchcraft, and conventional wisdom is that they were victims of adolescent scapegoating and hysteria. But I digress.
  • Furthermore, it is worth adding that "christians killed witches" is a generalization, and thereby argumentative.
    • "Christians killed Islamics" the Crusades... "Islamics killed Christians" ditto, more or less...
• anti-cultural sentiment (arab society is against freedom)
  • Pretty polemic, wouldn't you say? Especially considering there are Arabs in America that are generally happy with freedom.
    • "Western society is sexually repressed!" ...in comparison to some other cultures. If this is good, bad or indifferent, I have no idea.
• sentiment asserting superiority (western culture is better)
  • Polemic, hello.
    • "Canada is the best country in the world!" I think that there's a ranking of countries done by the UN, and that canada was on top in 2005...
    • "Breast is best!" About breast-feeding infants rather than using formula.
    • "Emacs is better than vi!" "vi is better than PICO!" "Java is better than C!" "C is better than Java!" all statements are true, for different definitions of "better"...
    • "superiority" is such an extremely broad brush...
      • All of your examples are argumentative. There is no reason to assert superiority in order to show preference or utilization. Why can you not just say "I am from Canada", "I breastfeed", "I use Emacs", "I use vi", "I program in Java" (or even "I prefer to program in Java")? As you point out "better" is a subjective term. Saying "I am better than you" or "Coke is better than Pepsi" is arbitrary and argumentative.
• pedophilic materials (lolicon)
  • Not clear to me why one would put any real such material on their userpage, especially given the uncertain international legal issues, many of which are mentioned on the article you link to.
• attempts to defraud others (accept god = go to heaven.)
  • Not really fraud if you actually believe it.
    • "Ban DHMO!"? I think that it doesn't qualify, but...
      • You're really reaching for some random things to put on a userpage. Remind me to avoid yours. :)
• attempts to incite violence (Iraq has weapons of mass destruction)
  • Certainly polemic and argumentative at this point in time.
    • as a bit of a stretch, but... "Join the SCA!" (mock battles), "Join a LARP!", "Go paintballing!"
      • See above. "This user is in the SCA", "This user LARPs", "This user plays paintball" satisfies the needs of those.

- Keith D. Tyler ¶ 18:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Any sentiment asserting superiority over another group

That one (at least!) may be a bit broadly drawn. These are all forbidden under this point:

• I like LEGO and I think people who like Mega Bloks are making a big mistake because they're using an inferior product.
• I think deletionism is misguided and inclusionism is a better approach.
• Mean people suck.
• I am a boy and most girls are prettier to look at than I am.

Where do you draw the line? WP is not a free speech zone (all those statements would be A OK if it were, and I am not arguing it should be) but this may be a bit broad. ++Lar: t/c 23:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason to say "I am X which is better than Y" rather than simply "I am X". In some cases, bias is evident from the statement "I am X" as in "I am a deletionist". In other cases, where bias is not evident, bias should not be welcome ("I am a boy" vs. "I am a boy and boys are better than girls" are not equivalent). - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 17:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I feel you're trying to achieve something worthwhile but am unsure whether it's achievable, which is why I asked what I asked. Let's begin at the beginning... Do you agree or disagree that all the above statements are banned under the way the policy is worded now? If not, which ones are not? Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 16:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Why you would need to denigrate another group (person, company, etc.) in order to state a personal interest is beyond me. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 01:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Example: 'This user opposes abortion' would be fine, 'This user thinks all abortionists are murdering scum' would not be allowed Cynical 16:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

For some reason in that example I might suggest going even lighter, due to the contentiousness of the issue and its implications ("this user opposes abortion" can mean "this user wouldn't have an abortion", which is one thing, but it also can mean "this user thinks all people should be prevented from having abortions", which is a bit different). But basically, yes, that's what I'm saying. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 19:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Changed my mind on that one. In the interests of exposing bias, it would seem unnecessary to go that far. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 19:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to invoke Rand on this one:

• Keep expressions of individuality which might disclose point of view and thus support a more neutral encyclopedia. --James S. 17:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Contradictory

One of your criteria is not attacking any religion, while in another you cite a religious belief as an example of fraud. Perhaps this would be taken more seriously if it didn't contradict itself. Cynical 20:51, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Read the whole page, please. You have misunderstood the discussion. I didn't put forth those examples. Someone else did, and I rebutted each one. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 21:04, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I still don't agree with the policy. 'Incitement to violence'? What exactly does that mean? Stating a verifiable fact (e.g. 'the Iraq War was illegal' - whether you agree with the war as a moral/political matter or not, it was illegal [art. 2 UN Charter]) could incite violence. 'Sentiment expressing superiority' surely EVERY positive userbox is doing that (well with the possible exception of 'this user uses Microsoft Windows, but thinks its rubbish'). Obviously I understand that neither of those is the intention of the proposal, but having seen the debacle caused by CSD T#1 (with certain admins pretending that 'inflammatory' means 'anything I disagree with') this proposal would cause incalculable harm if it ever became policy (unless we de-sysop all the vandaladmins in which case it would be fine) Cynical 21:36, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Incitement to violence would be just that -- urging or advocating that people commit violent acts. And no, not all userboxes express superiority. Stating that you use something does not allege superiority, except perhaps for the individual, but not as a rule. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 02:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose -- Instruction creep. People who waste their time peeking into others' user pages looking for something to get annoyed about should not be given another weapon. We already have plenty of policy on this subject. John Reid 23:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, and it's horrible. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 02:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. I agree with the sentiment, but as this stands... it's problematic. This does not mean I oppose any such guideline, but rather that I oppose it in it's current form. We do need to develop a working policy, but this isn't it... yet. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 10:47, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd argue it's much less problematic than the damagingly vague side-steps that have been taken as solutions already. It's clear, direct, and attacks the core problem instead of a scapegoat. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 20:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    • This does make sense, and I can see the sense in needing a clear, concrete, objective policy on this, but this is far too restrictive and eliminates much of the potential value of userspace, at least, in my opinion. With some changes, however, I would be quite willing to accept such a proposal. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 06:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose because of this: "Any pedophilic materials or identification." Free speech isn't free if you put arbitrary limits on it. Ashibaka tock 13:42, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Your opposition ignores what is already going on in the userspace and appropriateness issues on WP. Regulating userspace is inevitable, regardless of whether or not Jimbo et al want to actually couch it that way yet. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 19:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree - there is no obvious reason why "Any pedophilic materials or identification" is singled out. Maybe something about "disrepute to the project" instead per the ArbCom ruling, but that should be a guideline, not "these things are absolutely not allowed". --AySz88^-^ 06:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

this is insane.

First, what are the next plans? How to troll in five easy steps? You can't just start making a list of things that aren't acceptable, because they aren't acceptable to you. The current policies are sufficient, and you are only inflaming the matter further. I hope this comes to a poll so that I can indicate my super lesbian oppose (apologies to Cyde). ... aa:talk 22:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Y'know, I was continually told the "the current policies were sufficient" when this was active. But the causes of the userbox template controversy proved otherwise. Boxes were attacked under rationale such as those here. The difference is that those rationales were completely subjective and personally defined, and not defined by Wikipedia consensus. What it comes down to is that there will be a wheel-drive to delete "objectionable" material, no matter what. The difference is whether you want it done by a million definitions of "objectionable", or by one, that went through the consensual process on which WP is (suposedly) based. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 19:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)