Wikipedia talk:Userbox migration/Archive 1

Archive 1

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Some issues

Where to gather together userboxes? Should we just add them to Wikipedia:Userboxes as usual, or will we be forced to create a new place?

Is it OK to put userboxes under User:Userboxes, or are they more likely to be deleted by rogue admins? User:Userboxes/Satanist got deleted once already. —Ashley Y 02:06, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

If the idea is to move userboxes to user space to get them out of the clutches of deletionist admins, as many (including more than a few deletionist admins) have claimed, and if Jimbo endorses the solution, then on what grounds are they deleted? If userboxes can be deleted by admins even in user space, then why bother? Let the admins have their way, and us peons will know exactly where we stand - nowhere at all. Jay Maynard 02:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep them on your personal pages (check my sig). If they keep deleting them there (usually claiming the Jimbo hates boxes et al) whack them with the following:This is like saying, "You may have pamphlets, but you may not mechanically print and distribute them. This is not an infringement of free speech". To put it kindly, this is counter-intuitive." State that they are not following Jimbo's suggestions as they claim, they are not following policy or consensus, and that they basically vandalize your pages. If they do it again, start an RFC or RFA. Let's see how they talk themselvs out of that one. CharonX talk Userboxes 02:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

'Let's see how they talk themselvs out of that one.' They do it by being 'right' in the eyes of Tony Sidaway et al - someone has already tried to RFAr Cyde over this issue (worse than simply deleting userboxes - Cyde was actually vandalizing the templates), and it was rejected. Cynical 10:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I still believe in the community. While they have Jimbo's words and T1 as an "argument" they could always say "I only did what was 'right'". However Jimbo explicitely mentions the methods known to us as 'German solution' and says it was implemented with great effect. So they cannout say "We only did what Jimbo said". And they cannot use T1 since T1 is not appicable in userspace. They have bent T1 in templatespace against its spirits (a means to kill hatespeech etc.) but there is no similar policy on userspace to bend. So they would have to act outside policy without the tinyest figleaf. CharonX/talk 11:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

A few admins may still try to use T1. I've seen the claim made that any transclusion is considered a template and thus fair game for T1. Should that interpretation to all the way to ArbComm I'm not sure how it would hold up but it would be interesting. In the interim, I've started converting my own on page userbox code over to an archive of userboxes. The next task will see if starting a conversion of Wikipedia:Userboxes will work to allow people to find these user page hosted transclude boxes. --StuffOfInterest 12:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I said above the transclusions in userspace are templates argument does not have the support of Jimbo. See my Jimbo-quote above. I too would be curious how ArbCom rules there, but I think we have a better chance with Jimbo having suggested that way.CharonX/talk 14:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

The best defense will be to get enough peopple creating their own archives that it will cause too much of an uproar if one admin decides to go on a deletion spree. To that end, I've created a cross link from my archive to your archive. If I see anyone else out there starting their own I'll add links for that as well. Oh, and sorry to say this, but I really don't like how you have the page name ending with a slash. It just doesn't seem to follow usual Wiki naming practice. Could you at least create a redirect from the non-slashed version to that one? --StuffOfInterest 14:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Woops, didn't actively notice that slash. I moved it to slashless and changed the link on your page, hope you don't mind. CharonX/talk 13:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I would list them in the Wikipedia:Userboxes area (not the user account). If the admins start deleting the boxes from user space then they will be commiting vandalism in the absense of any dictates or concensus established policy. The problem with User:Userboxes is that it is more or less a puppet account for an archive. The boxes should be in a user's account and just a listing of them kept in the userboxes project page. --StuffOfInterest 02:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

As I said below I don't mind either way (centralized directory or small number of large primary user-organized archives) both have their advantages and disadvantages. If the "no endorsement" faction feels an centralized archive would be endorsement I would go for the decentralized variant if it makes them happy, since there has been enough pain in this war. CharonX/talk 13:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There are no rogue admins, just rouge admins. Ardric47 07:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

• I wasn't aware of this discussion; just noticed from my watchlist that someone moved a userbox I had worked on and... here we go. Please, let me understand, we are scattering them on several user pages to make it harder for administrators to delete them???? —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 19:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Organize

Please keep the effort organized. I'd suggest each sub-page of Wikipedia:Userboxes end up archived on the same group of pages.

I can easily see a later move to have Wikipedia:Userboxes eliminated because it seems "like an endorsement". Be prepared to replace it in user space also. GRBerry 14:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

GRBerry, I'm not quite sure what you mean by your reference to sub-page archives. Could you please expand on that a bit. I'm concerned about someone going after Wikipedia:Userboxes as well. All we can do is have some level of cross linking between personal archives to help any future browsing users find what they are looking for. In the meantime, I've decided to be bold and try listing one religous and one political user box of mine out on Wikipedia:Userboxes sub-pages. We'll see if anybody notices, expands on it, or tries to kill it. At least now there are a few words from the benevloent dictator to backup this sort of presention of userboxes.

The funny thing is, I don't really like userboxes that much. The only thing that made me put more than language and skill boxes on my page was when a few admins started saying we could not have them. I just want to see some solution come around which puts an end to the war. --StuffOfInterest 19:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

German Solution?

Should this really be called the German Solution? Isn't this a bit offensive to Germans? Why not the German Wikipedia Resolution?--☆TBC☆ (aka Tree Biting Conspiracy) 20:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Why would this be offensive? If anything it is a compliment. The editors on the German Wikipedia came up with a solution to the userbox issue without it degenerating into the sort of warfare we've seen here. --StuffOfInterest 21:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think Tree Biting Conspiracy says the name makes it sound like the german Final Solution--Rayc 22:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Yuk! Hopefully not too many people make that connection. If too many complain then this page may have to be renamed but I'll leave hope that most people can see the naming for what it is, a compliment. --StuffOfInterest 02:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I was going to call it "The German compromise" but this name was already out there. Having "German" in the term clearly alludes to Jimbo's 5/27/06 comment, ("This is the solution that the Germans have put into effect with great results." -bold added) which is a good thing. Rfrisbie^talk 03:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds to me like the name of a famous movie or something. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 01:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd support a rename to "the german compromise". Solution made me twitch in horror at first, then decide/realize i probably just didnt know what it was referring to. Sounds much like a euphemism/spin for something nasty to my ears. Population control.

(The proposal itself i completely agree with though ;) -Quiddity 06:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh leave the poor Germans alone. It's an excellent solution of theirs. —Ashley Y 06:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, I'm a German myself and I fear I helped coin the term "the German solution". I don't really mind it, if you want to rename it, no problems either - after all "Namen sind nur Schall und Rauch" CharonX/talk 12:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Oi, chalk me up as someone who had a kneejerk reaction to the current name as well. In addition, it's not descriptive unless you already know it's about userboxes. What about: Wikipedia:Solution to userboxes, with a note in the first paragraph that says it comes from de:Wikipedia? -- nae'blis _(talk) 20:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunatley, we've had numerous proposed policies and decisions which didn't make it and are polluting up quite a few good names now. If this does turn into either a defacto or official policy then it should be moved over to a proper name. I won't argue if someone wants to rename the current page but I don't see too much need for it yet. --StuffOfInterest 20:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Size of archive

I'd like to discuss an issue pertaining to the size of personal archives. My own feeling is that a user should not create a userbox in their archive unless they are using it form themself. This will hopefully avoid overpopulation of boxes where a user creates a bunch of them with no intention of ever using them. Back when admins were sending userboxes to TfD one of the criteria I would use for keep/delete votes was how many pages were including the template. In many cases there were none. At this point the box really does become useless junk. What do others think? --StuffOfInterest 10:38, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I have some concers about this suggestion. If a stable centralized archive exists relatively free of deletion wars, limiting the size of individual archives is one thing. If a distributed system evolves as a preservation mechanism, then limiting size will be used as a weapon by deletionists. Some users ask for a specific userbox to be created for them for whatever reason. Others often do this as a service, even if they don't use it themselves. On counting links, the number of users for a box always will be small initially, making them vulnerable to this criterion in their infancy. Such restrictions may be more applicable to centralized archive and directory pages than on an individual user's pages. This suggestion would seem to work best as a guideline with some caveats, rather than as a hard and fast rule. Rfrisbie^talk 11:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

One thing jumped out at me in this. You mention that some users will ask to have a box created for them. If someone creates that box it should probably be hosted under the account of the user who wants to use it. My fear is that having large archives of infrequently used boxes in user space is an invitation to some admin to go on a deletion crusade. If the user hosting the box is using it him/herself then it becomes much harder for an admin to justify deletion. --StuffOfInterest 12:08, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

"Large" and "unused" are two different issues. For example, see Regarding central directories below. It's probably better to separate them. Rfrisbie^talk 14:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Tagging boxes

I'm trying to get any related discussions started over here in separate threads so we can work out details and conventions. Please bare with me.

Many people find userboxes through other people's pages rather than in archives. It would be nice to give people a way to find the code for a userbox without having to bring up an edit window on another users's page. I'd like to suggest that to get around this people hosting userboxes create a link at the end of the box text to take people to a place with the code for including that box. For my own boxes I'm using the following:

<small>[[User:StuffOfInterest/Userboxes|*]]</small>

This adds a small, clickable asterisk at the end of the text which takes you to my archive page where the include code is shown. I wouldn't recommend this as a requirement but it might be nice to have as a guideline to help users get to what they are looking for. --StuffOfInterest 12:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Classification of Wikipedians and userboxes

How are Wikipedians and userboxes classified in the German solution? I recommend the following classifications remain in the English implementation. For userboxes that migrate, their category listings would migrate as well. Rfrisbie^talk 12:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Category:Categories → Category:Wikipedia administration → Category:Wikipedians

Category:Categories → Category:Wikipedia administration → Category:User templates

I wouldn't mind seeing the templates listed in Category:User templates but anything involving user boxes outside of user space may become a deletion target. --StuffOfInterest 12:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I added additional info, guideline like rules and implementation example

As above, I added a bunch of stuff, feel free to discuss and mercielessly edit it. CharonX/talk 12:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Er, and if you don't like them, just remove them again. They are just a suggestion, and I really won't mind. CharonX/talk 13:25, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding central directories

Personally I feel this could work without an "official" central directory, provided one or more dedicated users take it upon themselves to provide a large selection of boxes and/or links to other major archives. This would avoid the "official endorsement" problem seen by some users. Personally, I don't care either way. CharonX/talk 13:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe there should be an "official" directory. For starters, it should include the "skills," "editing interests" and "wikiaffiliations" userboxes. If some type of userbox is too "POV," e.g., "non-wikiaffiliations," then a "grass-roots" directory/directories would be useful. Rfrisbie^talk 14:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd concur that there should continue to be a directory outside User space. At least for the first few months, it should also contain pointers to grass-roots directories that are preceeded by educational text about why these are no longer in the existing directory. (It wouldn't hurt if the grass roots directories also have links back to the official directory.) GRBerry 15:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually the German version does have a link from the Babel-userboxes directory to a major personal directory, so there should not problems there. Let's just make sure it does not look like an "endorsement". CharonX/talk 15:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

How about using Categories, with various sub-categories for listing the boxes? --Hunter 14:51, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm in favour of that, but fear that those who wish to banish userboxes from the template namespace would also want to see them banished from Wikipedia's categories. Waggers 11:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Non-Babel boxes in templatespace

First of all, what are babel boxes? Babel boxes are boxes saying "this user speaks XYZ" and perhaps "this user lives in (country)".

I see that the suggestion has been changed to allow some non-babel boxes in templatespace. Personally, I get a bad feeling with that. This issue is, if we say "non-babelboxes should be in userspace" we have a distinct line. Does it say "user speaks XYZ" or "user lives in XYZ" and is XYZ a real language/country? Then its templatespace. If not its userspace. If we say things like "this user is straight" or similar may remain in templatespace "because nobody would object" we have accomplished little. There will still be skirmishes whether "possibly controversial template A" is controversial and should be in userspace or not and belongs to templatespace.

Basically this is where we pro-userbox users give up parts of our position. We say "ok, normally there is nothing wrong with those boxes, but if it makes the others happy we move them to userspace." And we avoid lengthy, tireing discussions. CharonX/talk 15:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we should allow more than Babel boxes in Template space, but let's try to draw the line narrowly. And acknowledge a position that if a significant body of commentary is received, we'll err towards moving more boxes to user space. As the project page is written at this moment, here is how I'd suggest drawing the line:

1. "related to skills and qualifications" - change to "claiming professional or academic expertise", as these clearly contribute to building an encyclopedia, all others to User space
2. "editing interests" - User space
3. "wikiaffiliations" - "Wikiproject affiliations" - wikiphilosophy goes to user space
4. new - allow "claiming access to specialized resources and willingness to research in them upon request" (old texts, pay for access online subscriptions). I don't know if there are any such boxes at present, but I'd like to give them favored treatement should any be formed.

The first and forth are clearly helpful for building the encyclopedia, the third is no more of an endorsement of those projects than allowing them a project page in Wikipedia space. Allowing the first also favors experts in a way that may make it easier to find them and should be a small bit of reward to help keep them around (not readily being able to do so is a wikiproblem). GRBerry 15:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I updated the examples to reflect the changes noted above. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 22:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I really don't care that much about what stays except to say that claiming only Babel boxes reflect legitimate encyclopedia-building competencies is an extremist position. If someone gets their feathers ruffled if something is in template space, but can tolerate it in user space, then move it. However, if the objection is just another maneuver to marginalize a legitimate template as an intermediate step toward its eventual elimination, then "once burned, twice shy" and I will not continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Rfrisbie^talk 22:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

As I said in my post above, I think its the part we pro-userbox users must move towards the "other side". By having narrow and distinctive rules what exactly may remain in templatespace we can avoid long tireing discussions. We want to avoid another vague "divisive or inflammatory" rule, in any direction - once bitten, twice shy. I feel this is part of the reason I personally would like to keep the range of boxes inside templatespace quite limited. By having precise and short rules we can quickly disarm any attack from any side. "This user lives in Germany" - Germany is a real country, so templatespace. "This user lives in a glass dome on the moon" - unless he can provide evidence that he REALLY does, userspace. This is not meant to marginalize userspace userboxes, but rather to avoid further conflict. If user A says he finds your relatively unoffensive userbox in templatespace offensive, the current version of the solution would expect you to move it to userpace. Of course there would be ironically (knowing human nature) controversial discussions whether a certain userbox is controversal and userspace or not. Basically we would be in a similar place like before, people arguing about userboxes. But what we really want to do is keep those satified that like their boxes, like me, while also satisfying those that would like to see POV boxes gone, at least out of the encycopedic content. And before we brew additional trouble whether of userbox U belongs here or there, according to the different interpretations of too vague rules, I rather say "keep the really, really safe ones, like the Babel-boxes inside templatespace, and move the rest into userspace. And then let the box-loathers and anti-POV-box faction sulk as they want, since POV boxes are allowed in userspace." Basically with a little investment from our side future conflicts are largely avoided. And this is what many users really long for: peace. CharonX/talk 00:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good in theory. Make any changes to the "Guiding principles" you see fit. I have no interest or intention of edit warring anyone over userboxes. Rfrisbie^talk 01:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, to be honest, same here. I came back only a little over a week ago after near a month of userbox-war-stress induced wikibreak (at first I wanted to leave for good, but you know how it is...) but I'm starting to feel the burnout again, especially after LONG discussions with some admins in the last days. So I tried to explain the train of my thoughts, and see what the others think of it. I don't want to impose my views on all the others, I think we all felt that end of the stick often enough in the last view days. So please, whoever else reads this, add your two cents, and tell us what YOU think is better, narrow or wide, concrete or just the essentials, and show us your views (this offer of course not only extends to those that like userboxes, also those that dislike them are asked and encouraged to comment - we try to find a solution here with which (almost) all can live with). CharonX/talk 01:16, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

My two cents: Keep only Babel templates in templatespace, move everything else to userspace. It will (hopefully) stop all future problems. —Mira 01:23, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is Babel as first tier, skills (programming and area of expertise) as second tier. Beyond that it really needs to be in userspace. So, I guess you could call me "narrow". By second tier, I can see those boxes having an argument for either template or user space. So far there doesn't seem to be much issue with boxes like "advanced PHP programmer" but you never know what may change in the future. The Babel language boxes on the other hand have almost no controversy. --StuffOfInterest 01:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Without quality content, language is irrelevant. If content area experts aren't writing articles, who is? I pretty much assume editors can read and write English. The quality of their command of the language speaks for itself. Rfrisbie^talk 01:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with keeping StuffOfInterest's "Tier 2" in template space, and I would add to that group blatantly encyclopedic boxes like "user admin" and Wikiproject memberships. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I can appreciate the difficulty in aiming to take a narrow approach to template-space inclusion (so as not to encourage further deletion by the anti-userboxers), while also trying to make some concessions to make the solution palatable to the pro-userboxers as well. (See, for example, attempts with WP:UUB and WP:UPP.) While difficult, I agree that attempting this balancing act while also trying to keep the implementation simple and free of instruction creep is important in trying to definitively settle the matter and in avoiding further warring.

That said, I wanted to throw an idea out here regarding a compromise for the gray area of WikiProjects and other WikiAffiliations (group 3 from GRBerry's post above): migrate them to the Wikipedia: namespace. Specifically, WikiProjects and other WikiAffiliations that want a userbox should create it as (or migrate it to) a subpage of their main project page instead of cluttering up the template namespace. For examples: {{User WikiProject Userboxes}} could be moved out of the template namespace and into the Wikipedia namespace as {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Userboxes/Userbox}}. {{User wikipedia/WikiGnome}} would be {{Wikipedia:WikiGnome/Userbox}}, {{User WikiProject Florida}} would be {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Florida/Userbox}}, {{User wikipedia/Administrator}} would be {{Wikipedia:Administrators/Userbox}}, etc. I should point out that WikiProject Disambiguation has done this from the start, with their userbox at {{Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/Userbox}} (even if it doesn't exactly follow the naming scheme used in the other examples).

Hopefully, such Wikipedia-namespace userboxes wouldn't face much objection. The content is usually straightforward and uncontroversial (e.g., "This user is a member of WikiProject X", "This user is an administrator", etc.), and allowing transclusion from a centralized location (the subpage of the project page) would permit the project's userbox to have a standardized appearance. One of the main objections to transclusion, the potential for tracking using Whatlinkshere, is a non-issue since it's as harmless as maintaining a list of WikiProject or WikiAffiliation members. The other major objection to transclusion is the viral nature it promotes, and I don't think that's a problem here either. The common argument, generally referring to advocacy userboxes, is that the viral nature of these userboxes—that they are listed, promoted, and made available in the template namespace for easy inclusion on user pages—encourages their use as an accepted Wikipedian practice on user pages, which gives the wrong impression that such promotion of advocacy is a valid part of what it means to be a good Wikipedian. For WikiProject/Affiliation userboxes, such viral nature is not so harmful. If the viral nature of {{Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/Userbox}} motivates someone (though I doubt a userbox would be the main motivation) to help out with disambiguation and to use the userbox to identify themselves as doing so, there's no harm done—in fact, it benefits the project. Participation in such efforts can certainly be a valid part of what it means to be a good Wikipedian. (Certainly, you don't need a userbox to participate or to be a good Wikipedian; however, the existence of these sorts of transcludable userboxes do no harm [at worst] and might even have a positive effect [at best].)

Now, another aspect of this is that the implementation creates a sort of natural inclusion criteria for Wikipedia-namespace userboxes: they must be associated with a project/affiliation that has a project page in the Wikipedia-namespace. Currently, that would include all WikiProjects, as well as other groups/affiliations in the Wikipedia-namespace (like administrators, Esperanza, CVU, WikiGnomes, etc.) It would naturally exclude political/religious/advocacy userboxes , humor userboxes, trivial (e.g., favorite color) userboxes, as none of these would be associated with groups in the Wikipedia-namespace. I suppose there might be some out there with a penchant for wikilawyering who might create a project page to serve the purpose of getting a specific userbox—as if [[Wikipedia:Atheists Alliance]] would be created just to have a "This user is an atheist" userbox.—rather than the other way around. However, this would be treated as any other abuse of the Wikipedia project namespace; it wouldn't specifically be the userbox that would be objectionable (for a change), but that the associated project would be advocacy-based, and therefore would not be allowed in the Wikipedia-namespace in the first place.

That said, a number of other "second tier" userboxes that might also be acceptable wouldn't be covered under such a migration to Wikipedia-space. Userboxes based on skill, location, area of expertise, etc. really don't have "parent" project pages and would therefore be beyond the purview of such a migration. Babelboxes generally enjoy a good deal of support, but also would not be covered under such a migration. (Aside from that, the babelbox naming system of {{user foo-#}} seems fairly well standardized across the Wikipedias for the various languages, so it would be a really bad idea to try and fiddle with that.) For myself, I should say that I personally support keeping all the second tier userboxes around in a centralized location (either partially migrated to the Wikipedia-namespace or left in template space altogether), as my objections are typically to advocacy userboxes.

While the above is somewhat lengthy, I think the general idea and its implementation is fairly straightforward. A more basic statement might look something like:

WikiProjects and other encyclopedia-related groups in the Wikipedia: namespace can provide a userbox as a transcludable project subpage. Existing userboxes for such groups are to be removed from the template namespace and migrated to project subpages.

I think the part about not creating a group as an excuse to get a userbox should go without saying, so we don't need to be too explicit about that.

Again, I'll say that I'd be fine leaving all such second tier userboxes where they are; I certainly won't be bothered if no one supports a Wikipedia-namespace migration and instead just wants to keep these sorts of userboxes in templatespace (heck, I might even prefer it!). I'm just putting this out here as a sort of "third way" between the template and user namespaces—another option to consider should it occur that the inclusion of WikiProjects/WikiAffiliations in templatespace would be considered a point of contention. — Jeff | (talk) | 05:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

This suggestion seems to me a most sensible one. I have long thought that there should be more standing given to WikiProjects in this connection. As an example, I wonder if just about all of the "programming-related" userboxes should be attached to wikipedia:WikiProject Programming languages: at the risk of sparking controversy, if {{user intercal}} had been under the auspices of such a project, there would have been less likelihood of its being nuked. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 22:13, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Religion

I have started recovering the religion section at User:Ashley Y/Userboxes/Religion, including creating userboxes that express POV (e.g. "This user is a Christian" rather than "This user is interested in Christianity"). —Ashley Y 00:41, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

You might take a look at User:BigDT/Religious User Boxes, which is I recall many of the religious userboxes, if I recall correctly as they stood in mid-May. GRBerry 01:03, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

This highlights one fear I have with the userspace solution. We could easily end up with massive duplication of efforts. Please, before creating a new userspace box, check around to see if another one may already exist. First, take a look in Wikipedia:Userboxes to see if what you plan to create is there. If not, do a search on the exact text string you want to use. Finally, check a few of the existing user space archives. After that, if you don't see what you want, then create a new one. --StuffOfInterest 01:07, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

That's not necessarily a bad thing. A certain amount of redundancy provides robustness; that's why the internet was invented in the first place. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:59, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm templating many of these. —Ashley Y 02:04, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

So who is the central userbox user that is going to store the templates--Rayc 02:21, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

There isn't one. The "templates" are spread around among the user community as sub-pages. A central archive is a much bigger target than having many users with a few boxes each. My personal rule is that I'll only host a userbox which I use on my own page. If others want to use it as well then great. --StuffOfInterest 02:26, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

User categories in Userboxes

I suggest discouraging the use of user categories in userbox code. The biggest remaining concern of some deletionists would be the vote-stacking argument. My take on the evidence at Wikipedia:T1 and T2 debates is that the real problem was user categories. (Well, ok, the really real problem is off-wikipedia vote-stacking, but nothing we do to userboxes will stop that.) If we separate the two, the boxes should be safer. GRBerry 02:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I like what StuffOfInterest did with the categories, personally. They're still there, but not included in the userbox itself. —Mira 03:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I also support this "category suggestion method." I also would support userboxes that had the category code commented out with an applicable note. Obviously, there are several ways to have users choose to be included in Wikipedian categories. Whether such categories should exist is another issue. That can be addressed separately from userboxes. Rfrisbie^talk 17:04, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

With some exceptions, Categories of Wikipedians don't help us to create an encyclopedia and should be strongly deprecated. I've changed the text to reflect this. --Tony Sidaway 18:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with both GR and espcially with Tony here. Userboxes should not have categories; categories of Wikipedians do not help Wikipedia acheive its goals in any way. In fact, I've found that the existence of categories such as Category:Liberal Wikipedians and Category:Conservative Wikipedians, for example, only serve to counter Wikipedia's goals. Not only are they divisive by their very nature, not only are they used for votestacking, but they are used more insiduously by editors of controversial articles to find "like-minded" contributors to help argue on the talk pages and give their POV the appearance of consensus. I've seen this on political pages, pages dealing with religious issues, pages involving various nationalist interests, etc. The biggest problem, by far, with userboxes is the categorization issue and I'm counting the days until we have a policy that puts an end to this.--WilliamThweatt 02:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course categories of Wikipedians help the encyclopedia. It's true that not all of them do, but counting them all out paints with far too broad a brush. Further, neither categories nor userboxes themselves are direct causes of votestacking; as long as userpages are searchable, votestacking is trivial - and this has been repeatedly debunked and repeatedly proven to be unrelated to userboxes and categories, so it's at best disingenuous to raise the argument over and over again. Let me repeat myself: IF YOU WANT TO STOP VOTESTACKING AND LIKE ABUSES, MAKE USER PAGES NON-SEARCHABLE. Until that is done, this argument is horse exhaust. Jay Maynard 09:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I should note for the sake of completeness that there's one other solution to votestacking that does not involve making user pages non-searchable: mandate that user pages be as bland and homogenous as mine currently is. Of course, if that's what you want - and I can't help but reach that conclusion by some folks' insistence that people should stop being liberals or conservatives or anything else when they poke their noses in here - then go right ahead and say it. Jay Maynard 09:31, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Jay, you don't need to shout, we can all hear you. It's also incorrect that the use of categories in votestacking has been "debunked". In the examples at WP:T1D cited as examples of userbox votestacking, it turned out to be categories that were used in almost every instance.

Your continued insistence that "some folks" want userpages to be bland and homogeneous is actually boring at this point, and indicates that you've got your fingers in your ears. "La la la I can't hear you" is boring. Why not get the chip off your shoulder, Jay? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that was both a bit pushy and a bit unclear. I apologize for both, and will attempt to rectify the latter: I don't think your thesis that people want your page to be dull and homogenous is supported by any evidence, but rather contradicted by the strong support this solution is receiving from those previously on the "antiuserbox side" in the late "war". Would you rather have userboxes on your page, or maintain an altar to your conviction that Tony Sidaway really is a censorious dickhead? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:10, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I shouted because, despite repeated debunkings, people keep repeating that categories and userboxes enable votestacking - when that's not supported by the evidence. Of the five cases listed at WP:T1D, three involved categories - and one of those was about the category in question, so I would agree with the poster that that's a legitimate use. Half of the remaining cases does not a tide make. Removing categories will not correct votestacking; the evidence is plain to see. Why do people keep bringing up this red herring?

I've rethought my stand on my user page, and will be reverting it to the more informative version and fixing links to userboxes that have been moved. I'll even host those I use that are not hosted elsewhere in userspace. I realize that, in so doing, I'm opening myself up to a direct attack by Tony, but I'm going to assume, in the face of evidence to the contrary, that he will not decide to speedy delete the stuff hosted there under T1. In return, will you pledge to speedy undelete any of them if he does go against this solution to the war? I think that you'll find that none of them are "divisive and inflammatory" under any reasonable interpretation of T1, let alone core policies such as WP:NPA. Jay Maynard 17:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I pledge never to reverse anyone else's administrative action without prior, or at the very least, concommitant dialogue. That's what the community entrusted me with when they gave me the keys to the janitor closet. I have told you that you have my support; if that's not good enough for you, I don't know what to say. My record shows that I'm not scared of Tony Sidaway. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, then, I guess well find out just how far "support" goes when the rubber meets the road - or, in this case, when the speedy delete hits the servers. I really feel like the pro-userbox portion of the community that is Wikipedia is giving in to the anti-userbox admins too easily, and will find that their trust has been abused when userspace boxes start getting deleted under T1, but since I'm apparently the only one who feels that way, I'll shut up now. Jay Maynard 17:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Jay, I think you're in danger of being one of the last people buying into the whole "us vs them", "good guys and bad guys", black and white framing of the issue. If you think of a fight, you create conditions where someone has to lose in order for someone else to win. Try a paradigm shift, and see a situation where everybody is winning, and nobody "giving in". Try reading a page like meatball:DefendAgainstPassion, which has some very good content about not reinforcing conflict dynamics. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It's entirely possible. Considering everything that's been slung my way, it's kinda hard for me to get out of that mindset. OTOH, when people who've done the slinging are entirely unapologetic about it, that doesn't help... Jay Maynard 18:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

There is not consensus on the above viewpoints to eliminate Wikipedian categories. Rfrisbie^talk 04:39, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I have problems accepting the idea that categories of users interested in certain articles are fundamentally harmful to Wikipedia. I have seen (and been involved in) cases where the exact opposite is true, a POV is being pushed and is successful because too few editors had a different viewpoint. IE- the NPOV looses. I say, deal with vote stacking where it is discovered, but vote stacking can occur by many more methods than user boxes with categories, and a sense of community is created when groups which have similar interests can discuss and contribute to articles. DavidBailey 03:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's suggesting that categories of Wikipedians interested in certain topics are harmful, the problem is categories of Wikipedians according to the side they've taken on some issue. Could you clarify how you're presenting a counter-example? I really don't see how it's any more difficult for "groups which have similar interests to discuss and contibute to articles" in any scenario that anybody is suggesting. What exactly are you arguing against? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:58, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Whose userpage...

exactly do you propose stuff is moved to? Who has a right to claim stuff like that? A vital flaw I feel... Ian13/talk 09:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Different people can set up directories of the userboxes they see fit to list. It'll be a fairly organic process, and there will end up being a small handful of big directories, with a lot of overlap. At least that's what I'm seeing; I don't know about anyone else. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:04, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I just picked one of the subpages at Wikipedia:Userboxes and decided to take all of the userboxes from that page. Other people are just displaying the ones they've created themselves, or just the ones they use. I think it will be harder to find a specific userbox, if you're looking for one. But it will also be fun just browsing through all of the available directories. —Mira 09:17, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I bet we'll end up with directories with different... atmospheres. I think it'll be really interesting, the structure that develops organically. Some people will probably maintain directories of directories, and a lot of redundancy at all levels will keep the whole system robust, in case some individual disappears or deletes all their stuff. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:24, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be simplest to just make sub-pages of User:Template? After all, there appears to be no user named Template, and we can always block that name if we haven't already. I don't much like the idea of associating a userbox with a particular user if many people use it. Seahen 01:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

What you suggest might be simpler, but it won't fly. Associating userboxes with a particular person makes someone somewhat responsible for their content, perhaps. Even if that's not the case, the point is to discourage them, not facilitate them. Template space facilitated them way too much, and in a too official-seeming way. Maybe if they're rather blatantly deprecated, by not even allowing them to be hosted in a common area, people will start to ask why, and maybe find out a way of thinking about Wikipedia that won't incline them to the same mode of expression, at least that's what some of us hope. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Broadly welcome

I notice that migration has already begun. I broadly welcome this as an excellent alternative to trying to keep such templates in template space, and urge editors to adopt their favorite templates, move them to subpages and inform those who transclude the templates so that they can redirect or subst according to preference.

It doesn't matter who adopts a template; as publicly transcluded content they would be subject to public editing.

Special pseudo-users should not be used for the purpose. Please user your own username and user space.

The T1 speedy criterion still applies, but templates in user space should be afforded much broader leeway than those in template space. --Tony Sidaway 15:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony, thanks for the endorsement. What is your feeling on a) listing these userspace boxes in Wikipedia:Userboxes and b) listing the userspace boxes on Category:User templates? BTW, I fully agree with not using pseudo-users. As for notifying users, it would be nice to let a bot loose for some of the popular ones (such as religion and politics) to go through and either notify users or make the modification for them. I'll presume that most users would rather have the source of their box change than having it just disappear. Hopefully, finally, this solution can settle things down again. --StuffOfInterest 15:44, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I feel that use of categories of any kind would be inappropriate except for pretty uncontroversial matters such as Wikipiedians who live in Quebec or Wikipedians who have knowledge of Catalan.

On bot-based mass-editing of user pages to the new template locations, I think it would be a good idea to hold a straw poll prior to this; I would be in favor provided there was a strong consensus for it. I think that there would in general be no widespread objections to politely worded bot-based notifications giving a brief informative note about the move and linking to a more informative "what's all this about?" kind of FAQ page. --Tony Sidaway 16:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the categories, I was talking about putting the boxes in a category rather than the category in the boxes. As for the later, my personal policy is not to put the category in a box. On my archive page I list a suggested category with the box so if people choose to list themselves in it they have the option. It seems to make more sense than binding the two together. --StuffOfInterest 16:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's appropriate even to have a category of userboxes. The users who want to have userboxes should create them in their own user pages and tell other users about them (but not by spamming). Perhaps a page can be provided on the Userboxes WikiProject for people to list their pages of userboxes. --Tony Sidaway 18:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course you don't. Without a central directory, and a category, userboxes will wither and die - exactly what you have been working toward, by hook or by crook. Further, if, as you claim, T1 still applies, what's to stop you or Cyde or other anti-userbox admins from speedy-deleting them out of user space? How, in fact, does this improve the situation?

I'm deeply, deeply suspicious of your endorsement - to the point of beginning to oppose the proposal just because you think it's a good idea. Your claim that T1 still applies, coupled with your exceedingly broad interpretation of T1, gives me no confidence at all that this will actually be a solution. Jay Maynard 01:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You really think userboxes will die out without a centralized directory? I tend to think they'll flourish. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Licensing issues

I know that some of the archiving to date has been done by simply copying and pasting, but for continuity and site licensing reasons this should be discontinued. Instead, use page moves. This will create a link to the new location so that moved templates will continue to work on the user pages until the editors have been informed and edited their userpages to link to the new location. Moving the template also retains the editing history, which is required for licensing purposes but is also intrinsically useful maintenance information. I have edited the proposal accordingly. --Tony Sidaway 15:56, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony, an admin will probably have to help with this as many of the templates being recreated are ones which were recently deleted and salted. --StuffOfInterest 16:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, too late for many of mine. The alternative is to edit the old page into a redirect, which at least leaves the editing history.

While Tony's suggestion is desirable, it's not actually legally required, as it is perfectly acceptable to include GFDL material without attribution on Wikipedia. —Ashley Y 23:51, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

In any event, it is possible to fix cut and paste moves. Rfrisbie^talk 04:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm unwilling to do this until the fate of userboxes in Template: space has been decided. —Ashley Y 06:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't the GFDL require attribution? Ardric47 07:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, how is subst: handled from a licensing standpoint? Is there still a trail of attribution somewhere? What about templates that have been subst'd and deleted? —Andux^␅ 08:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

A "move and bypass redirects" approach

I tried moving two WikiProject userboxes and then bypassing the redirects with WP:AWB. The two new pages are {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Education/Userbox}} and {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Userbox}}. AWB worked just fine with two "Find and replace" settings, e.g., "tl|User WikiProject Psychology" → "[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Userbox]]" and "User WikiProject Psychology" → "Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Userbox" in that order so that the "tl" versions are found before they're changed. I did goof up my edit note for pyschology so I left an apology on the affected talk pages. This is a relatively painless way to move userbox templates out of templatespace. How would you suggest improving the process of how I did these? Rfrisbie^talk 22:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Centralized userspace archives

In the Broadly welcome discussion, Tony Sidaway states, "Special pseudo-users should not be used for the purpose." However, he provides no rationale. At Wikipedia:Mackensen's Proposal/Straw Poll#Question 9: New Userbox virtual space, the only rationales I see are an erroneous development workload claim and the ubiquitous “this does not stop the votestacking threat” argument. My question is, on what policy basis is a centralized userboxes archive in userspace prohibited? What stops something like “User:CentralPlaceForPuttingUserboxes” or whatever from being a major userbox repository? Considering Jimbo's expressed approval of allowing them to exist in userspace, arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions impede an orderly migration from templatespace to userspace. Having a safe and well-known place to move pages certainly would expedite the process. Rfrisbie^talk 03:15, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Ignore Tony unless he can point to policy. —Ashley Y 06:49, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Historically, that has proven a risky move. --Tony Sidaway 18:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Well I've never had an RFC against me. —Ashley Y 19:41, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Ashley Y, please do not antagonize. The goal here is trying to find a middle ground which after nearly half a year can gain some sort of concensus. Remember that there are people on one end who think there should be absolutely no userboxes and no POV anywhere on Wikipedia. Slightly inside of this are those who feel there should be nothing non-encylopedic outside of user space. On the other end are those who think anyone should be able to post anything, anywhere. I'm looking for middle ground.

Userboxes have had a bad habbit of multiplying. There are people out there who create boxes for the hell of it when they themselves won't even use them. That's why my own feeling is that any userbox in a person's archive should also be on their own user page. If you won't use it there is no reason for you to host it. Another middle ground item I'm pushing for is to let us to list boxes (and probably archives of boxes) on the Wikipedia:Userboxes project page and subpages. Granted, this isn't in user space, but it sends people in the right direction.

On a side note, as for categories, I for one don't want to add a userbox to my page to later find out it automatically put me in a category. This is why for the boxes I host I list a suggested category inclusion next to the box but I don't put it in the box code. This allows the user to decide what categories they do or do not want in

The fact that Tony has endorsed this overall solution (with a few modifications) is a big step. Hopefully we'll see Cyde stop by this week and chime in a well. Doc would have been another one to hear from but it looks like he has departed out company. Getting some of the people on the deletionist side of the debate to come onboard makes this the best chance at a solution we've had to date. The next thing we have to do is get the people on the other end of the spectrum to stop creating boxes in template space and start creating them here. --StuffOfInterest 20:49, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the central Wikipedia:Userboxes would be a much better place than even a neutral role account for directories of userboxes. —Ashley Y 04:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see that it matters either way. That said, I'm sticking to my own userspace, because using a "pseudo-user" account just opens the way for more pointless bickering. —Mira 06:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I just created a navigation "template" that might help (don't worry, it's in my userspace), but I'm not sure if it's one of those "Bad Things™" or not. Please let me know what you think, either here or on the "template"'s talk page. —Mira 09:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

As long as this is a "short list," this seems fine. Real soon now, I expect someone will create a centralized list page in userspace. Rfrisbie^talk 11:44, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a list linked at the top of the template. However, the user hosting it says it is temporary. —Mira 12:06, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I missed that. I'm sure someone else will pick up the ball if that list disappears. And thanks for starting the template! :-) Rfrisbie^talk 14:14, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Why, thank you for the kind words. :) —Mira 14:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, it is temporary, but I'm in no hurry. Work out what the right solution is, and after we have that implemented we'll deprecate and eventually do away with that page. GRBerry 18:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Userpage directories

In addition to "archives" for hosting userboxes, userpage "directories" are important to help find userboxes of interest. These directories can list userboxes from wherever they are located, not just those archived on a particular user's page. As an example, I am starting to migrate "pet" userboxes to my userpage area. As naming conventions, I add userboxes to "User:<Username>/Userbox/<Userbox name>". and directories to "User:<Username>/Userboxes/<Directory name>". After I move templates, I bypass all the redirects using WP:AWB. This process updates individual userpages, the related WP:UBX subpage and my own directory. My basic edit summary is "Bypassed userbox redirect from [[Template:<old name>]] to [[User:<new name>]]. See [[Wikipedia:The German solution]]." You can see an example directory at User:Rfrisbie/Userboxes/Pets. Rfrisbie^talk 14:07, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Where to put?

I think we should put the userboxes on my sockpuppet's page, User:Userboxuser. There is even a template for him, Template:ubxusr, so to use it use {{ubxusr|exampleuserboxbox}} which will turn out as {{User:Userboxuser/exampleuserbox}}. Also, a shortcut is located at U:UBX --GeorgeMoney ^T·C 16:11, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a bad idea, as it will only cause more controversy. (See Tony Sidaway's statements above.) —Mira 16:21, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

2nd that. --StuffOfInterest 19:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Please don't create any more role accounts for the purpose of hosting userboxes. All userboxes under those accounts will be deleted or userfied. --Tony Sidaway 18:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

And then brought back under DRV. —Ashley Y 19:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it much easier to just not use role accounts, and then avoid the whole deletion/DRV cycle? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

If you are User:Userboxuser, then you're in a better position to complain if a rogue admin deletes stuff in your space. If you can do that, it should work. I was going to use User:Userboxes, but the owner has apparently left Wikipedia. —Ashley Y 20:05, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

My god. Can someone please explain what the problem is? —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 20:10, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure... it has to do with user accounts being created just as userbox storage places. Tony's saying don't do that, that userboxes should be stored in the user spaces of regular user accounts; at least that's what I'm hearing him say. I think Ashley objects to that, but I'm not sure why. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:13, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway has been making vague threats to delete stuff out of User: space. —Ashley Y 20:15, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The easiest way to deal with "vague threats" like that is to think of Wikipedia the way Tony does, specifically regarding the role of written policy. He's making perfect sense, from that perspective. Interpreting Wikipedia policy legalistically is a risky move; that's not a threat. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe this perspective leads to wheel-warring and complaints. I don't think this is the model for good editing or admin behaviour, and I don't think we should be bound by one editor who behaves like that. I recommend people build consensus instead. —Ashley Y 21:22, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Um.... it's not one editor. It's how the site's been working for years. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey, if there's a consensus for something, go ahead and organise it and let people know about it, even create a policy document if you like. I think saying "Special pseudo-users should not be used for the purpose" is a perfectly reasonable opinion, and possibly even the start of a discussion on the issue, but right now that's just one editor and hardly policy we are currently bound by. —Ashley Y 03:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I think I don't understand - how is User:Userboxuser in a better position to complain than you would be if a rogue admin deletes stuff from your own space? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:11, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Our own space is also good, but we might want a central place. Actually I'm thinking more for the "directory" pages than for the userboxes themselves. —Ashley Y 20:16, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess I was imagining that certain people, whoever wants to, would host directories in their own user spaces, and there would be a certain amount of interlinking among them. Isn't that what people have started to do already? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, User:UBX/Userboxes/General Nav is a good tool to keep track of that status. Rfrisbie^talk 20:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I have for religion, but if it's considered acceptable I might move it to a more central place so others can feel a bit freer about editing it without worrying about whether I "own" it. —Ashley Y 20:30, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand that concern, but I think we'll just have to help people get over ideas about ownership. I sort of imagine lots of people having small collections of userboxes, copied from directories they like, or self-made, and then people will probably copy the ones the want to share to their favorite directories, which will become known as places where people come to compare and swap userboxes, and you'd be more of a host than an owner. It'll all be quite organic, I imgaine; wikis are good at that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Well right now for example I have User:Ashley Y/Userboxes/Religion and BigDT has User:BigDT/Religious User Boxes. It would be useful if there were a neutral space where we could merge them together into a single page and avoid duplication. If you look at User:UBX/Userboxes/General Nav, you see the beginnings of a bunch of random stuff that could benefit from organisation. —Ashley Y 20:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

As I've said several times, if you were only listing those which you yourself put on your user page there wouldn't be nearly as much duplication. I only have one religion box in my archive being that it is the only one I have on my user page. --StuffOfInterest 20:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I support organization, but I don't think avoiding redundancy is a good idea. Redundancy provides a certain robustness, which is a good thing. It certainly seems a strange battle to choose, if there's good faith opposition. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:32, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

A certain amount of redundancy is a good thing. I just believe that users should have a personal stake/interest in the boxes they choose to host. Otherwise, we'll see a lot of wasted resources and effort on boxes which will never see a single users page. --StuffOfInterest 21:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

My immediate concern has been preserving userboxes before they get speedily deleted: despite Jimbo's requests not to, the mass deletion has been continuing, albeit at a slower rate. I'm not sure I really want to hold on to all of them forever, I might try to get others to claim them once the dust has settled. —Ashley Y 04:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I think my question wasn't quite clear. I meant: what's the problem with user boxes? Why we consider moving them? Do they violate any wikipedia rule? —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 23:30, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, a lot of people think that a lot of userboxes violate the "spirit" of the project, but it's hard to point to one particular rule that's specificly about them. It's been a contentious issue for a while, and the "rules" regarding userboxes are in a state of flux, but you should understand that that's the usual story with "rules" here - the most experienced Wikipedians don't think in terms of rules at all. (Look at pillar 5 under WP:5P.) Anyway, the compromise that we seem to be coming to with userboxes is to move them from template space to user space, which makes it clearer that they aren't part of the encyclopedia project, but once in user space, we're going to let people say what they want with them, pretty much, and see how that works out. It's what they do on the German Wikipedia, hence the name of this page. I hope that addresses your question better. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. In all honesty, this is quite disheartening. Of course I don't care about userboxes and I'll remove all of them from my user page. But a similar phenomenon is happening with the Manual Of Style: tons of changes are being made without notice... I don't think one has to read the manual again every morning. I understand that no rule is set in stone but a relative stability is necessary, especially considering that the maintenance tools available here are near to zero and pretty much everything is done by hand. Thanks again for your reply. The previous comments are not addressed to you, of course. —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 00:10, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

TfD problem?

This TfD worries me somewhat. Will this plan still work if the boxes can be brought to TfD? —Mira 23:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

At some point, we ought to decide whether TfD or MfD is the appropriate forum for userfied templates. I can't see that it matters much one way or the other, but we might as well be consistent, eventually. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, if it wasn't obvious, I think they should go to MfD. —Mira 23:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

It's so unobvious, to me anyway, that I'm going to ask you why you think that. Why? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I meant if it wasn't obvious in light of my comments above. But I think the most basic reason is that, as silly as it may sound, they aren't in template space. —Mira 00:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Where do user pages and user subpages usually go? Let's be consistent with that... GRBerry 00:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

MfD. —Mira 00:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess I was hoping for a reason other than "semantics" or "inertia". Like I said, I don't think it matters much. There's template space, and there's pages that are clearly designed for transclusion only, and there's a pretty good reason for taking either of those to define what is a "template". -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, part of the point of this proposal is that the new userboxes will be governed by the more lenient rules of userspace. Treating them as templates seems to defeat that point. —Mira 00:30, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

That's a point. I wouldn't oppose using MfD; just be prepared to explain it n times, where 'n' is any arbitrary large number. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Heh, guess I'd better practice. —Mira 00:40, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like what templates are good for. ;-) Rfrisbie^talk 01:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Categories and vote-stacking

I understand that categories make vote-stacking easier; there is also the argument that such things should not mess up Category space. What concerns me is that the same arguments might apply to any central directory of userboxes, given the "what links here" functionality. I would rather see such directories exist. —Ashley Y 04:11, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

It's easy to vote-stack using the search function: for instance, pro-choice users, Republican users. Is there any evidence that categories are significantly easier or more effective? —Ashley Y 04:17, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Unless user pages are not searchable anywhere (including on Wikipedia itself and on search engines like google), things would not change. Adding categories just make things easier for everyone and does not make things worse anyways. --Hunter 05:16, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I have problems accepting the idea that categories of users interested in certain articles are fundamentally harmful to Wikipedia. I have seen (and been involved in) cases where the exact opposite is true, a POV is being pushed and is successful because too few editors had a different viewpoint. IE- the NPOV looses. I say, deal with vote stacking where it is discovered, but vote stacking can occur by many more methods than user boxes with categories, and a sense of community is created when groups which have similar interests can discuss and contribute to articles. DavidBailey 03:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Central directory

Where should we put a central directory of userboxes? (not a vote, don't sign underneath, just a question for discussion)

• Use the existing WP:UBX? It will always exist for Babel-boxes at least, one assumes.

• Use User:Box? No policy says we can't. Note that User:Boxes, User:Userbox and User:Userboxes all have ban notices on them, which complicate things.

• Not at all? Perhaps some would prefer userboxes not to be easily found.

—Ashley Y 05:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that if you set up a central directory, you'll see it slip out of date until it isn't a central directory anymore. Decentralized is much more organic; I doubt it will be hard to find things, either. I find things on the internet all the time, and it hasn't got a central directory. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Well WP:UBX works perfectly well. People find userboxes there, so they like to add new ones there too. I would prefer to keep that for POV userboxes if we can. —Ashley Y 05:51, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not against it; but clearly someone's been banning "role" accounts. If it were me, I'd just embrace the whole decentralized, user-hosted directories, sort of underground aspect of it, but I'll shut up about it, since others don't seem to see it that way. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The role accounts were banned for other reasons I believe: you'll notice that the user pages were not protected, for instance. —Ashley Y 05:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for role account blocking:

• Userboxes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): 17:11, 4 June 2006 Ral315 blocked "Userboxes (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Tying up a loose end. The creator of this account was banned from userboxes, so I see no reason why this account shouldn't be banned in general.) (This one was involved in an ArbComm case.)
• Userbox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): 17:09, 13 May 2006 Curps blocked "Userbox (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (vandalism)
• Boxes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): 20:29, 12 February 2006 Tony Sidaway deleted "User:Boxes" (See Wikipedia:User Page and WP:NOT) ; 20:05, 12 February 2006 Tony Sidaway blocked "Boxes (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Clearly has no intention of producing an encyclopedia) (later restored)
• Box (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): 21:14, 12 February 2006 MarkSweep blocked "Box (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (doppelganger of User:Boxes)
• Userboxuser (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): 11:43, 4 June 2006 Tony Sidaway blocked "Userboxuser (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Another userbox role account)

So, three out of the above five were blocked because they were role accounts. Another was involved with an ArbComm case, which partially involved userboxes. One was blocked for vandalism. I don't see too bright a future ahead for use of role accounts as userbox directories.— Jeff | (talk) | 07:17, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh. So is there a policy against role accounts, or did the admins in question simply block the users because they didn't like the idea? —Ashley Y 07:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Ashley, you're gonna be much happier here when you drop the "where is it written?" schtick. Wikipedia isn't suddenly going to become a "rules" game. Is this really the battle you want to choose? Are role accounts worth it to you? I'm just thinking in terms of opposition that (like it or not) exists, versus actual necessity, and I'm not seeing it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually I think WP:UBX is a much better solution. But I'm concerned about what guides admin behaviour in general. Can they just block user accounts whenever they want, or are they bound somehow? Equally, given that userboxes are acceptable in userspace, can I create a new role account for them, or would that be considered bad behaviour? (And why?) —Ashley Y 16:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

"Bad behavior" makes it sound so... let's say I think it might be provocative. If it means something to you, though, go for it; see what happens. Just don't be surprised if someone objects, and I won't predict where it'll go after that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

By the way, you don't think the userbox war might have been made less painful if admins paid just a little bit more attention to consensus and policy? Or is that not so much of a concern for you? —Ashley Y 16:37, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

You might be surprised how much of a concern it is for me, but I fear we're getting off topic. I'd like to discuss this subject with you, because I think we (Wikipedia) can do a much better job in some communication related areas, and I'm mulling over some ideas how to do that. I'll probably ping your talk page later for input, but as a direct reply, I think the userbox war could have been made less painful in a variety of ways, some having to do with policy, all having to do with communication. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Consensus and policy are precisely the topic for me, and I believe are for most of the people who have been complaining about the speedy deletions. See BigDT's userbox-comment here, which sums it up. Even the German solution is threatened if, for instance, some admin decides they don't like it and starts deleting userboxes or whatever (see, for instance, WP:TFD#User:Dtm142.2FUser_no_evil_boxes). Now, one approach has been to find all such likely admins and get them to sign on, which is laudable I suppose, but I would rather see admins stick to accepted consensus and policy on the issue. That may sound like a "rules game" to you, but actually increased attention to process has worked very well in the past when things have gotten heated, and might have saved us a lot of pain this time around as well.

Anyway, if here is not the right place, there's Wikipedia talk:T1 and T2 debates#An aside. —Ashley Y 17:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Surely the reasons for not having userboxes in the template namespace apply equally to the Wikipedia: namespace - so using WP:UBX as a central directory would meet with the same objections. I definitely think there should be a central repository/directory though. Waggers 11:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I already made a copy of Wikipedia:Userboxes/Pets and put it at User:Rfrisbie/Userboxes/Pets. I've moved a good chunk of the templates over to my userpage. For each one, I used WP:AWB to bypass the redirects, synchronize the two directory pages, and leave a message about the process described here. After "What links here" was cleared, I put {{User GUS UBX to}} at {{User mutt lover}} to test a friendlier "no userbox here" message. If WP:UBX is unacceptable, I'm certainly willing to be part of a "network of topical userbox directories" modeled after the current directory. As long as no one is attempting to block the migration process, it's really not all that hard, just a bit tedious. But that's what computers and WikiGnomes are for. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 14:01, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Some issues

Where to gather together userboxes? Should we just add them to Wikipedia:Userboxes as usual, or will we be forced to create a new place?

Is it OK to put userboxes under User:Userboxes, or are they more likely to be deleted by rogue admins? User:Userboxes/Satanist got deleted once already. —Ashley Y 02:06, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

If the idea is to move userboxes to user space to get them out of the clutches of deletionist admins, as many (including more than a few deletionist admins) have claimed, and if Jimbo endorses the solution, then on what grounds are they deleted? If userboxes can be deleted by admins even in user space, then why bother? Let the admins have their way, and us peons will know exactly where we stand - nowhere at all. Jay Maynard 02:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep them on your personal pages (check my sig). If they keep deleting them there (usually claiming the Jimbo hates boxes et al) whack them with the following:This is like saying, "You may have pamphlets, but you may not mechanically print and distribute them. This is not an infringement of free speech". To put it kindly, this is counter-intuitive." State that they are not following Jimbo's suggestions as they claim, they are not following policy or consensus, and that they basically vandalize your pages. If they do it again, start an RFC or RFA. Let's see how they talk themselvs out of that one. CharonX talk Userboxes 02:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

'Let's see how they talk themselvs out of that one.' They do it by being 'right' in the eyes of Tony Sidaway et al - someone has already tried to RFAr Cyde over this issue (worse than simply deleting userboxes - Cyde was actually vandalizing the templates), and it was rejected. Cynical 10:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I still believe in the community. While they have Jimbo's words and T1 as an "argument" they could always say "I only did what was 'right'". However Jimbo explicitely mentions the methods known to us as 'German solution' and says it was implemented with great effect. So they cannout say "We only did what Jimbo said". And they cannot use T1 since T1 is not appicable in userspace. They have bent T1 in templatespace against its spirits (a means to kill hatespeech etc.) but there is no similar policy on userspace to bend. So they would have to act outside policy without the tinyest figleaf. CharonX/talk 11:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

A few admins may still try to use T1. I've seen the claim made that any transclusion is considered a template and thus fair game for T1. Should that interpretation to all the way to ArbComm I'm not sure how it would hold up but it would be interesting. In the interim, I've started converting my own on page userbox code over to an archive of userboxes. The next task will see if starting a conversion of Wikipedia:Userboxes will work to allow people to find these user page hosted transclude boxes. --StuffOfInterest 12:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I said above the transclusions in userspace are templates argument does not have the support of Jimbo. See my Jimbo-quote above. I too would be curious how ArbCom rules there, but I think we have a better chance with Jimbo having suggested that way.CharonX/talk 14:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

The best defense will be to get enough peopple creating their own archives that it will cause too much of an uproar if one admin decides to go on a deletion spree. To that end, I've created a cross link from my archive to your archive. If I see anyone else out there starting their own I'll add links for that as well. Oh, and sorry to say this, but I really don't like how you have the page name ending with a slash. It just doesn't seem to follow usual Wiki naming practice. Could you at least create a redirect from the non-slashed version to that one? --StuffOfInterest 14:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Woops, didn't actively notice that slash. I moved it to slashless and changed the link on your page, hope you don't mind. CharonX/talk 13:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I would list them in the Wikipedia:Userboxes area (not the user account). If the admins start deleting the boxes from user space then they will be commiting vandalism in the absense of any dictates or concensus established policy. The problem with User:Userboxes is that it is more or less a puppet account for an archive. The boxes should be in a user's account and just a listing of them kept in the userboxes project page. --StuffOfInterest 02:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

As I said below I don't mind either way (centralized directory or small number of large primary user-organized archives) both have their advantages and disadvantages. If the "no endorsement" faction feels an centralized archive would be endorsement I would go for the decentralized variant if it makes them happy, since there has been enough pain in this war. CharonX/talk 13:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There are no rogue admins, just rouge admins. Ardric47 07:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

• I wasn't aware of this discussion; just noticed from my watchlist that someone moved a userbox I had worked on and... here we go. Please, let me understand, we are scattering them on several user pages to make it harder for administrators to delete them???? —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 19:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Organize

Please keep the effort organized. I'd suggest each sub-page of Wikipedia:Userboxes end up archived on the same group of pages.

I can easily see a later move to have Wikipedia:Userboxes eliminated because it seems "like an endorsement". Be prepared to replace it in user space also. GRBerry 14:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

GRBerry, I'm not quite sure what you mean by your reference to sub-page archives. Could you please expand on that a bit. I'm concerned about someone going after Wikipedia:Userboxes as well. All we can do is have some level of cross linking between personal archives to help any future browsing users find what they are looking for. In the meantime, I've decided to be bold and try listing one religous and one political user box of mine out on Wikipedia:Userboxes sub-pages. We'll see if anybody notices, expands on it, or tries to kill it. At least now there are a few words from the benevloent dictator to backup this sort of presention of userboxes.

The funny thing is, I don't really like userboxes that much. The only thing that made me put more than language and skill boxes on my page was when a few admins started saying we could not have them. I just want to see some solution come around which puts an end to the war. --StuffOfInterest 19:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

German Solution?

Should this really be called the German Solution? Isn't this a bit offensive to Germans? Why not the German Wikipedia Resolution?--☆TBC☆ (aka Tree Biting Conspiracy) 20:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Why would this be offensive? If anything it is a compliment. The editors on the German Wikipedia came up with a solution to the userbox issue without it degenerating into the sort of warfare we've seen here. --StuffOfInterest 21:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think Tree Biting Conspiracy says the name makes it sound like the german Final Solution--Rayc 22:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Yuk! Hopefully not too many people make that connection. If too many complain then this page may have to be renamed but I'll leave hope that most people can see the naming for what it is, a compliment. --StuffOfInterest 02:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I was going to call it "The German compromise" but this name was already out there. Having "German" in the term clearly alludes to Jimbo's 5/27/06 comment, ("This is the solution that the Germans have put into effect with great results." -bold added) which is a good thing. Rfrisbie^talk 03:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds to me like the name of a famous movie or something. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 01:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd support a rename to "the german compromise". Solution made me twitch in horror at first, then decide/realize i probably just didnt know what it was referring to. Sounds much like a euphemism/spin for something nasty to my ears. Population control.

(The proposal itself i completely agree with though ;) -Quiddity 06:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh leave the poor Germans alone. It's an excellent solution of theirs. —Ashley Y 06:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, I'm a German myself and I fear I helped coin the term "the German solution". I don't really mind it, if you want to rename it, no problems either - after all "Namen sind nur Schall und Rauch" CharonX/talk 12:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Oi, chalk me up as someone who had a kneejerk reaction to the current name as well. In addition, it's not descriptive unless you already know it's about userboxes. What about: Wikipedia:Solution to userboxes, with a note in the first paragraph that says it comes from de:Wikipedia? -- nae'blis _(talk) 20:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunatley, we've had numerous proposed policies and decisions which didn't make it and are polluting up quite a few good names now. If this does turn into either a defacto or official policy then it should be moved over to a proper name. I won't argue if someone wants to rename the current page but I don't see too much need for it yet. --StuffOfInterest 20:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Size of archive

I'd like to discuss an issue pertaining to the size of personal archives. My own feeling is that a user should not create a userbox in their archive unless they are using it form themself. This will hopefully avoid overpopulation of boxes where a user creates a bunch of them with no intention of ever using them. Back when admins were sending userboxes to TfD one of the criteria I would use for keep/delete votes was how many pages were including the template. In many cases there were none. At this point the box really does become useless junk. What do others think? --StuffOfInterest 10:38, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I have some concers about this suggestion. If a stable centralized archive exists relatively free of deletion wars, limiting the size of individual archives is one thing. If a distributed system evolves as a preservation mechanism, then limiting size will be used as a weapon by deletionists. Some users ask for a specific userbox to be created for them for whatever reason. Others often do this as a service, even if they don't use it themselves. On counting links, the number of users for a box always will be small initially, making them vulnerable to this criterion in their infancy. Such restrictions may be more applicable to centralized archive and directory pages than on an individual user's pages. This suggestion would seem to work best as a guideline with some caveats, rather than as a hard and fast rule. Rfrisbie^talk 11:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

One thing jumped out at me in this. You mention that some users will ask to have a box created for them. If someone creates that box it should probably be hosted under the account of the user who wants to use it. My fear is that having large archives of infrequently used boxes in user space is an invitation to some admin to go on a deletion crusade. If the user hosting the box is using it him/herself then it becomes much harder for an admin to justify deletion. --StuffOfInterest 12:08, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

"Large" and "unused" are two different issues. For example, see Regarding central directories below. It's probably better to separate them. Rfrisbie^talk 14:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Tagging boxes

I'm trying to get any related discussions started over here in separate threads so we can work out details and conventions. Please bare with me.

Many people find userboxes through other people's pages rather than in archives. It would be nice to give people a way to find the code for a userbox without having to bring up an edit window on another users's page. I'd like to suggest that to get around this people hosting userboxes create a link at the end of the box text to take people to a place with the code for including that box. For my own boxes I'm using the following:

<small>[[User:StuffOfInterest/Userboxes|*]]</small>

This adds a small, clickable asterisk at the end of the text which takes you to my archive page where the include code is shown. I wouldn't recommend this as a requirement but it might be nice to have as a guideline to help users get to what they are looking for. --StuffOfInterest 12:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Classification of Wikipedians and userboxes

How are Wikipedians and userboxes classified in the German solution? I recommend the following classifications remain in the English implementation. For userboxes that migrate, their category listings would migrate as well. Rfrisbie^talk 12:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Category:Categories → Category:Wikipedia administration → Category:Wikipedians

Category:Categories → Category:Wikipedia administration → Category:User templates

I wouldn't mind seeing the templates listed in Category:User templates but anything involving user boxes outside of user space may become a deletion target. --StuffOfInterest 12:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I added additional info, guideline like rules and implementation example

As above, I added a bunch of stuff, feel free to discuss and mercielessly edit it. CharonX/talk 12:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Er, and if you don't like them, just remove them again. They are just a suggestion, and I really won't mind. CharonX/talk 13:25, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding central directories

Personally I feel this could work without an "official" central directory, provided one or more dedicated users take it upon themselves to provide a large selection of boxes and/or links to other major archives. This would avoid the "official endorsement" problem seen by some users. Personally, I don't care either way. CharonX/talk 13:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe there should be an "official" directory. For starters, it should include the "skills," "editing interests" and "wikiaffiliations" userboxes. If some type of userbox is too "POV," e.g., "non-wikiaffiliations," then a "grass-roots" directory/directories would be useful. Rfrisbie^talk 14:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd concur that there should continue to be a directory outside User space. At least for the first few months, it should also contain pointers to grass-roots directories that are preceeded by educational text about why these are no longer in the existing directory. (It wouldn't hurt if the grass roots directories also have links back to the official directory.) GRBerry 15:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually the German version does have a link from the Babel-userboxes directory to a major personal directory, so there should not problems there. Let's just make sure it does not look like an "endorsement". CharonX/talk 15:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

How about using Categories, with various sub-categories for listing the boxes? --Hunter 14:51, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm in favour of that, but fear that those who wish to banish userboxes from the template namespace would also want to see them banished from Wikipedia's categories. Waggers 11:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Non-Babel boxes in templatespace

First of all, what are babel boxes? Babel boxes are boxes saying "this user speaks XYZ" and perhaps "this user lives in (country)".

I see that the suggestion has been changed to allow some non-babel boxes in templatespace. Personally, I get a bad feeling with that. This issue is, if we say "non-babelboxes should be in userspace" we have a distinct line. Does it say "user speaks XYZ" or "user lives in XYZ" and is XYZ a real language/country? Then its templatespace. If not its userspace. If we say things like "this user is straight" or similar may remain in templatespace "because nobody would object" we have accomplished little. There will still be skirmishes whether "possibly controversial template A" is controversial and should be in userspace or not and belongs to templatespace.

Basically this is where we pro-userbox users give up parts of our position. We say "ok, normally there is nothing wrong with those boxes, but if it makes the others happy we move them to userspace." And we avoid lengthy, tireing discussions. CharonX/talk 15:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we should allow more than Babel boxes in Template space, but let's try to draw the line narrowly. And acknowledge a position that if a significant body of commentary is received, we'll err towards moving more boxes to user space. As the project page is written at this moment, here is how I'd suggest drawing the line:

1. "related to skills and qualifications" - change to "claiming professional or academic expertise", as these clearly contribute to building an encyclopedia, all others to User space
2. "editing interests" - User space
3. "wikiaffiliations" - "Wikiproject affiliations" - wikiphilosophy goes to user space
4. new - allow "claiming access to specialized resources and willingness to research in them upon request" (old texts, pay for access online subscriptions). I don't know if there are any such boxes at present, but I'd like to give them favored treatement should any be formed.

The first and forth are clearly helpful for building the encyclopedia, the third is no more of an endorsement of those projects than allowing them a project page in Wikipedia space. Allowing the first also favors experts in a way that may make it easier to find them and should be a small bit of reward to help keep them around (not readily being able to do so is a wikiproblem). GRBerry 15:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I updated the examples to reflect the changes noted above. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 22:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I really don't care that much about what stays except to say that claiming only Babel boxes reflect legitimate encyclopedia-building competencies is an extremist position. If someone gets their feathers ruffled if something is in template space, but can tolerate it in user space, then move it. However, if the objection is just another maneuver to marginalize a legitimate template as an intermediate step toward its eventual elimination, then "once burned, twice shy" and I will not continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Rfrisbie^talk 22:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

As I said in my post above, I think its the part we pro-userbox users must move towards the "other side". By having narrow and distinctive rules what exactly may remain in templatespace we can avoid long tireing discussions. We want to avoid another vague "divisive or inflammatory" rule, in any direction - once bitten, twice shy. I feel this is part of the reason I personally would like to keep the range of boxes inside templatespace quite limited. By having precise and short rules we can quickly disarm any attack from any side. "This user lives in Germany" - Germany is a real country, so templatespace. "This user lives in a glass dome on the moon" - unless he can provide evidence that he REALLY does, userspace. This is not meant to marginalize userspace userboxes, but rather to avoid further conflict. If user A says he finds your relatively unoffensive userbox in templatespace offensive, the current version of the solution would expect you to move it to userpace. Of course there would be ironically (knowing human nature) controversial discussions whether a certain userbox is controversal and userspace or not. Basically we would be in a similar place like before, people arguing about userboxes. But what we really want to do is keep those satified that like their boxes, like me, while also satisfying those that would like to see POV boxes gone, at least out of the encycopedic content. And before we brew additional trouble whether of userbox U belongs here or there, according to the different interpretations of too vague rules, I rather say "keep the really, really safe ones, like the Babel-boxes inside templatespace, and move the rest into userspace. And then let the box-loathers and anti-POV-box faction sulk as they want, since POV boxes are allowed in userspace." Basically with a little investment from our side future conflicts are largely avoided. And this is what many users really long for: peace. CharonX/talk 00:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good in theory. Make any changes to the "Guiding principles" you see fit. I have no interest or intention of edit warring anyone over userboxes. Rfrisbie^talk 01:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, to be honest, same here. I came back only a little over a week ago after near a month of userbox-war-stress induced wikibreak (at first I wanted to leave for good, but you know how it is...) but I'm starting to feel the burnout again, especially after LONG discussions with some admins in the last days. So I tried to explain the train of my thoughts, and see what the others think of it. I don't want to impose my views on all the others, I think we all felt that end of the stick often enough in the last view days. So please, whoever else reads this, add your two cents, and tell us what YOU think is better, narrow or wide, concrete or just the essentials, and show us your views (this offer of course not only extends to those that like userboxes, also those that dislike them are asked and encouraged to comment - we try to find a solution here with which (almost) all can live with). CharonX/talk 01:16, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

My two cents: Keep only Babel templates in templatespace, move everything else to userspace. It will (hopefully) stop all future problems. —Mira 01:23, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is Babel as first tier, skills (programming and area of expertise) as second tier. Beyond that it really needs to be in userspace. So, I guess you could call me "narrow". By second tier, I can see those boxes having an argument for either template or user space. So far there doesn't seem to be much issue with boxes like "advanced PHP programmer" but you never know what may change in the future. The Babel language boxes on the other hand have almost no controversy. --StuffOfInterest 01:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Without quality content, language is irrelevant. If content area experts aren't writing articles, who is? I pretty much assume editors can read and write English. The quality of their command of the language speaks for itself. Rfrisbie^talk 01:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with keeping StuffOfInterest's "Tier 2" in template space, and I would add to that group blatantly encyclopedic boxes like "user admin" and Wikiproject memberships. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I can appreciate the difficulty in aiming to take a narrow approach to template-space inclusion (so as not to encourage further deletion by the anti-userboxers), while also trying to make some concessions to make the solution palatable to the pro-userboxers as well. (See, for example, attempts with WP:UUB and WP:UPP.) While difficult, I agree that attempting this balancing act while also trying to keep the implementation simple and free of instruction creep is important in trying to definitively settle the matter and in avoiding further warring.

That said, I wanted to throw an idea out here regarding a compromise for the gray area of WikiProjects and other WikiAffiliations (group 3 from GRBerry's post above): migrate them to the Wikipedia: namespace. Specifically, WikiProjects and other WikiAffiliations that want a userbox should create it as (or migrate it to) a subpage of their main project page instead of cluttering up the template namespace. For examples: {{User WikiProject Userboxes}} could be moved out of the template namespace and into the Wikipedia namespace as {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Userboxes/Userbox}}. {{User wikipedia/WikiGnome}} would be {{Wikipedia:WikiGnome/Userbox}}, {{User WikiProject Florida}} would be {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Florida/Userbox}}, {{User wikipedia/Administrator}} would be {{Wikipedia:Administrators/Userbox}}, etc. I should point out that WikiProject Disambiguation has done this from the start, with their userbox at {{Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/Userbox}} (even if it doesn't exactly follow the naming scheme used in the other examples).

Hopefully, such Wikipedia-namespace userboxes wouldn't face much objection. The content is usually straightforward and uncontroversial (e.g., "This user is a member of WikiProject X", "This user is an administrator", etc.), and allowing transclusion from a centralized location (the subpage of the project page) would permit the project's userbox to have a standardized appearance. One of the main objections to transclusion, the potential for tracking using Whatlinkshere, is a non-issue since it's as harmless as maintaining a list of WikiProject or WikiAffiliation members. The other major objection to transclusion is the viral nature it promotes, and I don't think that's a problem here either. The common argument, generally referring to advocacy userboxes, is that the viral nature of these userboxes—that they are listed, promoted, and made available in the template namespace for easy inclusion on user pages—encourages their use as an accepted Wikipedian practice on user pages, which gives the wrong impression that such promotion of advocacy is a valid part of what it means to be a good Wikipedian. For WikiProject/Affiliation userboxes, such viral nature is not so harmful. If the viral nature of {{Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/Userbox}} motivates someone (though I doubt a userbox would be the main motivation) to help out with disambiguation and to use the userbox to identify themselves as doing so, there's no harm done—in fact, it benefits the project. Participation in such efforts can certainly be a valid part of what it means to be a good Wikipedian. (Certainly, you don't need a userbox to participate or to be a good Wikipedian; however, the existence of these sorts of transcludable userboxes do no harm [at worst] and might even have a positive effect [at best].)

Now, another aspect of this is that the implementation creates a sort of natural inclusion criteria for Wikipedia-namespace userboxes: they must be associated with a project/affiliation that has a project page in the Wikipedia-namespace. Currently, that would include all WikiProjects, as well as other groups/affiliations in the Wikipedia-namespace (like administrators, Esperanza, CVU, WikiGnomes, etc.) It would naturally exclude political/religious/advocacy userboxes , humor userboxes, trivial (e.g., favorite color) userboxes, as none of these would be associated with groups in the Wikipedia-namespace. I suppose there might be some out there with a penchant for wikilawyering who might create a project page to serve the purpose of getting a specific userbox—as if [[Wikipedia:Atheists Alliance]] would be created just to have a "This user is an atheist" userbox.—rather than the other way around. However, this would be treated as any other abuse of the Wikipedia project namespace; it wouldn't specifically be the userbox that would be objectionable (for a change), but that the associated project would be advocacy-based, and therefore would not be allowed in the Wikipedia-namespace in the first place.

That said, a number of other "second tier" userboxes that might also be acceptable wouldn't be covered under such a migration to Wikipedia-space. Userboxes based on skill, location, area of expertise, etc. really don't have "parent" project pages and would therefore be beyond the purview of such a migration. Babelboxes generally enjoy a good deal of support, but also would not be covered under such a migration. (Aside from that, the babelbox naming system of {{user foo-#}} seems fairly well standardized across the Wikipedias for the various languages, so it would be a really bad idea to try and fiddle with that.) For myself, I should say that I personally support keeping all the second tier userboxes around in a centralized location (either partially migrated to the Wikipedia-namespace or left in template space altogether), as my objections are typically to advocacy userboxes.

While the above is somewhat lengthy, I think the general idea and its implementation is fairly straightforward. A more basic statement might look something like:

WikiProjects and other encyclopedia-related groups in the Wikipedia: namespace can provide a userbox as a transcludable project subpage. Existing userboxes for such groups are to be removed from the template namespace and migrated to project subpages.

I think the part about not creating a group as an excuse to get a userbox should go without saying, so we don't need to be too explicit about that.

Again, I'll say that I'd be fine leaving all such second tier userboxes where they are; I certainly won't be bothered if no one supports a Wikipedia-namespace migration and instead just wants to keep these sorts of userboxes in templatespace (heck, I might even prefer it!). I'm just putting this out here as a sort of "third way" between the template and user namespaces—another option to consider should it occur that the inclusion of WikiProjects/WikiAffiliations in templatespace would be considered a point of contention. — Jeff | (talk) | 05:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

This suggestion seems to me a most sensible one. I have long thought that there should be more standing given to WikiProjects in this connection. As an example, I wonder if just about all of the "programming-related" userboxes should be attached to wikipedia:WikiProject Programming languages: at the risk of sparking controversy, if {{user intercal}} had been under the auspices of such a project, there would have been less likelihood of its being nuked. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 22:13, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Religion

I have started recovering the religion section at User:Ashley Y/Userboxes/Religion, including creating userboxes that express POV (e.g. "This user is a Christian" rather than "This user is interested in Christianity"). —Ashley Y 00:41, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

You might take a look at User:BigDT/Religious User Boxes, which is I recall many of the religious userboxes, if I recall correctly as they stood in mid-May. GRBerry 01:03, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

This highlights one fear I have with the userspace solution. We could easily end up with massive duplication of efforts. Please, before creating a new userspace box, check around to see if another one may already exist. First, take a look in Wikipedia:Userboxes to see if what you plan to create is there. If not, do a search on the exact text string you want to use. Finally, check a few of the existing user space archives. After that, if you don't see what you want, then create a new one. --StuffOfInterest 01:07, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

That's not necessarily a bad thing. A certain amount of redundancy provides robustness; that's why the internet was invented in the first place. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:59, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm templating many of these. —Ashley Y 02:04, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

So who is the central userbox user that is going to store the templates--Rayc 02:21, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

There isn't one. The "templates" are spread around among the user community as sub-pages. A central archive is a much bigger target than having many users with a few boxes each. My personal rule is that I'll only host a userbox which I use on my own page. If others want to use it as well then great. --StuffOfInterest 02:26, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

User categories in Userboxes

I suggest discouraging the use of user categories in userbox code. The biggest remaining concern of some deletionists would be the vote-stacking argument. My take on the evidence at Wikipedia:T1 and T2 debates is that the real problem was user categories. (Well, ok, the really real problem is off-wikipedia vote-stacking, but nothing we do to userboxes will stop that.) If we separate the two, the boxes should be safer. GRBerry 02:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I like what StuffOfInterest did with the categories, personally. They're still there, but not included in the userbox itself. —Mira 03:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I also support this "category suggestion method." I also would support userboxes that had the category code commented out with an applicable note. Obviously, there are several ways to have users choose to be included in Wikipedian categories. Whether such categories should exist is another issue. That can be addressed separately from userboxes. Rfrisbie^talk 17:04, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

With some exceptions, Categories of Wikipedians don't help us to create an encyclopedia and should be strongly deprecated. I've changed the text to reflect this. --Tony Sidaway 18:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with both GR and espcially with Tony here. Userboxes should not have categories; categories of Wikipedians do not help Wikipedia acheive its goals in any way. In fact, I've found that the existence of categories such as Category:Liberal Wikipedians and Category:Conservative Wikipedians, for example, only serve to counter Wikipedia's goals. Not only are they divisive by their very nature, not only are they used for votestacking, but they are used more insiduously by editors of controversial articles to find "like-minded" contributors to help argue on the talk pages and give their POV the appearance of consensus. I've seen this on political pages, pages dealing with religious issues, pages involving various nationalist interests, etc. The biggest problem, by far, with userboxes is the categorization issue and I'm counting the days until we have a policy that puts an end to this.--WilliamThweatt 02:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course categories of Wikipedians help the encyclopedia. It's true that not all of them do, but counting them all out paints with far too broad a brush. Further, neither categories nor userboxes themselves are direct causes of votestacking; as long as userpages are searchable, votestacking is trivial - and this has been repeatedly debunked and repeatedly proven to be unrelated to userboxes and categories, so it's at best disingenuous to raise the argument over and over again. Let me repeat myself: IF YOU WANT TO STOP VOTESTACKING AND LIKE ABUSES, MAKE USER PAGES NON-SEARCHABLE. Until that is done, this argument is horse exhaust. Jay Maynard 09:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I should note for the sake of completeness that there's one other solution to votestacking that does not involve making user pages non-searchable: mandate that user pages be as bland and homogenous as mine currently is. Of course, if that's what you want - and I can't help but reach that conclusion by some folks' insistence that people should stop being liberals or conservatives or anything else when they poke their noses in here - then go right ahead and say it. Jay Maynard 09:31, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Jay, you don't need to shout, we can all hear you. It's also incorrect that the use of categories in votestacking has been "debunked". In the examples at WP:T1D cited as examples of userbox votestacking, it turned out to be categories that were used in almost every instance.

Your continued insistence that "some folks" want userpages to be bland and homogeneous is actually boring at this point, and indicates that you've got your fingers in your ears. "La la la I can't hear you" is boring. Why not get the chip off your shoulder, Jay? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that was both a bit pushy and a bit unclear. I apologize for both, and will attempt to rectify the latter: I don't think your thesis that people want your page to be dull and homogenous is supported by any evidence, but rather contradicted by the strong support this solution is receiving from those previously on the "antiuserbox side" in the late "war". Would you rather have userboxes on your page, or maintain an altar to your conviction that Tony Sidaway really is a censorious dickhead? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:10, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I shouted because, despite repeated debunkings, people keep repeating that categories and userboxes enable votestacking - when that's not supported by the evidence. Of the five cases listed at WP:T1D, three involved categories - and one of those was about the category in question, so I would agree with the poster that that's a legitimate use. Half of the remaining cases does not a tide make. Removing categories will not correct votestacking; the evidence is plain to see. Why do people keep bringing up this red herring?

I've rethought my stand on my user page, and will be reverting it to the more informative version and fixing links to userboxes that have been moved. I'll even host those I use that are not hosted elsewhere in userspace. I realize that, in so doing, I'm opening myself up to a direct attack by Tony, but I'm going to assume, in the face of evidence to the contrary, that he will not decide to speedy delete the stuff hosted there under T1. In return, will you pledge to speedy undelete any of them if he does go against this solution to the war? I think that you'll find that none of them are "divisive and inflammatory" under any reasonable interpretation of T1, let alone core policies such as WP:NPA. Jay Maynard 17:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I pledge never to reverse anyone else's administrative action without prior, or at the very least, concommitant dialogue. That's what the community entrusted me with when they gave me the keys to the janitor closet. I have told you that you have my support; if that's not good enough for you, I don't know what to say. My record shows that I'm not scared of Tony Sidaway. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, then, I guess well find out just how far "support" goes when the rubber meets the road - or, in this case, when the speedy delete hits the servers. I really feel like the pro-userbox portion of the community that is Wikipedia is giving in to the anti-userbox admins too easily, and will find that their trust has been abused when userspace boxes start getting deleted under T1, but since I'm apparently the only one who feels that way, I'll shut up now. Jay Maynard 17:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Jay, I think you're in danger of being one of the last people buying into the whole "us vs them", "good guys and bad guys", black and white framing of the issue. If you think of a fight, you create conditions where someone has to lose in order for someone else to win. Try a paradigm shift, and see a situation where everybody is winning, and nobody "giving in". Try reading a page like meatball:DefendAgainstPassion, which has some very good content about not reinforcing conflict dynamics. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It's entirely possible. Considering everything that's been slung my way, it's kinda hard for me to get out of that mindset. OTOH, when people who've done the slinging are entirely unapologetic about it, that doesn't help... Jay Maynard 18:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

There is not consensus on the above viewpoints to eliminate Wikipedian categories. Rfrisbie^talk 04:39, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I have problems accepting the idea that categories of users interested in certain articles are fundamentally harmful to Wikipedia. I have seen (and been involved in) cases where the exact opposite is true, a POV is being pushed and is successful because too few editors had a different viewpoint. IE- the NPOV looses. I say, deal with vote stacking where it is discovered, but vote stacking can occur by many more methods than user boxes with categories, and a sense of community is created when groups which have similar interests can discuss and contribute to articles. DavidBailey 03:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's suggesting that categories of Wikipedians interested in certain topics are harmful, the problem is categories of Wikipedians according to the side they've taken on some issue. Could you clarify how you're presenting a counter-example? I really don't see how it's any more difficult for "groups which have similar interests to discuss and contibute to articles" in any scenario that anybody is suggesting. What exactly are you arguing against? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:58, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Whose userpage...

exactly do you propose stuff is moved to? Who has a right to claim stuff like that? A vital flaw I feel... Ian13/talk 09:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Different people can set up directories of the userboxes they see fit to list. It'll be a fairly organic process, and there will end up being a small handful of big directories, with a lot of overlap. At least that's what I'm seeing; I don't know about anyone else. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:04, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I just picked one of the subpages at Wikipedia:Userboxes and decided to take all of the userboxes from that page. Other people are just displaying the ones they've created themselves, or just the ones they use. I think it will be harder to find a specific userbox, if you're looking for one. But it will also be fun just browsing through all of the available directories. —Mira 09:17, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I bet we'll end up with directories with different... atmospheres. I think it'll be really interesting, the structure that develops organically. Some people will probably maintain directories of directories, and a lot of redundancy at all levels will keep the whole system robust, in case some individual disappears or deletes all their stuff. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:24, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be simplest to just make sub-pages of User:Template? After all, there appears to be no user named Template, and we can always block that name if we haven't already. I don't much like the idea of associating a userbox with a particular user if many people use it. Seahen 01:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

What you suggest might be simpler, but it won't fly. Associating userboxes with a particular person makes someone somewhat responsible for their content, perhaps. Even if that's not the case, the point is to discourage them, not facilitate them. Template space facilitated them way too much, and in a too official-seeming way. Maybe if they're rather blatantly deprecated, by not even allowing them to be hosted in a common area, people will start to ask why, and maybe find out a way of thinking about Wikipedia that won't incline them to the same mode of expression, at least that's what some of us hope. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Broadly welcome

I notice that migration has already begun. I broadly welcome this as an excellent alternative to trying to keep such templates in template space, and urge editors to adopt their favorite templates, move them to subpages and inform those who transclude the templates so that they can redirect or subst according to preference.

It doesn't matter who adopts a template; as publicly transcluded content they would be subject to public editing.

Special pseudo-users should not be used for the purpose. Please user your own username and user space.

The T1 speedy criterion still applies, but templates in user space should be afforded much broader leeway than those in template space. --Tony Sidaway 15:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony, thanks for the endorsement. What is your feeling on a) listing these userspace boxes in Wikipedia:Userboxes and b) listing the userspace boxes on Category:User templates? BTW, I fully agree with not using pseudo-users. As for notifying users, it would be nice to let a bot loose for some of the popular ones (such as religion and politics) to go through and either notify users or make the modification for them. I'll presume that most users would rather have the source of their box change than having it just disappear. Hopefully, finally, this solution can settle things down again. --StuffOfInterest 15:44, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I feel that use of categories of any kind would be inappropriate except for pretty uncontroversial matters such as Wikipiedians who live in Quebec or Wikipedians who have knowledge of Catalan.

On bot-based mass-editing of user pages to the new template locations, I think it would be a good idea to hold a straw poll prior to this; I would be in favor provided there was a strong consensus for it. I think that there would in general be no widespread objections to politely worded bot-based notifications giving a brief informative note about the move and linking to a more informative "what's all this about?" kind of FAQ page. --Tony Sidaway 16:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the categories, I was talking about putting the boxes in a category rather than the category in the boxes. As for the later, my personal policy is not to put the category in a box. On my archive page I list a suggested category with the box so if people choose to list themselves in it they have the option. It seems to make more sense than binding the two together. --StuffOfInterest 16:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's appropriate even to have a category of userboxes. The users who want to have userboxes should create them in their own user pages and tell other users about them (but not by spamming). Perhaps a page can be provided on the Userboxes WikiProject for people to list their pages of userboxes. --Tony Sidaway 18:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course you don't. Without a central directory, and a category, userboxes will wither and die - exactly what you have been working toward, by hook or by crook. Further, if, as you claim, T1 still applies, what's to stop you or Cyde or other anti-userbox admins from speedy-deleting them out of user space? How, in fact, does this improve the situation?

I'm deeply, deeply suspicious of your endorsement - to the point of beginning to oppose the proposal just because you think it's a good idea. Your claim that T1 still applies, coupled with your exceedingly broad interpretation of T1, gives me no confidence at all that this will actually be a solution. Jay Maynard 01:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You really think userboxes will die out without a centralized directory? I tend to think they'll flourish. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Licensing issues

I know that some of the archiving to date has been done by simply copying and pasting, but for continuity and site licensing reasons this should be discontinued. Instead, use page moves. This will create a link to the new location so that moved templates will continue to work on the user pages until the editors have been informed and edited their userpages to link to the new location. Moving the template also retains the editing history, which is required for licensing purposes but is also intrinsically useful maintenance information. I have edited the proposal accordingly. --Tony Sidaway 15:56, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony, an admin will probably have to help with this as many of the templates being recreated are ones which were recently deleted and salted. --StuffOfInterest 16:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, too late for many of mine. The alternative is to edit the old page into a redirect, which at least leaves the editing history.

While Tony's suggestion is desirable, it's not actually legally required, as it is perfectly acceptable to include GFDL material without attribution on Wikipedia. —Ashley Y 23:51, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

In any event, it is possible to fix cut and paste moves. Rfrisbie^talk 04:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm unwilling to do this until the fate of userboxes in Template: space has been decided. —Ashley Y 06:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't the GFDL require attribution? Ardric47 07:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, how is subst: handled from a licensing standpoint? Is there still a trail of attribution somewhere? What about templates that have been subst'd and deleted? —Andux^␅ 08:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

A "move and bypass redirects" approach

I tried moving two WikiProject userboxes and then bypassing the redirects with WP:AWB. The two new pages are {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Education/Userbox}} and {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Userbox}}. AWB worked just fine with two "Find and replace" settings, e.g., "tl|User WikiProject Psychology" → "[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Userbox]]" and "User WikiProject Psychology" → "Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Userbox" in that order so that the "tl" versions are found before they're changed. I did goof up my edit note for pyschology so I left an apology on the affected talk pages. This is a relatively painless way to move userbox templates out of templatespace. How would you suggest improving the process of how I did these? Rfrisbie^talk 22:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Centralized userspace archives

In the Broadly welcome discussion, Tony Sidaway states, "Special pseudo-users should not be used for the purpose." However, he provides no rationale. At Wikipedia:Mackensen's Proposal/Straw Poll#Question 9: New Userbox virtual space, the only rationales I see are an erroneous development workload claim and the ubiquitous “this does not stop the votestacking threat” argument. My question is, on what policy basis is a centralized userboxes archive in userspace prohibited? What stops something like “User:CentralPlaceForPuttingUserboxes” or whatever from being a major userbox repository? Considering Jimbo's expressed approval of allowing them to exist in userspace, arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions impede an orderly migration from templatespace to userspace. Having a safe and well-known place to move pages certainly would expedite the process. Rfrisbie^talk 03:15, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Ignore Tony unless he can point to policy. —Ashley Y 06:49, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Historically, that has proven a risky move. --Tony Sidaway 18:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Well I've never had an RFC against me. —Ashley Y 19:41, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Ashley Y, please do not antagonize. The goal here is trying to find a middle ground which after nearly half a year can gain some sort of concensus. Remember that there are people on one end who think there should be absolutely no userboxes and no POV anywhere on Wikipedia. Slightly inside of this are those who feel there should be nothing non-encylopedic outside of user space. On the other end are those who think anyone should be able to post anything, anywhere. I'm looking for middle ground.

Userboxes have had a bad habbit of multiplying. There are people out there who create boxes for the hell of it when they themselves won't even use them. That's why my own feeling is that any userbox in a person's archive should also be on their own user page. If you won't use it there is no reason for you to host it. Another middle ground item I'm pushing for is to let us to list boxes (and probably archives of boxes) on the Wikipedia:Userboxes project page and subpages. Granted, this isn't in user space, but it sends people in the right direction.

On a side note, as for categories, I for one don't want to add a userbox to my page to later find out it automatically put me in a category. This is why for the boxes I host I list a suggested category inclusion next to the box but I don't put it in the box code. This allows the user to decide what categories they do or do not want in

The fact that Tony has endorsed this overall solution (with a few modifications) is a big step. Hopefully we'll see Cyde stop by this week and chime in a well. Doc would have been another one to hear from but it looks like he has departed out company. Getting some of the people on the deletionist side of the debate to come onboard makes this the best chance at a solution we've had to date. The next thing we have to do is get the people on the other end of the spectrum to stop creating boxes in template space and start creating them here. --StuffOfInterest 20:49, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the central Wikipedia:Userboxes would be a much better place than even a neutral role account for directories of userboxes. —Ashley Y 04:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see that it matters either way. That said, I'm sticking to my own userspace, because using a "pseudo-user" account just opens the way for more pointless bickering. —Mira 06:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I just created a navigation "template" that might help (don't worry, it's in my userspace), but I'm not sure if it's one of those "Bad Things™" or not. Please let me know what you think, either here or on the "template"'s talk page. —Mira 09:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

As long as this is a "short list," this seems fine. Real soon now, I expect someone will create a centralized list page in userspace. Rfrisbie^talk 11:44, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a list linked at the top of the template. However, the user hosting it says it is temporary. —Mira 12:06, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I missed that. I'm sure someone else will pick up the ball if that list disappears. And thanks for starting the template! :-) Rfrisbie^talk 14:14, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Why, thank you for the kind words. :) —Mira 14:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, it is temporary, but I'm in no hurry. Work out what the right solution is, and after we have that implemented we'll deprecate and eventually do away with that page. GRBerry 18:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Userpage directories

In addition to "archives" for hosting userboxes, userpage "directories" are important to help find userboxes of interest. These directories can list userboxes from wherever they are located, not just those archived on a particular user's page. As an example, I am starting to migrate "pet" userboxes to my userpage area. As naming conventions, I add userboxes to "User:<Username>/Userbox/<Userbox name>". and directories to "User:<Username>/Userboxes/<Directory name>". After I move templates, I bypass all the redirects using WP:AWB. This process updates individual userpages, the related WP:UBX subpage and my own directory. My basic edit summary is "Bypassed userbox redirect from [[Template:<old name>]] to [[User:<new name>]]. See [[Wikipedia:The German solution]]." You can see an example directory at User:Rfrisbie/Userboxes/Pets. Rfrisbie^talk 14:07, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Where to put?

I think we should put the userboxes on my sockpuppet's page, User:Userboxuser. There is even a template for him, Template:ubxusr, so to use it use {{ubxusr|exampleuserboxbox}} which will turn out as {{User:Userboxuser/exampleuserbox}}. Also, a shortcut is located at U:UBX --GeorgeMoney ^T·C 16:11, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a bad idea, as it will only cause more controversy. (See Tony Sidaway's statements above.) —Mira 16:21, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

2nd that. --StuffOfInterest 19:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Please don't create any more role accounts for the purpose of hosting userboxes. All userboxes under those accounts will be deleted or userfied. --Tony Sidaway 18:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

And then brought back under DRV. —Ashley Y 19:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it much easier to just not use role accounts, and then avoid the whole deletion/DRV cycle? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

If you are User:Userboxuser, then you're in a better position to complain if a rogue admin deletes stuff in your space. If you can do that, it should work. I was going to use User:Userboxes, but the owner has apparently left Wikipedia. —Ashley Y 20:05, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

My god. Can someone please explain what the problem is? —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 20:10, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure... it has to do with user accounts being created just as userbox storage places. Tony's saying don't do that, that userboxes should be stored in the user spaces of regular user accounts; at least that's what I'm hearing him say. I think Ashley objects to that, but I'm not sure why. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:13, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway has been making vague threats to delete stuff out of User: space. —Ashley Y 20:15, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The easiest way to deal with "vague threats" like that is to think of Wikipedia the way Tony does, specifically regarding the role of written policy. He's making perfect sense, from that perspective. Interpreting Wikipedia policy legalistically is a risky move; that's not a threat. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe this perspective leads to wheel-warring and complaints. I don't think this is the model for good editing or admin behaviour, and I don't think we should be bound by one editor who behaves like that. I recommend people build consensus instead. —Ashley Y 21:22, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Um.... it's not one editor. It's how the site's been working for years. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey, if there's a consensus for something, go ahead and organise it and let people know about it, even create a policy document if you like. I think saying "Special pseudo-users should not be used for the purpose" is a perfectly reasonable opinion, and possibly even the start of a discussion on the issue, but right now that's just one editor and hardly policy we are currently bound by. —Ashley Y 03:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I think I don't understand - how is User:Userboxuser in a better position to complain than you would be if a rogue admin deletes stuff from your own space? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:11, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Our own space is also good, but we might want a central place. Actually I'm thinking more for the "directory" pages than for the userboxes themselves. —Ashley Y 20:16, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess I was imagining that certain people, whoever wants to, would host directories in their own user spaces, and there would be a certain amount of interlinking among them. Isn't that what people have started to do already? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, User:UBX/Userboxes/General Nav is a good tool to keep track of that status. Rfrisbie^talk 20:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I have for religion, but if it's considered acceptable I might move it to a more central place so others can feel a bit freer about editing it without worrying about whether I "own" it. —Ashley Y 20:30, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand that concern, but I think we'll just have to help people get over ideas about ownership. I sort of imagine lots of people having small collections of userboxes, copied from directories they like, or self-made, and then people will probably copy the ones the want to share to their favorite directories, which will become known as places where people come to compare and swap userboxes, and you'd be more of a host than an owner. It'll all be quite organic, I imgaine; wikis are good at that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Well right now for example I have User:Ashley Y/Userboxes/Religion and BigDT has User:BigDT/Religious User Boxes. It would be useful if there were a neutral space where we could merge them together into a single page and avoid duplication. If you look at User:UBX/Userboxes/General Nav, you see the beginnings of a bunch of random stuff that could benefit from organisation. —Ashley Y 20:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

As I've said several times, if you were only listing those which you yourself put on your user page there wouldn't be nearly as much duplication. I only have one religion box in my archive being that it is the only one I have on my user page. --StuffOfInterest 20:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I support organization, but I don't think avoiding redundancy is a good idea. Redundancy provides a certain robustness, which is a good thing. It certainly seems a strange battle to choose, if there's good faith opposition. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:32, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

A certain amount of redundancy is a good thing. I just believe that users should have a personal stake/interest in the boxes they choose to host. Otherwise, we'll see a lot of wasted resources and effort on boxes which will never see a single users page. --StuffOfInterest 21:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

My immediate concern has been preserving userboxes before they get speedily deleted: despite Jimbo's requests not to, the mass deletion has been continuing, albeit at a slower rate. I'm not sure I really want to hold on to all of them forever, I might try to get others to claim them once the dust has settled. —Ashley Y 04:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I think my question wasn't quite clear. I meant: what's the problem with user boxes? Why we consider moving them? Do they violate any wikipedia rule? —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 23:30, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, a lot of people think that a lot of userboxes violate the "spirit" of the project, but it's hard to point to one particular rule that's specificly about them. It's been a contentious issue for a while, and the "rules" regarding userboxes are in a state of flux, but you should understand that that's the usual story with "rules" here - the most experienced Wikipedians don't think in terms of rules at all. (Look at pillar 5 under WP:5P.) Anyway, the compromise that we seem to be coming to with userboxes is to move them from template space to user space, which makes it clearer that they aren't part of the encyclopedia project, but once in user space, we're going to let people say what they want with them, pretty much, and see how that works out. It's what they do on the German Wikipedia, hence the name of this page. I hope that addresses your question better. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. In all honesty, this is quite disheartening. Of course I don't care about userboxes and I'll remove all of them from my user page. But a similar phenomenon is happening with the Manual Of Style: tons of changes are being made without notice... I don't think one has to read the manual again every morning. I understand that no rule is set in stone but a relative stability is necessary, especially considering that the maintenance tools available here are near to zero and pretty much everything is done by hand. Thanks again for your reply. The previous comments are not addressed to you, of course. —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 00:10, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

TfD problem?

This TfD worries me somewhat. Will this plan still work if the boxes can be brought to TfD? —Mira 23:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

At some point, we ought to decide whether TfD or MfD is the appropriate forum for userfied templates. I can't see that it matters much one way or the other, but we might as well be consistent, eventually. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, if it wasn't obvious, I think they should go to MfD. —Mira 23:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

It's so unobvious, to me anyway, that I'm going to ask you why you think that. Why? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I meant if it wasn't obvious in light of my comments above. But I think the most basic reason is that, as silly as it may sound, they aren't in template space. —Mira 00:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Where do user pages and user subpages usually go? Let's be consistent with that... GRBerry 00:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

MfD. —Mira 00:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess I was hoping for a reason other than "semantics" or "inertia". Like I said, I don't think it matters much. There's template space, and there's pages that are clearly designed for transclusion only, and there's a pretty good reason for taking either of those to define what is a "template". -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, part of the point of this proposal is that the new userboxes will be governed by the more lenient rules of userspace. Treating them as templates seems to defeat that point. —Mira 00:30, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

That's a point. I wouldn't oppose using MfD; just be prepared to explain it n times, where 'n' is any arbitrary large number. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Heh, guess I'd better practice. —Mira 00:40, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like what templates are good for. ;-) Rfrisbie^talk 01:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Categories and vote-stacking

I understand that categories make vote-stacking easier; there is also the argument that such things should not mess up Category space. What concerns me is that the same arguments might apply to any central directory of userboxes, given the "what links here" functionality. I would rather see such directories exist. —Ashley Y 04:11, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

It's easy to vote-stack using the search function: for instance, pro-choice users, Republican users. Is there any evidence that categories are significantly easier or more effective? —Ashley Y 04:17, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Unless user pages are not searchable anywhere (including on Wikipedia itself and on search engines like google), things would not change. Adding categories just make things easier for everyone and does not make things worse anyways. --Hunter 05:16, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I have problems accepting the idea that categories of users interested in certain articles are fundamentally harmful to Wikipedia. I have seen (and been involved in) cases where the exact opposite is true, a POV is being pushed and is successful because too few editors had a different viewpoint. IE- the NPOV looses. I say, deal with vote stacking where it is discovered, but vote stacking can occur by many more methods than user boxes with categories, and a sense of community is created when groups which have similar interests can discuss and contribute to articles. DavidBailey 03:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Central directory

Where should we put a central directory of userboxes? (not a vote, don't sign underneath, just a question for discussion)

• Use the existing WP:UBX? It will always exist for Babel-boxes at least, one assumes.

• Use User:Box? No policy says we can't. Note that User:Boxes, User:Userbox and User:Userboxes all have ban notices on them, which complicate things.

• Not at all? Perhaps some would prefer userboxes not to be easily found.

—Ashley Y 05:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that if you set up a central directory, you'll see it slip out of date until it isn't a central directory anymore. Decentralized is much more organic; I doubt it will be hard to find things, either. I find things on the internet all the time, and it hasn't got a central directory. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Well WP:UBX works perfectly well. People find userboxes there, so they like to add new ones there too. I would prefer to keep that for POV userboxes if we can. —Ashley Y 05:51, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not against it; but clearly someone's been banning "role" accounts. If it were me, I'd just embrace the whole decentralized, user-hosted directories, sort of underground aspect of it, but I'll shut up about it, since others don't seem to see it that way. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The role accounts were banned for other reasons I believe: you'll notice that the user pages were not protected, for instance. —Ashley Y 05:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for role account blocking:

• Userboxes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): 17:11, 4 June 2006 Ral315 blocked "Userboxes (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Tying up a loose end. The creator of this account was banned from userboxes, so I see no reason why this account shouldn't be banned in general.) (This one was involved in an ArbComm case.)
• Userbox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): 17:09, 13 May 2006 Curps blocked "Userbox (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (vandalism)
• Boxes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): 20:29, 12 February 2006 Tony Sidaway deleted "User:Boxes" (See Wikipedia:User Page and WP:NOT) ; 20:05, 12 February 2006 Tony Sidaway blocked "Boxes (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Clearly has no intention of producing an encyclopedia) (later restored)
• Box (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): 21:14, 12 February 2006 MarkSweep blocked "Box (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (doppelganger of User:Boxes)
• Userboxuser (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): 11:43, 4 June 2006 Tony Sidaway blocked "Userboxuser (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Another userbox role account)

So, three out of the above five were blocked because they were role accounts. Another was involved with an ArbComm case, which partially involved userboxes. One was blocked for vandalism. I don't see too bright a future ahead for use of role accounts as userbox directories.— Jeff | (talk) | 07:17, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh. So is there a policy against role accounts, or did the admins in question simply block the users because they didn't like the idea? —Ashley Y 07:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Ashley, you're gonna be much happier here when you drop the "where is it written?" schtick. Wikipedia isn't suddenly going to become a "rules" game. Is this really the battle you want to choose? Are role accounts worth it to you? I'm just thinking in terms of opposition that (like it or not) exists, versus actual necessity, and I'm not seeing it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually I think WP:UBX is a much better solution. But I'm concerned about what guides admin behaviour in general. Can they just block user accounts whenever they want, or are they bound somehow? Equally, given that userboxes are acceptable in userspace, can I create a new role account for them, or would that be considered bad behaviour? (And why?) —Ashley Y 16:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

"Bad behavior" makes it sound so... let's say I think it might be provocative. If it means something to you, though, go for it; see what happens. Just don't be surprised if someone objects, and I won't predict where it'll go after that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

By the way, you don't think the userbox war might have been made less painful if admins paid just a little bit more attention to consensus and policy? Or is that not so much of a concern for you? —Ashley Y 16:37, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

You might be surprised how much of a concern it is for me, but I fear we're getting off topic. I'd like to discuss this subject with you, because I think we (Wikipedia) can do a much better job in some communication related areas, and I'm mulling over some ideas how to do that. I'll probably ping your talk page later for input, but as a direct reply, I think the userbox war could have been made less painful in a variety of ways, some having to do with policy, all having to do with communication. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Consensus and policy are precisely the topic for me, and I believe are for most of the people who have been complaining about the speedy deletions. See BigDT's userbox-comment here, which sums it up. Even the German solution is threatened if, for instance, some admin decides they don't like it and starts deleting userboxes or whatever (see, for instance, WP:TFD#User:Dtm142.2FUser_no_evil_boxes). Now, one approach has been to find all such likely admins and get them to sign on, which is laudable I suppose, but I would rather see admins stick to accepted consensus and policy on the issue. That may sound like a "rules game" to you, but actually increased attention to process has worked very well in the past when things have gotten heated, and might have saved us a lot of pain this time around as well.

Anyway, if here is not the right place, there's Wikipedia talk:T1 and T2 debates#An aside. —Ashley Y 17:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Surely the reasons for not having userboxes in the template namespace apply equally to the Wikipedia: namespace - so using WP:UBX as a central directory would meet with the same objections. I definitely think there should be a central repository/directory though. Waggers 11:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I already made a copy of Wikipedia:Userboxes/Pets and put it at User:Rfrisbie/Userboxes/Pets. I've moved a good chunk of the templates over to my userpage. For each one, I used WP:AWB to bypass the redirects, synchronize the two directory pages, and leave a message about the process described here. After "What links here" was cleared, I put {{User GUS UBX to}} at {{User mutt lover}} to test a friendlier "no userbox here" message. If WP:UBX is unacceptable, I'm certainly willing to be part of a "network of topical userbox directories" modeled after the current directory. As long as no one is attempting to block the migration process, it's really not all that hard, just a bit tedious. But that's what computers and WikiGnomes are for. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 14:01, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice work

This is a well thought out wording of the proposal. This is what I should have put together instead of the far more sparsely worder proposal that eventually became Wikipedia:Userfying userboxes, back when Jimbo first mentioned the German solution on IRC back in February or so. This certainly seems to cover all the bases. --bainer (talk) 06:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the key thing has been to stress that it's not a policy proposal to be voted on (since none of the policy proposals seem able to achieve consensus) but rather a suggestion for action that anyone can take with existing policy. I'd like to make sure this works no matter how the userbox policy debate eventually is resolved. —Ashley Y 06:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

When I saw the words "No new policy is needed to do this, and this is not a policy proposal. Just go ahead and do it," I knew someone had finally found it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Doubts about moving templates

I think it would be hard to actually moving the templates into userspace, since the German solution is only known by few and currently not a policy. I fear moving templates into userspace (not merely copying the code) would create another "moving war", moving back and forth between template space and user space. --Hunter 15:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I decided to test that hypothesis with User:Rfrisbie/Userboxes/Pets. As part of the "informing affected parties" aspect of moving userboxes, my edit summary is, "Bypassed userbox redirect from [[Template:User <name>]] to [[User:Rfrisbie/Userbox/<name>]]. See [[Wikipedia:The German solution]]. using AWB" So far, the only direct objections I received were procedural (mark as minor edit), or withdrawn (what the?...nevermind). Rfrisbie^talk 15:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

What I fear most is when the move goes to those more widely used userboxes, namely religious and beliefs. Many of those boxes are closely watched by many users, and some even in various kind of wars. E.g. Template:User Christian, went into edit, deletion and undeletion war. Would moving templates like those would turn those into moving wars instead?

Also, should due notice be given to users? Like tagging the page with {{move}} first before any move take place. --Hunter 15:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree the more controversial the userbox, the more "process" will be important. That's why I tried a proof of concept activity where I did. That way, the discussions for other usreboxes have a chance to be about whatever substance is at issue. Rfrisbie^talk 15:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you that pilot test is needed. I am going to test this on a few religious and beliefs uesrboxes shortly. --Hunter 16:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing that if Template:User Christian is undeleted, it will generate all sorts of complaints if we tried to move it. —Ashley Y 16:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe the "distributed copy" approach is best for the "endangered species," controversial userboxes. If the original gets deleted and the copies survive, the result is essentially the same (minus edit histories of course.) Rfrisbie^talk 16:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

This has more or less been my approach to all the ones I've done: I've made copies rather than move them, since I'm not yet sure how people feel about the existing ones. —Ashley Y 16:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

This migration is a good example of something for which we don't already have a well-defined process. Like it or not, we're in uncharted territory, and if a "procedure" is considered to exist after this is implemented, it will basically be a description of what worked for us, minus what didn't work. I think this is a great opportunity to be kind of mindful about making it up as we go along.

Here's an idea that occurs to me - a lot of people will take umbrage at something that they would accept quite calmly if they just got the impression that it was happening somehow "officially", as opposed to someone just doing it. As far as I'm concerned, this solution is entirely official (it's got the old man's support). I think you'd get a lot of mileage out of a politely worded note, delivered to talk pages of users with userboxes, saying something like:

This note is to inform you that, at the suggestion of Jimbo Wales, a group of Wikipedians (link here) have undertaken to smoothly migrate all the userboxes into a set of userpace directories (another link, to that one /nav template). The actual work of moving templates and redirecting links will begin in one week's time, at (date/time) ; if you have any questions or concerns, please bring them here (link). We will endeavour to make the transition as smooth as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

How does that sound? -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that a note is a good idea. If we are moving all userboxes, we should say "all". I don't see anyone proposing moving the babel boxes, so... if we are moving only some, we should say "most" or be specific. And the note might want to say "including at least one userbox on your user page." GRBerry 15:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and agreed. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That looks reasonable to me. How does the message get distributed? Rfrisbie^talk 15:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, someone decides to be bold, but I think it's not something to rush headlong into. Maybe a test run with some particular subset of boxes? First it would be good to have a plan of exactly which userboxes are getting superseded, and to have the new copies in place, so all it takes is a quick change {{user foo}} --> {{User:Volunteer/directory/foo}} on people's pages and at WP:UBX, after which the template space copy can be safely deleted. Does that all sound about right? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Seems fine, except for the deletion part. See Redirects?. Rfrisbie^talk 18:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

A summary (and a question)

Hi guys, I've finally followed the link to Jimbo's talk page diff and I'm repentant I didn't do that before (I should have to, admittedly, but I didn't have time yesterday, when I noticed this page and, more importantly, I thought the italics text after the link was a copy of his words). Ok, he explains pretty much everything. It seems to me there is one crucial point: avoiding personal campaigns on wikipedia. This is a "two-way" issue: on one hand a userbox can express beliefs which have nothing to do with Wikipedia itself (I don't see this as a great problem; one could say the same by using words, rather than userboxes); on the other hand categorization could allow someone to "recruit" people with beliefs and inclinations which are similar to his ones. It should be noticed however that categories such as "I'm a PHP programmer", "I'm quite good at reading Spanish" etc. are useful to the project: they state skills and capabilities which might be needed for working on a software proposal or an article, for instance. Thus the problem is only with those stupid userboxes such as "I use Opera"/"I use Firefox", "I know the first 150 decimal digits of 1" etc. Honestly we can really do without them; I would go to the point of deleting them, rather than moving :) Anyway, if there are people who are willing to do the enormous work of moving them elsewhere then why not (though I think these energies could be used better). What matters for me is: can I keep the userboxes and categories *related to skills* so that if anyone needs help, say, with an Italian translation or a C++ program can contact me? Thanks. —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 15:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Gennaro Prota, I moved your comments here to clarify they are part of the discussion. I hope you don't mind too much. :-) As far as the workload involved in moving userboxes goes, if a little extra effort by a few WikiGnomes can help end the wars, or at least cut back the collateral damage to so many innocent parties, then I'm all for moving "non-encyclopedic userboxes" (whatever they are) to userspace. Rfrisbie^talk 16:10, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for adding a note. No problem, I thought the summary could be useful to people doing the same error as me (thinking the italics text contained Jimbo's words) but everything is ok on this page too :) I'm still wondering if my understanding that userboxes and categories which highlight skills are fine is a correct or not. —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 16:23, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Categorization or not, since user page are searchable in the Wikipedia search box and on search Engines (e.g. put ""This user is a Christian" site:en.wikipedia.org in google, people can still recruit people if they wish to do, with or without categorization. --Hunter 17:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah... I don't know why Wikipedia is degenerating so much in nonsense discussions and proposal in the latest period. But I just wanted to know if the skill categories are under discussion or not, as I hate when my user page is edited by others. —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 18:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Skill and expertise categories are generally considered A-OK; I don't know of anybody who's against using userboxes and/or categories to let people know you program in PHP or speak Spanish. I can even see a use for boxes like "this user edits using Firefox", if someone were a developer and wanted to know which browsers people were using...? Maybe that's a stretch. Anyway, the only problematic ones (AFAIK) are the ones like "this user believes X" or "this user belongs to X political party". -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:10, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget the ever popoular "this user is a ...". --StuffOfInterest 19:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

In most cases, yeah. There's a lot of ways to complete that sentence. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:15, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

As I said above let's err on the side of safety and move (almost) all boxes (except for the Babel ones), less things for anti-userbox factions to get agitated about, we lose little and there is far less chance for rules creep and/or accidential (or deliberate) (mis)interpretation of what should stay in templatespace. In total - lots of less chance for new stress. (Yeah, I took the weekend off, had to combat some burn-out). CharonX/talk 19:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back from your weekend break. Unfortunately, some are already trying to fight against user space moves. I saw at least one example of an admin deleting a redirect left from a moved template to a userspace box and there was mini-dustup fought over User:Dtm142/User no evil boxes which had it go back and forth between AfD and MfD a couple of times before someone tried to list it as a speedy. --StuffOfInterest 19:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

See, that's exactly what I'm talking about - it's a fight if you want it to be a fight. What I see is that some people don't know about this solution yet, and there's some education that needs to go on. Deleting the redirect seems proper to me, as long as "what links here" has been cleared out. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that no consideration was given to "what links here" in that particular instance. Sorry I can't cite the specific box in question. As for a fight, my response has been to post links to this project page when I see issues like above coming up. Not sure if it made a difference or not to the admin considering it for speey but it didn't hurt. I also think it is a good sign that admins like Tony have stopped by. His endorsement, even with caveats, goes a long way towards calming things down. --StuffOfInterest 19:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I have to say, it's ironic, talking about anti-userbox "factions", when the primary opposition to userboxes is that they encourage factionalism. I suspect that moving away from any kind of "us vs. them" language will be helpful, in the long run. Rather than trying to outflank the "other side", is there a way to reach out to it, and make it not so "other"? As far as I'm concerned, the war ended last week, and we're all working together now. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:37, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Good point, GTBacchus, I'll try to avoid that kind of language in the future. I've invited all kinds of seemingly interested users to partake in the discussion here, and perhaps endorse it as the middle path. The fact that even Tony Sidaway had some postive words to say about it made me quite hopeful that we're out of the storm for good. CharonX/talk 23:35, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Great Idea

Great Idea. To bad I found out about this after I Substed all user green energy. Oh well I can't undo thoes 150 edits now--E-Bod 04:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Redirects?

As I've been moving userboxes to my user space, I've been wondering what should/is going to happen to the redirects left behind. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions? —Mira 07:04, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I know some folks have recommended deleting them after all the whatlinksheres are gone. However, I prefer to keep them because they let any newcomers know they once were there and were moved. That's why they're automatically created in the first place. Rfrisbie^talk 11:52, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if it is possible, in my trail of moving usreboxes, an admin deleted the redirect within minutes of the move took place, stating T1. -Hunter 12:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to get rid of the redirects. What's the point is "letting newcomers know they were once there"? -GTBacchus^(talk) 13:55, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

If you want to keep deleting new versions in templatespace, live it up, but let's think of this as a "communication" question before we decide. Which message would you prefer to send?

• No page: "Hi, nothing's here. Make something if you feel like it."
• {{deletedpage}} protection message: "This page is so bad, this in-your-face message is here to stop you from recreating it. What the $%&*@ were you thinking?!"
• Redirect page: "Somebody else already thought of this, but it's over there."

Add your own messages if you don't like these. Once again, I'll pick door #3. ;-) Rfrisbie^talk 14:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't quite see how just not having anything there sends the message "Make something if you feel like it" except in the context of a bunch of userboxes already existing in Template space. If a new user only ever sees userboxes living in userspace, won't they just assume that's how it's done, and create them there, too? I don't see a big problem with the redirects, but at some point we try to avoid cross-namespace redirects, and once the migration is complete and nobody's thinking about it anymore, those redirects really won't be serving any purpose. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Option 1 is my version of "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name...bla bla bla." Having only Babel boxes in template space is an extreme POV IMHO. If "Tier 2", etc., userboxes stay, it's never going to be cut-and-dried where a new userbox, should go. A redirect offers a fairly specific clue. Rfrisbie^talk 21:20, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if it would be accepted to have a friendlier version of the {{deletedpage}} that applies in this situation and blocks recreation. From what I've seen, that template is used in combination with page protection, so it ought to be possible to have a friendlier template protected. That might be a better communication than both the deleted page and redirect pagess. (Also, it would let everyone see which templates have had the German solution implemented versus being deleted without a TGS version and once everything really calms down would be easier to track down and eliminate than the standard {{deletedpage}} solution would be.) Templates that point across namespace are not unheard of, the AFD series all cross the Main/Wikipedia boundary. We could even make it a template with an argument that links to the TGS page, the way test-n templates point to the page with the troubling edit. GRBerry 22:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, there's no technical reason why a kinder, gentler, {{User GUS UBX to}} template message can't be created with an embedded userspace link parameter. That way the message certainly can be on-point. That would be a good way to remove the redirect after whatlinkshere is cleared out. Sounds good to me. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 22:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's another question, then. If I wanted to get the redirects deleted, how would I go about doing that? —Mira 22:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

These redirects don't fit the speedy deletion criteria as written. So they should be posted on Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion. But I'm sure many admins if asked politely would be willing to ignore all rules on these, at least if nothing pointed to them. GRBerry 23:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I probably won't start until I'm done with all of the userboxes I'm working on, and until we're sure that's what should be done. —Mira 23:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Rather than being deleted, I would recommend they be "replaced" with a "TGS protected page" template discussed above. Rfrisbie^talk 00:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

As I said, I won't do anything until it's determined what should be done. I have no opinion either way. —Mira 01:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

T1: applicable or not?

Tony Sidaway, in his widely lauded endorsement of this proposed solution, said that T1 would still apply. I've gotten comments form others that it would not.

Tony's scorched-earth, unilateral approach to userboxes is a major cause of the wars going on as long as they have, and getting as vitriolic as they have. If he feels that T1 still applies even after the userboxes move to user space, and acts without restraint or admin correction (as in speedily undeleting any userbox that does not run afoul of other policies, such as WP:NPA), then this is not a compromise at all, no matter how much it is being spun as one.

Put another way: What is gained by the pro-userbox community, if the result of moving userboxes to user space and doing away with the centralized directory is not to ensure their survival? I've been told by one admin that we'd gain his support. Unless that support takes a concrete form, however, what use is it in the face of determined attacks like Tony's?

In light of the history of this war, I think it's imperative that, in return for adopting this compromise, there be some sort of guarantee that it will be honored by all parties. It doesn't have to be a modification of T1 (though that would be one very positive step); it could be as simple as some of the admins who have been arguing against userboxes in template space agreeing to actively oppose any attempt to apply T1 to userboxes in user space, and demonstrating that opposition by speedily undeleting any speedy deletions under those circumstances.

Trust is something that has to be earned, not assumed. It can be lost, and has to be earned anew after that. Right now, I don't trust that this compromise will be effective. Jay Maynard 22:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

He said (above) "The T1 speedy criterion still applies, but templates in user space should be afforded much broader leeway than those in template space.". Given that T1 says nothing about spaces, I interpret this as a tacit admission that T1 was deliberately mis-interpreted for Template: space, but that it would not be for User: space. —Ashley Y 00:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

As Ashley quoted (edit conflict), what Tony said elsewhere on this page was that, "The T1 speedy criterion still applies, but templates in user space should be afforded much broader leeway than those in template space." (emphasis in original). Without wanting to put words in his mouth, I take this to mean that the significantly broad interpretation of T1 used for the somewhat controversial deletion sprees of userboxes containing simple statements of belief (e.g., "This user believes in foo") as "divisive and inflammatory" would not apply in userspace. Instead, a more narrow view of T1 would be used to carry out the sorts of less controversial deletions, such as the pedophile userbox that (IIRC) led to the creation of T1, blatantly inflammatory userboxes (e.g., "This user adheres to barism, and is happy that all fooists are going to burn in hell!"), and other content which runs afoul of rules on Civility or No personal attacks.— Jeff | (talk) | 00:27, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

If it violates some other rule, I've got no problem with deleting it; I've said throughout this that userboxes shouldn't be exempt from stuff like WP:NPA. If something does violate those rules, T1 is not necessary. If it does not, then T1 should not apply, period. Jay Maynard 00:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The point of moving them out of template space is, at least in part, to move them out of the reach of T1. That's been a consistently repeated point throughout at least the part of this war I've been involved in. If it's still applicable at all, why should I believe that it won't be stretched, gradually if not right away? You're asking me to trust that it won't be, and, as I mentioned above, I'm having a hard time trusting anyone. Jay Maynard 00:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Fine then, don't trust. Wait and see, and if we're wrong, you can be the cool guy saying "I told you so." Until then, what exactly are you offerning, other than negativity? -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Good question. What have I ever offered, other than my opinion and viewpoint as a new, low-level user? Jay Maynard 00:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I didn't answer your question. I guess I'd like to see some commitment from admins to counter Tony's evident intent to speedy delete userbox templates in userspace, even if they are divisive or inflammatory, as long as they don't violate some other criterion. In return, I'll support this policy, for all the good it will do (it's not like I have that much influence, anyway). Jay Maynard 00:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Since that "intent" is apparently "evident" to you alone, I'm not sure how to reply. I really don't think that Tony intends to "wage war" against userboxes once they're in user space. But then, I interact with him almost daily, so what would I know? I might be the only admin in the discussion right now, and I've already assured you that I would oppose inappropriate speedies, whoever carries them out. Who else do you need to hear it from? -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Oppose how? Speedy undeletion? DRV? Posting nasty comments on the admin's talk page? RFAr? I realize that it will depend to some extent on the nature of the incident, but an indication of just how you think such opposition might be appropriate would be a good thing.

I'm taking Tony's history of past actions as indication of his intentions. Fool me once... Jay Maynard 01:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I too am taking Tony's past actions as indication of his intentions, and I'm rather familiar with his past actions. I'm perfectly aware of the "fool me once..." saying, but when did Tony ever tell you he would do one thing, and then do another?

As for how I would respond to a hypothetical situation, that's very hard to say. I wouldn't use admin buttons to reverse another admin's actions without discussing it with them, that's for damn sure. I also wouldn't try to get things done by posting "nasty comments" anywhere, because I don't think that nastiness is a solution to any problem. I've never gotten close to filing an RFAr because I've always been able to get problems resolved several steps before that in the dispute resolution process. Am I not giving you the answer you want? -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to get an idea of how strongly you would oppose a T1 deletion in user space, and whether it would be likely to result in the userbox's undeletion, either immediately or else after generating as close to a binding precedent as can be found on here. My "nasty comment" was a bit tongue-in-cheek, and I should have phrased that differently.

I do realize that that will vary based on the userbox in question. Even so, an admin who'd delete a userbox that says "This user is an organ donor" is one I'd only trust to stretch the rules as far as he possibly can. If he'd delete that, why wouldn't he delete "This user is a Christian", let alone "This user is a member of the John Birch Society"? I contend none of those should fall under T1 if they're in user space. Jay Maynard 01:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to keep going round and round - in fact I'm going to start drinking now - but I'll say this much. I find Tony's deleting the organ donor box as T1 in template space and yet leaving religious and political boxes in user space entirely consistent and reasonable. I understand how he's been using policy (hint - not legalistically!), and it makes sense to me. If he were to start speedying the same templates after finally getting them moved to user space, I would find that inconsistent and bizarre, unless I saw that some new and compelling reason had arisen. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I, for one, don't see how in the name of anything anyone could possibly consider holy how"This user is an organ donor" could be "divisive and inflammatory", and therefore I find his deletion as T1 totally incomprehensible. If someone does something I cannot find any way to comprehend, I cannot assume that their future actions will be any more comprehensible.

Even so, this looks like the consensus solution, my opinion notwithstanding. What actually happens to userboxes once moved to user space, and what the response to any deletions under T1 is, will tell the tale - and will tell the average user just what the admin community thinks of them. Jay Maynard 02:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

My own preference is for all material in User: space to be treated as per WP:USER, regardless of how it happens to be included/linked. So T1 should not apply at all. We have this precedent, where it was ruled that a userbox in userspace should be listed on MFD (where it would likely be speedy-kept) rather than TFD. —Ashley Y 00:37, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

That said, WP:USER seems to forbid "polemical statements" :-( —Ashley Y 00:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Cyde just said (a) that transcluded user subpages are not templates (so how could T1 apply?) and (b) that he's trying to get out of the userbox game. WP:USER does come out against polemical statements, but that's not a speedy criterion. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

If Tony said that, then I'd have no further problems. Jay Maynard 00:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Ditto. Tony claims T1 applies (in some form). Which is it? —Ashley Y 00:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I think nobody knows the answer to that question right now, if your question is "will T1 ever be used in user space?" I trust Tony to stick to his "templates in user space should be afforded much broader leeway than those in template space" statement above. Call me naïve -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Okkay, you're naive. :-)

Seriously, though, I'd be much happier if Tony either laid out what his vision for T1 in user space was much more specifically than "much broader leeway", or else recanted and pledged not to apply T1 there at all. Jay Maynard 01:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see that kind of statement of vision, too. Until then, I'm going to assume he's being the Tony I'm basically familiar with, and I feel pretty good about that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

If he's the Tony I'm familiar with, I'm deeply scared. Which is it? Only his hairdresser knows for sure...until he expands on his views. Jay Maynard 01:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Name Change

I think we should find a better name. The name Closely resembles The Final Solution. We should Definitely Credit the German Wikipidia for the idea but the tile should suggest the solution. How about we call it

UUB

Userfy User Box or Userfying User Boxes

Actually nevermind WP:UUB Already Exists as Wikipedia:Userfying userboxes But TGS is not a good Title. It is not Descriptive of the solution in it's nature. It is Just crediting--E-Bod 01:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, we're open to new name suggestions - WP:DEUTSCH is actually quite nice (but also non descriptive) too, but to be honest naming is currently low priority on my list. As for the resemblance... odd, but true, the name came from [i]The German solution[/i] to the userbox issue... which was mentioned by Jimbo, but was too long for a name. Also I feel many people have currently hardwired an "Ugh - not again" reflex to anything that even mentiones userboxes... CharonX/talk 01:31, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

• I found this page's title somewhat unnerving when I heard about it too. It certainly does sound like an unpleasant euphemism, and also has the disadvantage of being a useless description unless you already know what the page is about: from the title alone, it could refer to just about anything. The latter problem could be resolved easily by changing the title to Wikipedia:German userbox solution (WP:GUS), and this would also somewhat mute most of the possibly offensive connotations. -Silence 09:18, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

You know, I never made the connection until other people mentioned it. Maybe I'm just weird. Anyway, I think enough people have complained about the name, and Silence has given a very good alternative. I'd move the page myself, but I'm heading to bed and I don't have time to do it properly (fix redirects, etc.). If someone would like to move it, they'd have my full support, and if it hasn't been moved by tomorrow, I'll probably do it. —Mira 09:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I say keep it here. The proposal is already established under this name, moving it would do little of benefit. Besides, if hearing the word German makes you think Nazi, you have a problem, not the policy name. --tjstrf 09:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as the entire userbox war shows, lots of people have this class of problem: they assume that use of a name automatically implies various nasty and eeeeevil things about that person. Jay Maynard 09:56, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Tell me, where does it say that Wikipedia tries to cater to the irrational fringe? If a person is so hung up on a word which has no malicious meaning but that in their mind draws a racist connection due to their own preoccupation with the idea, then why should we accommodate them? It doesn't break NPOV or any other policy, and it follows a suitable naming convention, naming a method after the creators. --tjstrf 10:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The word that makes us think of the Final Solution in this context isn't "German", it's "The... Solution", Tjstrf—specifically, coupling these words together in this way is something I could very easily see as a neonazi euphemism for the term in question. Noone who finds the name inappropriate is accusing its originators of harboring secret fascistic tendencies, they're just pointing out an unfortunate accident; it is therefore unfair of you to turn around and accuse the title's critics of racism. In case you didn't notice, my own recommended title doesn't remove the word "German" from the title, it merely clarifies this page's actual focus (which is entirely on userboxes, obviously) and, in the process, removes some of the title's decidedly ominous undertones (which are enhanced by the unnecessary addition of "The" to the beginning, a common feature of terms meant to inspire an enigmatic dread), thus killing two birds with one stone and continuing to credit the German Wikipedia for their idea. -Silence 10:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Glad I'm not the only one who did a double take on seeing this. That it is in the name space only made it more puzzling, until I read it. To be honest, for a brief, horrifying second I wondered if it was a rather sick joke about exterminating Userboxes, but that's just me. It isn't a big issue, but it does feel a little strange. I second a move to something clearer. Skittle 15:54, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Userbox Germanification"? :)) --StuffOfInterest 17:19, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

It's fine with me to give this a new name. Here's my offering - Wikipedia:Userbox migration (WP:UM} - but anything that eliminates the objections will do. Rfrisbie^talk 19:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody Actually Object to changing the name to Wikipedia:German userbox solution or something else. I Do agree that is is regretful that we are actually Talking about this. However Nobody Has Felt strongly about the issue and said Do not Change the name or Went ahead and changed the name. My understanding is that we don't need to change the name but if anybody wants to their will be no Objectors so go right ahead and change the name. or stop Discussing where we could change the name or not--E-Bod 21:53, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, it looks like the only problem now is which name to move it to? Opinions? —Mira 02:28, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

A friendlier "Template moved" message

I started a template at {{User GUS UBX to}} in order to have a friendlier message than something like {{deletedpage}}. An example of its usage is at {{User mutt lover}}. I believe a more informative template about this process helps it along. Feel free to improve it as you see fit (hopefully without deleting it ;-). Rfrisbie^talk 02:15, 7 June 2006 (UTC) After some putzing, the template also works in userspace if the old template name is entered there. Rfrisbie^talk 04:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Cool. But Don't you have to be an admin to edit Protected Pages.--E-Bod 02:28, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a start. I'm confident someone will step up to the plate. It's all a cooperative effort in the end anyway. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 03:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I can edit protected pages. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Cool. There you go. Thanks! (psst!, I knew he'd volunteer) :-) Rfrisbie^talk 13:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

FYI, per rename, the template is renamed to {{GUS UBX to}} --Hunter 17:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Compromise is the source of community

I like this Guiding principle so much I added a little reference to a well-known and respected expert on the subject. M. Scott Peck describes what he considers to be the most salient characteristics of a true community. If we all operated under this guiding principle, imagine what we could accomplish. Rfrisbie^talk 03:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• Inclusivity, commitment and consensus: Members accept and embrace each other, celebrating their individuality and transcending their differences. They commit themselves to the effort and the people involved. They make decisions and reconcile their differences through consensus.
• Realism: Members bring together multiple perspectives to better understand the whole context of the situation. Decisions are more well-rounded and humble, rather than one-sided and arrogant.
• Contemplation: Members examine themselves. They are individually and collectively self-aware of the world outside themselves, the world inside themselves, and the relationship between the two.
• A safe place: Members allow others to share their vulnerability, heal themselves, and express who they truly are.
• A laboratory for personal disarmament: Members experientially discover the rules for peacemaking and embrace its virtues. They feel and express compassion and respect for each other as fellow human beings.
• A group that can fight gracefully: Members resolve conflicts with wisdom and grace. They listen and understand, respect each others’ gifts, accept each others’ limitations, celebrate their differences, bind each others’ wounds, and commit to a struggle together rather than against each other.
• A group of all leaders: Members harness the “flow of leadership” to make decisions and set a course of action. It is the spirit of community itself that leads and not any single individual.
• A spirit: The true spirit of community is the spirit of peace, love, wisdom and power. Members may view the source of this spirit as an outgrowth of the collective self or as the manifestation of a Higher Will.

Another Jimbo quote

He's referring to the May userbox policy poll, not this proposal, in the first part, but I think the second is relevant (I've bolded it.) —Mira 03:31, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

"This is not an acceptable policy, and it has not achieved the requisite level of consensus. The single most important thing that must be done is the removal of a centralized official space for Userboxes. A userbox namespace is exactly the wrong answer.--Jimbo Wales 10:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)" [1]

I assume a centralized unofficial space is OK... —Ashley Y 04:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I asked for more feedback. Maybe we'll get another musing on the subject. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 04:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Moving religious userboxes

Here are some recent developments on moving religious userboxes to userspace. Rfrisbie^talk 18:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Religious Userboxes, specifically Template:User Christian
• Wikipedia:Deletion review/Recently concluded (2006 June)#Userbox discussions

Undelete and move?

One idea might be to undelete all speedied userboxes, and boldly move each into the space of someone who is including it. —Ashley Y 23:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms of the German Solution?

Why is there no criticism section of the main page? I would have assumed someone at least had some objections to it. Or is there another article for that purpose, and I missed it in my scan of the page? --tjstrf 00:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Er, so far we did have some discussions what should be migrated and what should be kept (in templatespace), should they fall under T1 or not, should they retain categories or not, and what should be done with the redirects but I failed to see any hard criticism of the effort. Most people, even Tony Sidaway, had positive words for it. If you feel this idea lacks something, please bring it up and we will work together to improve it. CharonX/talk 01:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not so sure that this is a criticism, but I'm embaressed to say I thought of a rather different German solution the first time I saw the headline on the Community Portal... Ouch... Staxringold _talk^contribs 01:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
• Ah, I'm not alone in that mistake. Staxringold _talk^contribs 01:25, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
• I was thinking The same thing--E-Bod 01:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

  [multiple edit conflicts now]You are not the first user to raise that poit. See Wikipedia talk:The German solution#German Solution? above. Is the reaction bad enough to overcome that these were the words Jimbo used to endorse this solution? I don't know. GRBerry 01:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[Edit conflict, response to User:Tjstrf]The biggest difference between this and the proposals I've seen is that this is not a proposed policy. The plan (to the extent that a diverse group of us that occupied different positions in the have anything worthy of calling a plan) is to just do it. If it works, in a while it won't be hard to get it through as a guideline. But we'll worry about adopting it after we 1) figure out what it is and 2) make it work. Thus far, we have basically completely postponed solving the questions "Do we keep track of these things? How?" I'm sure there are other such questions that need to be answered, and we are stumbling over them. Sections of this page like Wikipedia talk:The German solution#Redirects? are part of figuring out what "the German solution" really is, and are the appropriate venue for shaping it up. GRBerry 01:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

IfAfter it works, there won't be a need to get anything through as a guideline. That's the beauty of it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of de:

I found an interesting comparison between the English and German Wikipedias: User:Elian/comparison. It's not massively relevant to precisely what we're doing here, though userboxes are mentioned. It's a good read. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Why are Babelboxes excluded?

I don't understand why Babelboxes are permitted in Template space when other userboxes aren't. Surely they should also be migrated to userspace. I wouldn't mind hosting them in my userspace. Angr (talk) 07:40, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

They are project related, hence encyclopedic. --tjstrf 07:54, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

And there is an argument to be made that since they are used across all of the Wikipedias in other languages, they should be at the same location in each. —Mira 08:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

They are neither project-related nor encyclopedic, but I suppose there's something to be said for having them where people from other Wikipedias will expect them. On the other hand, a simple redirect would solve that too. Angr (talk) 08:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I also think a reason is that no one objects to them, so no one wants to cause the mess that would happen if they are moved. One thing I've noticed in moving userboxes is that there's no good way to replace the ones inside the Babel template, which is, of course, most often used for Babel boxes. —Mira 09:12, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure there is. Say you want to put User:Ashley Y/Userbox/Christian inside the Babel template. You type {{Babel-1 | :Ashley Y/Userbox/Christian}} and it appears inside the Babel template. It would work just the same if Template:User en were at User:Angr/en instead. Angr (talk) 09:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Babelboxes are not really userboxes, they were around first, and userboxes were a derivative of the Babelbox form (my word, a time before userboxes?). They were always part of the Babel system, which is a cross-project scheme (came from the multi-lingual Commons and Meta, and is used on many other Wikimedia projects). --bainer (talk) 09:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Babel boxes are project related, the same way the portal membership boxes are. They are directly related to contributions on wikipedia. Whether they are encyclopedic or not depends on whether you mean "article-worthy" by encyclopedic, rather than "having to do with the encyclopedia". --tjstrf 09:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

They're not encyclopedic by either definition, nor are they project-related. This project is the English-language Wikipedia, so all users are expected to contribute in English. Whether or not one also knows other languages is unrelated to the project. (This is different from the situation at Commons, which is a multilingual project, so that there it is important to the project to identify what languages you speak.) I like the Babelboxes and have several myself, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into believing that bragging about what languages we know is any more relevant to the encyclopedia than disclosing our food preferences or political and religious beliefs. Angr (talk) 10:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Babel boxes are very much 'encyclopedic'. They are project related because if you need someone to translate something for the project those boxes help you do it. For example, there was a template on the Turkish Wikipedia that incorporated various map images of Turkey into regional infoboxes. Transferring that to the English Wikipedia required translation of the text in the infobox, checking of the copyright status (which was written in Turkish) on the map images, et cetera. How was this accomplished? By asking for help from users who spoke Turkish.

The 'goal' of Wikipedia is to make all of this encyclopedia knowledge available to people the world over in their own languages. That requires translation (which is why we have translation Wikiprojects) and translation requires the ability to find people who understand both languages. You say, "this project is the English-language Wikipedia"... I respond that the project is Wikipedia in all languages, but even narrowing the focus to just English you need to consider that thousands of things here were translated from elseWiki. --CBDunkerson 12:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

If so I assume all skills related userboxes should stay in template namespace because they are also useful to the project? --Hunter 12:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

You don't need Babelboxes to find translators, though. For the Turkish example, you could have gone to Wikipedia:Translators available#Turkish-to-English, for example. And the Babel boxes include the -1 and -2 levels, which are of no use at all when looking for translation help. Angr (talk) 12:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm fully prepared for the day someone needs some Swahili help for some reason, and can't find anybody around but poor little "user sw-1" me, but I can help you with Swahili, in a pinch. I've got a dictionary and a grammar book, and while by no means fluent, I'm not clueless either. The fact that there are other ways to request translations doesn't make Babel boxes unencyclopedic either. Redundancy is a good thing. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of Babel boxes, as it stands you can include non-ISO languages in the Babel box (as I did with mine). I don't think that should change, even though it seems like it probably will. CameoAppearance 10:48, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts

Personally, I find this idea that 'location' makes a difference inconceivable as it doesn't address any of the supposed reasons for the anti-userbox crusades. It doesn't decrease the number of userboxes being created... indeed, that will increase due to duplication. It doesn't decrease the use of userboxes on user pages. It doesn't remove 'polemical' statements from user pages. Finally, it does nothing to reduce the 'vote stacking' and 'factionalism' concerns.--CBDunkerson 13:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

My sentiments, exactly!!--WilliamThweatt 15:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Yet, for some reason, simply renaming the boxes to not include the fact that they are 'templates' is apparently an acceptable solution to those who have most loudly proclaimed all of the objections above. I don't understand this at all, but if it works... I'm all for it.

Also, there is a way around the problem where:

{{babel-x|en-3|Christian|Kiwanis}}

Now becomes:

{{babel-x|en-3|:Ashley Y/Userbox/Christian|:Boxhunter/Boxes/Kiwanis}}

I'll make an update to Template:Babel-X such that it will be able to locate userboxes located in any of several different locations. This should prevent the need for massive remapping of user pages from the old boxes to the new boxes. The only 'drawback' will be that it will check different archives in a particular order and stop once it finds an archive that has a page with the name requested... so if another archive listed later has a different userbox with the same name only the first one would come up unless the long link name (like above) were used. --CBDunkerson 13:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. Babel-X will now locate and display boxes stored in any of the currently listed archive pages in addition to maintaining the previous functionality. Thus, any box which is deleted will automatically be found again and still displayed if it exists in any of the archive pages. This can help to reduce/remove the need to remap userbox calls as things get relocated. --CBDunkerson 13:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm very much in agreement with CBDunkerson here. The German Solution really does nothing but force an artificial peace while solving nothing. This debate will be back in less than 9 months, I'm positive of it. --tjstrf 18:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, only time will tell, I guess. In the meantime I will enjoy the lack of stress and constant struggle from both sides. Great job, CBDunkerson. CharonX/talk 19:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

To echo CharonX, great job! —Mira 21:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Control of userspace userboxes?

Say I have a lot of popular userboxes in my userspace, including the one that says "This user is a liberal" and "This user is a conservative". Now say many people transclude these userboxes on to their own userpages. Then, one day I decide to change those userboxes to say the opposite. The conservative userboxes become liberal, and vice-versa.

I control my userspace, so there seems to be nothing the users who transclude from it can do about this except stop transcluding or substitute the userbox in to their own userspace, if they even notice that the userbox has changed.

With a central repository in template space, the control over the userboxes remains in the hands of the community as a whole, not of any individual user. And, users still have the option of substituting the userbox in to their userpage, if they desire more individual control.

But transcluding userboxes from the userpages of people who you may not know or trust does not seem to be a good idea, as the above example illustrates.

Further, I see that some editors are, having put certain userboxes in their own userspace, going around and transcluding the userboxes on other user's user pages from template space in to their own userspace (the userspace of the editor making the change, not the userspace of the victim). I consider this vandalism. -- noosphere 18:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

It depends on what you do. If you just c&p a box into your userspace and use it personally, feel free to do with it what you want to do. Anyone who transcludes "/myboxes/user some stuff", knowing that you only intended to use it on your page, must face the risk of having the contents changed. If you move a box into your userspace (from templatespace, via page-move), perhaps even put up a little archive for the boxes, then the expectations are different. Then people will expect that it remains the same, with no major changes. Still, if you don't like the changes, or don't trust the user that offers the box, or just feel like it, nothing keeps you from substing the content. CharonX/talk 19:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

And regarding the changing of template links on other user's pages... most boxes are migrated via pagemoves, which leaves redirect. Sooner or later those will be gone, and the boxes will disappear - at least on the affected userpages. I would hardly call fixing those redirects to point to the new links "vandalism". CharonX/talk 19:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

An editor changing a userbox on my userpage from a transclusion in template space to his userspace is what I call vandalism, since (as I described above), this effectively puts what I am displaying on my page under his control. -- noosphere 19:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

So you would then prefer that your userbox disappear? Because as CharonX said, the link you are using is to a redirect, which will be deleted sooner or later. —Mira 21:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather that it be substituted in to my userpage, instead of transcluded to a page under another user's control. -- noosphere 21:42, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Then go ahead and subst: it. Even after it has been moved to userspace, you can still do so if you desire. —Mira 21:47, 8 June 2006 (UTC) (Note: please don't take my comments in the wrong way, in retrospect, they seem a little hostile, when that was not my intention.)—Mira 22:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Right. But the problem is that people are going around and transcluding userboxes on other people's pages to their own userspace. I think this practice amounts to vandalism, and wanted to point it out. -- noosphere 22:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's calm down, Noosphere. I can only assure you that the editor acted only is best faith - he did not know that those userbox links were so important to you and that you would take such offense. He only wanted to ensure that, once the redirect becomes deleted, the box would not disappear from your page. I will personally subst the affected userbox(es) on your userpage, if you want to. By no means we wish to "vandalize" your userpage - quite the contrary. We seek to preserve the userboxes, preventing them from being deleted, ensuring that there will be no repeats of the "userbox wars". CharonX/talk 22:18, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I am perfectly calm. I took absolutely no offense, since it wasn't anything against me personally. The editor in question probably didn't even know me or of me. And reverting the vandalism on my page took only a moment.

I don't want to speculate on people's motives for doing this, but rather focus on the effect that doing this will have: it will turn control over what is displayed on your user page to the users who's userspace the transcluded userboxes reside in.

This perfectly fine, if: 1) the userpage the userbox resides in and the userspace it's transcluded from belong to the same user; or 2) the user has given his/her permission to transclude from another user's userspace (indicating they trust the user not to mess with the userbox).

Without either one of these conditions being met, editing a userbox on another user's userpage to transclude to your own userspace looks like vandalism to me, or maybe we could call it "userbox hijacking".

This could be done for the most noble reasons. But, honestly, I don't know the editors who are doing this, much less their motives. And I didn't give them permission to do this. Nor is this being done according to Wikipedia policy. So there you have it. -- noosphere 22:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I think CharonX explained their motives (and so does this page). And I know of no Wikipedia policy that prohibits what we are doing either. Also, when they were in template space, they were subject to vandals. Just the other day, I came across a userbox that someone had changed from "This user lives in Houston." to "This user lives in El Paso." The vandalism had been reverted. I would have no objections to anyone modifying any of the userboxes I've moved to my userspace (as long as they stay within the rules aka policy) to improve them. And I make no more claim to ownership of them than the userboxes that are still in template space. Lastly, I think you are assuming bad faith on the part of users who are moving userboxes. I have seen no instances of userboxes being drastically modified, as you fear. —Mira 23:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I can not see in to the minds of the people who do this. All I can see is the potential for abuse. What CharonX says their motives are or what this page says does not allay my concern, because it doesn't actually address my concern, which is about the possibilty of abuse not people's motives.

Transcluding users' userboxes in to other users' userspace has not gone on long enough for us to judge whether it will be abused or not. But the potential exists.

As you said, the vandalism that occured in the Houston userbox in template space was reverted. That probably happened because the template was on the watchlist of a number of users.

When someone transcludes a userbox on my page in to their own userspace, how many people are watching that part of his userspace apart from him? How often do people re-read what the userboxes they put on their own userpage say? Editors also, in practice, have a lot leeway in doing whatever they want to the pages in their own userspace, effectively giving them control over the userboxes they store there.

I'm not assuming bad faith. The editor who transcluded a userbox on my userpage may have the best intentions towards Wikipedia. But for all I know tommorow they might decide that what's best for Wikipedia is to "tone down" the wording of the userboxes in his userspace, or otherwise alter them, which will affect what's displayed on my userpage. And I might never know because neither I nor anyone else except him has the pages in his userspace on their watchlist.

I'm not saying this will happen, but I object to people opening me up to this possibility without my consent, and I think this possibility should be considered carefully before more userboxes are moved in to userspace not under the control of the user who's userpage they're transcluded from. -- noosphere 23:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, unless something like this happens (and I don't think it will), I see no problems. —Mira 02:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Y'know, Noosphere, people don't "control" pages in their userspace any more than they control any page on the Wiki, per WP:OWN. I'd be shocked if many people don't keep these directories on their watchlists, and keep them honest. The community will obviously adopt the only reasonable standard - that directories of userboxes are communal property, and the host is just a volunteer gardener. Why would we put up with anything less? -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, if that does happen then there's certainly less to worry about, but see my responses below. -- noosphere 22:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

---

Here is the applicable text from the guideline, Ownership and editing of pages in the user space. Rfrisbie^talk 01:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

As a tradition, Wikipedia offers wide latitude to users to manage their user space as they see fit. However, pages in user space still do belong to the community:

• Contributions must be licensed under the GFDL, just as articles are.
• Other users may edit pages in your user space, although by convention your user page will usually not be edited by others.
• Community policies, including Wikipedia:No personal attacks, apply to your user space just as they do elsewhere.
• In some cases, material that does not somehow further the goals of the project may be removed (see below), as well as edits from banned users.

In general it is considered polite to avoid substantially editing another's user page without their permission. Some users are fine with their user pages being edited, and may even have a note to that effect. Other users may object and ask you not to edit their user pages, and it is probably sensible to respect their requests. The best option is to draw their attention to the matter on their talk page and let them edit their user page themselves if they agree on a need to do so. In some cases a more experienced editor may make a non-trivial edit to your userpage, in which case that editor should leave a note on your talk page explaining why this was done. This should not be done for trivial reasons.

---

Thanks for posting that. That does make me feel better regarding being able to edit the userboxes stored in another editor's userspace to, say, revert some changes to the userbox. However, it does not address my concerns regarding the detection of those changes in the first place.

How many people are going to put the pages these editors put these userboxes on their watchlists compared to the original template-space userboxes? And if editors then don't constanly re-read what their userboxes say then they can completely miss such any changes made to their userpage via the userboxes on in someone else's userspace. -- noosphere 02:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should subst whatever you'd prefer to remain constant? Aren't I Obscure? 02:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

As as I said earlier, this is more of a general concern regarding the practice of transcluding other user's userboxes on in to one's own userspace, rather than than a complaint about my case in particular. I've just been using myself as an example. -- noosphere 03:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Naturally, if everyone subst'ed their userboxes none of this would be an issue in the first place. -- noosphere 03:28, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

If a "watched" page is moved, the "destination" page automatically is watched too. That's the situation I believe you're concerned about, so watched is watched. If it's copied and pasted, which also happens, then changes won't affect original links. Rfrisbie^talk 02:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It's good to know that moved pages are also watched. So that takes care of my concern in that case too. However if they're copied and pasted on to a new page in someone's userspace, and then that user or someone else transcludes the userboxes on another user's userpage in to its new location, then the concern remains.

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to reply to me on this, by the way. I don't mean to be a pain in the ass about it. Just want to make my concerns clear. -- noosphere 03:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I know of no known cases of the Johnny Appleseed Effect. ;-) Rfrisbie^talk 11:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It had to happen...

{{User:UBX/DEUTSCH}} User:UBX/DEUTSCH

{{User:UBX/UBXarchive}}|link to userbox archive|your preferred gender pronoun}}

This user maintains a userbox archive in his or her user space.

I could use some help on the second one, I just can't seem to get the second optional field thingie to work right. Maybe I'm just tired. Anyway, enjoy! —Mira 09:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

This user maintains a userbox archive in Tony Sidaway's user space.

Subst carried over some unused parameters from {{userbox}}, so the link and pronoun params were being treated as color params. Fixed now. —Andux^␅ 11:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much! —Mira 22:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

What exactly is the matter with userboxen's being in the "Template:" space?

I've seen people argue at enormous length about the placement of userbox templates on various pages but in not one of them has anyone explained exactly why some people are so averse to their location in the "Template:" space (or perhaps I haven't been looking hard enough). The closest I've seen to an explanation is that "they're unencyclopaedic". While this is in most cases true enough, if we're going to let people put such userboxen on their user pages at all (which this proposal says we should) then what is the matter with their inclusion in "Template:"? Does it put some horrible strain on the servers whose nature is unapparent to one such as myself whose knowledge of computer science is limited to an extremely small degree of competence in BBC BASIC? If something like this is not the case and the 'userbox wars' are simply about what their instigators regard as appropriate categorisation, I must enquire as to what is the bloody point. No one uses them in articles in any case and Template: pages are not intended for display in the way that articles (or even user pages) are, so what practical difference does it make to use them for userboxen?

Ou tis 19:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard anyone articulate clearly why it's a problem, and I've been asking ever since I got dragged into this war. I suspect there is no good answer. Jay Maynard 20:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

You seem so reluctant. It's not like you were drafted or dragged into anything ... if you don't like it so much, why not just stop? --Cyde↔Weys 20:37, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Because I quit giving in to bullies about 30 years ago. The tactics used by some of the more ardent opponents of userboxes have been nothing less than bullying. Jay Maynard 20:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Not only that but also such flagrant disruptions of WP:POINT and WP:DR, and in some cases WP:GF, WP:CIV and/or WP:EQ (not to mention WP:CB), as could only be even tenuously justified by WP:IAR. Ou tis 02:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

OMG, TLA overload FTW! And yes, if you plan to ignore all rules, you definitely need to be civil while doing so or it loses all meaning and becomes a violation of WP:DICK rather than an application of WP:BOLD. --tjstrf 05:00, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There's a history here: Template:* is an official namespace, therefore anything there seems to have the imprimateur of Wikipedia and, by extension, the MediaWiki Foundation. By moving them to userspace (which is where they are exclusively designed to be used), it avoids that appearance of approval for any bloody thing someone wants to create (there have been some really stunning examples in the past). With the userboxes themselves in userspace, even some hardliners like Tony Sidaway have said they'll be much more lenient in POV issues. It doesn't solve the association/vote-stacking concerns, but this solution isn't designed to; it's simply to stop the constant deletion/undeletion/deletion review/recreation/escalation that's been going on since Christmas. -- nae'blis _(talk) 22:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

More or less what I said. The "offical namespace" argument won't wash: just about no one who simply uses Wikipedia for reference, as opposed to being involved in the community, will ever look at a Template: page and those who do will have got there by mistake or curiosity and go straight back to whence they reached it; since it is almost as unlikely that they will bother looking as user pages or such project pages as this, which are the only places where userboxen will be found (except in case of vandalism, and I for my part have never yet encountered vandalism in the form of inaptly placed userboxen, though I've found plenty in the form of removal of aptly placed ones), it is very unlikely indeed that they will end up looking at a userbox's Template: page. The only people who do will be those who are involved in the community and therefore know the score, so the problem will not arise. And even if one of the uninitiated does see one, assuming he even understands what it is (it took me long enough to get acquainted with all these namespaces and things even after I started casually and anonymously editing), he will not reach the conclusion you draw if he is aware that anyone can and should edit Wikipedia, and if he is unaware of that then the whole Foundation may as well fold for fear of such misconstructions as you posit, since anyone who sees a vandalised article will reach the same conclusion (and this alleged detrimental effect would manifest itself rather less strongly through userboxen than through vandalism).
All this being the case, and assuming there is no more to the matter than your reply (the only one as yet that attempts to answer my question) suggests (please enlighten me if there is), the argument against putting userboxen in the Template: space is based on an arbitrary and, in practical terms, entirely pointless interpretation of the namespaces' purpose whose sole effect is to give a small group of disagreeable killjoy administrators an excuse to disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a (daft) point, unless they are in fact setting their opponents an extremely rigorous practical exam in assuming good faith (in which case it's a good thing I am making this charitable suggestion as they are otherwise pushing me dangerously close to failing the test). Ou tis 02:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

So why would people stop deleting userboxes if they're put in to userspace? As Rfrisbie pointed out above, just because they're in your userspace doesn't mean that you have control or responsibility for them, since "pages in user space still do belong to the community".

Also, to counter any misunderstandings userboxes might generate Wikipedia could simply put up a disclaimer saying that anything on a userpage is not necessarily endorsed by or representative of the Wikimedia Foundation. That disclaimer could even simply be at the top of each userpage. -- noosphere 22:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It had to happen - my "Meta Archive" opens

Well, you know how it is, the lazy grit I am one becomes struck by a (possibly) good idea, and I transcluded some of the userboxes in the other archives in mine. The purpose is that while specialisation is good and necessary, some people just want to have a quick overview over the various boxes. Please take a look and tell me what you think of it. CharonX/talk 19:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

You know what they say about ????? minds. I like it!  :-) Rfrisbie^talk 02:14, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

A mirror userbox directory

Along the lines of CharonX, I decided it was time to create a full-scale mirror directory of Wikipedia:Userboxes#Gallery. It's located at User:Rfrisbie/Userboxes. This can be a tracking tool and transitional directory during the migration, or as long as it's useful. I posted the following notice at the top of the main page, with similar notices on each subpage. Rfrisbie^talk 02:20, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

---

This is a userpage directory of userboxes. It is intended to track migrations to and help organize userboxes in userspace. For the corresponding project directory, see Wikipedia:Userboxes#Gallery.

You are welcome to edit any of these directory pages, as long as you honor all applicable policies and guidelines. It is recommended these directories be updated in one of three basic ways:

• If you move a userbox to userspace, and then bypass redirects with a tool such as AWB, the corresponding page will be updated as part of that process.
• If you copy-and-paste a userbox to userspace, please update the corresponding links to reflect the userspace location.
• If you create a new userbox, feel free to add it to a directory.

For more information see Wikipedia:The German solution.

---

Moved

I have been bold and moved this page per several discussions above. —Mira 05:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Pywikipedia

I added a new functionality to pywikipediabot. It's named "refcheck.py" and it's primarily used for something different, but you can use it to get a count of transclusions of various templates. For instance, running python refcheck.py -count 'User vegan' 'User logic' 'User politician' 'User abortion' yields the following result:

Number of transclusions per template
------------------------------------
User vegan: 33
User logic: 9
User politician: 29
User abortion: 30

--Cyde↔Weys 05:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Very nifty work, thanks alot Cyde. CharonX/talk 23:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Contradictory guidelines

"Many userboxes are of a clear value to the encyclopedia-building project. Examples include those related to claiming professional or academic expertise, WikiProject affiliations, and claiming access to specialized resources and a willingness to conduct research using them upon request. Templates for these userboxes could stay in template space."

"All non-Babel userboxes, including those currently in WP:Userbox are migrated out of templatespace into userspace or an appropriate subpage, such as a corresponding WikiProject. (Definition Babel-userbox: "This user speaks XYZ" and "This user lives in XYZ" where XYZ is a real language/country)."

These two paragraphs specify two different sets of templates to be allowed in the template namespace. Which paragraph is correct? Kaldari 20:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The latter one. The former is a holdover from the old Wikipedia:Userboxes and is no longer correct. --Cyde↔Weys 21:00, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Under the former version there is at least a shred of logic as to why Babelboxes are not to be moved to userspace: they're among the userboxes "of a clear value to the encyclopedia-building project". Under the latter version, keeping Babelboxes in template space is completely arbitrary and unjustified. Angr (talk) 21:38, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, of course we could move all the userboxes, including Babel ones into userspace. But ther are two reasons not to do so: 1) Babel userboxes are recognized as very useful to the encyclopedia. On the other hand, nobody can - in good faith - object a non-pov, no controversial statement "This user speaks / This user lives in". By moving all the other boxes, even if they might -normally- be quite acceptable, we avoid any problems that arise by allowing 'more' in the templatespace, from discussions whether or not a box is permissable (or borderline, or not permissable) to people trying to game the system. 2) We tried to keep close to how it was done in German wikipedia. They, and as far as I can tell, most other wikipedias, have their Babel-boxes in templatespace. Since they are quite non-objectable there is virtually no benefit of moving them, and much gained by letting them be where all the other wikipedias have them. 3) Finally, they do not invite rules-creep. If XYZ is not a real country or a real language, it belongs to userspace. CharonX/talk 22:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

To your points I would answer: 1) Babelboxes are useful to other editors, that doesn't make them useful to the encyclopedia. And having them in user space would not reduce their usefulness. The fact that no one can in good faith object to the noncontroversial, neutral statement "This user speaks X/lives in Y" doesn't bolster your argument, because many other noncontroversial, neutral userboxes are going to be moved, proving that noncontroversiality and neutrality are not criteria for keeping a box in template space. 2) German Wikipedia doesn't do everything right. Verifiable, encyclopedic articles there are routinely deleted for being too short -- the concept of "keep and allow for organic growth" is virtually unknown at de:. Hostile newbie-biting and a generally pretentious, even arrogant attitude towards other users are part of everyday life there. Just because de: does something doesn't mean it's the right way to do it. 3) Having all userboxes in userspace, with no exceptions, invites less instruction creep, not more. Angr (talk) 23:23, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Aren't the Babel-boxes stardardized across the Wikipedias of various languages? Isn't that one of the arguments against moving them? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:56, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK it's the strongest argument (to my mind, the only real argument) against moving them, but in fact it's not particularly strong either. I seriously doubt we get very many new users who are already experienced users of other Wikipedias, and those we do get could quickly figure out how things are done here. Angr (talk) 00:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

A userbox is a userbox. At this point, I'm totally for moving every one of them to userspace. Special treatment of Babelboxes is just a form of elitism. Declaring an expertise in mathematics, or any other encyclopedic topic, is equally important as declaring an expertise in English, or any other language. Rfrisbie^talk 02:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

My understanding of the latest 'why some userboxes are bad' explanation is that anything residing in the 'Template:' namespace might be considered to be tacitly endorsed by the Wikimedia foundation - and therefor any box which indicates a position on matters of 'cultural debate' falsely represents Wikimedia as supporting that position. I really don't think the namespace 'location' makes any difference whatsoever in the apparent degree of 'endorsement' of an idea by Wikimedia, but as that is the purported issue it can also serve as a guide to what needs to be moved. Specifically, since the problem is with 'apparent endorsement' there is no need to, and no benefit in, relocating templates which do not touch on matters of 'cultural debate'. I suppose someone could claim that an 'I can speak German' userbox amounts to Wikimedia endorsement of German over other languages, but it seems like even more of a reach than the 'endorsement' argument in general. Generally, I would think that there is no need to relocate userboxes that no one is claiming to be offensive / polemical / biased / disputed / et cetera. Likewise, 'Babel-<whatever>', 'User infobox', and other templates which don't profess any view on any topic (just help to display / organize whatever info a person wants) should be left where they are. The 'Userpage', 'Sockpuppet', and similar 'disclaimer userboxes' presumably actually are 'endorsed' by Wikimedia and therefor also could remain in template space.

A simple rule of thumb would probably be... if a userbox isn't going to be deleted then leave it in template space. Otherwise make a copy in user space. --CBDunkerson 17:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Wording needs fixing re. T1

I just wish to point out that this text under "After the migration" is incorrect:

When userboxes are part of the userspace, deletions should by carried out by WP:MfD if the need arrives. They are not subject to the broad interpretation of the T1 criterion for speedy deletion that has been applied in the past, since they are no longer in template space.

This is because of the following two ArbCom rulings in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway:

If a page, image, or template deleted because its use was inappropriate is reproduced under the same or a different name anywhere on Wikipedia either with the intention of, or with the end result of, the new item being used in the same way as the deleted item, for instance a userfied article that is linked to from article space, or a userfied copy of a deleted template that is used on pages other than those of its owner, it may be treated as a recreation.

Templates, particularly userboxes, which are polemical or inflammatory may be speedily deleted; see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Templates. For discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Comment on project page asked for links to Jimbo's opinions, and especially Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Regarding the new Template CSD.

Since, as this page clearly states, the German solution is not a policy proposal, existing arbcom precedent regarding the above would suggest that the statement userboxes in userspace are exempted from T1 would not be made binding by the mere desires of this project, and would have to be enacted either as a specific ruling by the Arbcom or a policy proposal adopted via community consensus. As a consequence, Arbcom precedent as quoted above means the presumption that userfying userboxes will exempt them from T1 is fallacious, and until this changes, the text on the project page should read accordingly to avoid a misleading presumption that the German solution will permit former T1 candidates to remain without being speedy deleted. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 11:55, 11 June 2006 (UTC) Corrected --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 18:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

If this is the case, then someone please tell me what is gained by giving in? Pledges of support from admins without anything concrete to back them up and pledges from anti-userbox admins to not apply T1 ring quite hollow - for there is nothing to back it up should someone with a long history of doing things his own way because he's convinced he's infallible resume his userbox deletion spree. Jay Maynard 12:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct, because Arbcom precedent does in fact support the deletion of a "userfied copy of a deleted template that is used on pages other than those of its owner", which is in fact in direct contradiction with the aims of the German solution. I regret to say that I believe this is, in fact, probably a better scenario than if the assumption made on this project page that userfication exempted all userboxes from T1, since it means that unacceptably polemic or inflammatory templates liable to give rise to conflict can still be deleted should extenuated circumstances require.

The trouble is that we will keep having civil wars over this issue as people disagree with T1 deletions, and end up bringing the cases to RFU ad infinitum; my concern in this regard is in fact attempts to implement the German solution without having covered this angle of policy precedent will lead to more, not less, acrimony, because there will thus be a discrepancy towards precedent and desire amongst project participants. The only way this solution could possibly work is if administrators exercise fair judgement in deleting polemic or inflammatory templates, and only do so where the templates really are beyond the realms of acceptability; I can't see that happening, however, and to be frank I am not sure I would, myself, follow such methodology. I personally think the best solution to the deadlock is a certain amount of compromise on both sides of the debate - that users accept an implicit requirement to be reasonable about the userboxes they create in userspace further to the German solution, and that admins are likewise reasonable about which templates are deleted as recreations of T1 speedies or closed MfDs. (This is, I know, a horrid can of worms that I've opened up here.) Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 18:16, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Define "reasonable". You can't, any more than I can, not in a way that will satisfy everyone. If you represent the admin community, then the hope that this solution will in fact end the userbox wars will turn out to be false, and it will continue to rumble until someone with the authotiry to make it stick declares policy - whatever that policy may be. FWIW, with admins deleting userboxes that advocate something as uncontroversial as organ donation, I see reason in very short supply. Jay Maynard 19:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I’ll go back to two links I’ve previously posted as examples of something I believe applies here.

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Religious Userboxes, specifically Template:User Christian
• Wikipedia:Deletion review/Recently concluded (2006 June)#Userbox discussions

In effect, admins don’t mess with each other the way they do with us “rabble” editors. The types of workplace bullying we’ve often seen don’t happen as much when someone has the tools to stand toe-to-toe with a bully.
{{User:Xoloz/UBX/User Christian}} Actions by admins such as User: Xoloz, who has placed a controversial userbox on his page {{User:Xoloz/UBX/User Christian}} certainly will make any other admin think twice about going for another deletion, no matter what the stated justification. Rfrisbie^talk 18:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

This is exactly why I think the German pacification is going to be totally ineffective in the long term. No one gains anything whatsoever. The anti-userbox camp still has annoying userboxes to look at, the pro-userbox crowd still has to defend their userboxes if the anti-userbox group comes after them again. All that happens is temporary peace and sophistry about the "template space." --tjstrf 22:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, we all know time will tell on this one. At the very least, it's certainly a good test of how various wikiphilosophies work (or don't) together. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 22:44, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I suppose so. I wish I'd started getting actively involved in this 2 or 3 months ago rather than just a couple weeks ago though. Meh, the community can try their German solution if they feel like, who knows, maybe it will last a while just based on people being sick of arguing? But if I turn out to be right, I'll try proposing an actual compromise solution then. --tjstrf 23:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, even if this turns out to not be "the solution," hopefully it will provide some insights for your propoal. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 00:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Rfrisbie, just to clarify, Xoloz didn't put User Christian into his userspace himself; I did. --Cyde↔Weys 22:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)