On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:48 AM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: At the very least , let's try to keep "focusing only on Encyclopedia activities" separate from "focusing on abusive and rude behavior". They are not related in any way. I don't know of any significant objection in principle to people treating each other politely, but I do know of plenty of opposition (and count myself among it) on sterilizing the environment of any personalization. The target of the day is rude abusive behavior - stay on target. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 12:15 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt; wrote: There is no disagreement (among admins / experienced users) that people using Wikipedia as a social networking site are violating the point of the project and site, and when identified they're asked to stop and eventually blocked. That's not controversial. Your comment ( "(a) Wikipedia pages relate to the mission, not anyone's felt need for self-expression" ) goes, or seems to imply (and is being read that way by several of us...) much further. I don't think there's support or a consensus for much further. Wikipedia isn't a blog, social networking site, or user homepage - but it is a community, and a working environment (volunteer as it is), and as David points out, people like to decorate their cubes (in whatever form cubes take). This is normal human behavior and not something to be arbitrarily squashed. Your other comment ( "(b) although this tenet needs to be relaxed somewhat around elections, the pages are also not for battling and campaigning for personal attitudes and beefs" ) is reasonable but somewhat harder to pull off than asking for civility in the main project spaces. We already enforce NPA and CIVIL to some degree in the userspace, but making that an overriding priority would likely raise more objections and resistance than is useful. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 12:31 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt; wrote: Ok. I am not trying to be needlessly confrontational here, your earlier comments seemed to imply something else. What you're describing doesn't seem to me to be all that prevalent on en.wp now. I am open to examples and discussion to demonstrate a pattern requiring action. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 10:40 PM, Charles Matthews &lt;charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt; wrote: Clicking on "random" for user pages is also quite, um, instructive. Just remember to make a note of the user pages you see that really set red flags off, or set you laughing, YMMV. Once you click away using Special:Random, and you shut the browser and lose the history, you may never remember where that page was! As Charles says, though, most of the borderline stuff is in user subpages. Not sure if those show up in random clicks. I suspect they don't, as otherwise special:random would bring up archives all the time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random/user On the other hand, my first click led me to a subpage. <shrug> But then again, it took me only five or so clicks to find this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Debeo_Morium/Chats Please don't run off and do something based on reading this. That would be a bit unfair. But is that a good example of the sort of thing Charles was talking about or not? Is that "community" or "blogging" or "chatting" or "encyclopedia building"? To pick another example. The reference desks (which I think are great) are technically a bit divorced from the encyclopedia building, but I think are a legitimate side operation, especially when article do (sometimes) get improved as a result. It's also legitimate because some people prefer to ask humans a question and have them look it up, rather than look things up themselves. The side effect is quite a lot of chatter around the questions and answers. Carcharoth

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:12 PM, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: The person looking slightly boggled was you, right? :-) Carcharoth

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:19 PM, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Oops! Should have picked up on that. Sorry. Were you one of the three military historians then? I must admit that when I helped out with the FAR for James I of England (and VI of Scotland), I did bore people for months afterwards with potted stories about James's life. So I recognise what you are talking about here. Carcharoth

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Phil Nash &lt;pn007a2145(a)blueyonder.co.uk&gt;wrote;wrote: There is the Institute of Historical Review, and has the VCH of Wiltshire been completed yet? -- Sam Blacketer

2009/2/9 Phil Nash &lt;pn007a2145(a)blueyonder.co.uk&gt;uk>: I have a fake news blog for that sort of thing. I find it works well if you combine Celebrity Big Brother with assisted suicide. Either they like it or they look at you funny and go away, either of these counts as a win. This may be getting off-topic ... - d.

Mandated regulations for forcing politeness generally don't work well. If you don't trust people to have common sense, they won't exercise it. But I know I'm in the minority here, so have fun. On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt; wrote: