Inflammatory userboxes

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Richard Symonds

19 Jan 2008 19 Jan '08

9:09 p.m.

...

>Firstly, there's the issue of inflamatory userboxes. It appears that> >userboxes supporting American troops in Iraq are acceptable, but userboxes> >supporting the Iraqi insurgensy aren't. Userboxes supporting the killing of> >Iraqi insurgents are acceptable, but ones that support the killing of> > American troops aren't. Surely both the "support" ones should be acceptable,> >whilst the ones that support killing should be delete. Then there's the ones> >that advocate peodophilia. Users who have these often argue that we accept> >homosexual userboxes, which is just a stupid argument, but they don't seem> >to be able accept that. >The answer is, of course, to ban all such userboxes and be done with>it. Trying to decide what it is and isn't acceptable to express>support for is just asking for trouble.

Or, of course, to accept them all. As long as the userboxes dont actually *kill* troops, or *engage in* paedophilia, there are no policies against it, are there? We shouldn't have *any* bias here, pro- or anti- anything. _________________________________________________________________ Get Hotmail on your mobile, text MSN to 63463! http://mobile.uk.msn.com/pc/mail.aspx

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Steven Walling

26 Jan 26 Jan

12:12 a.m.

<joke>I have a dream, that one day my four little adoptees will be judged not by their userboxes but by the content of their contributions</joke> I say we ignore the userbox problem. Seriously. The kind of person who would have userboxes advocating for killing or pedophilia is just the kind of POV pusher that gets burnout or is weeded out through poor behavior. The vast majority of good Wikipedians know that inflammatory userboxes are a bad thing. On Jan 19, 2008 1:09 PM, Richard Symonds <hawkertyphoon(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

...

Firstly, there's the issue of inflamatory userboxes. It appears that>

userboxes supporting American troops in Iraq are acceptable, but userboxes> supporting the Iraqi insurgensy aren't. Userboxes supporting the killing

of> >Iraqi insurgents are acceptable, but ones that support the killing of>

American troops aren't. Surely both the "support" ones should be

acceptable,> >whilst the ones that support killing should be delete. Then there's the ones> >that advocate peodophilia. Users who have these often argue that we accept> >homosexual userboxes, which is just a stupid argument, but they don't seem> >to be able accept that. >The answer is, of course, to ban all such userboxes and be done with>it. Trying to decide what it is and isn't acceptable to express>support for is just asking for trouble. Or, of course, to accept them all. As long as the userboxes dont actually *kill* troops, or *engage in* paedophilia, there are no policies against it, are there? We shouldn't have *any* bias here, pro- or anti- anything. _________________________________________________________________ Get Hotmail on your mobile, text MSN to 63463! http://mobile.uk.msn.com/pc/mail.aspx _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Steve Bennett

30 Jan 30 Jan

2 a.m.

On 1/26/08, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

I say we ignore the userbox problem. Seriously. The kind of person who would have userboxes advocating for killing or pedophilia is just the kind of POV pusher that gets burnout or is weeded out through poor behavior. The vast majority of good Wikipedians know that inflammatory userboxes are a bad thing.

POV pushers get burnout or get weeded out? Really? How do we make this happen faster? Steve

Steven Walling

3:40 a.m.

POV pushers get burnout or get weeded out? Really? How do we make this happen faster? I know that certain subjects (Israel-Palestine, for example) always have attracted a continual stream of people with an agenda. But I would say that for the most part, the culture that recognizes the value (not just the policy) of NPOV is growing, slowly but surely. On Jan 29, 2008 6:00 PM, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 1/26/08, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I say we ignore the userbox problem. Seriously. The kind of person who

would

have userboxes advocating for killing or pedophilia is just the kind of

POV

pusher that gets burnout or is weeded out through poor behavior. The

vast

majority of good Wikipedians know that inflammatory userboxes are a bad thing.

POV pushers get burnout or get weeded out? Really? How do we make this happen faster? Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

David Gerard

10:12 a.m.

On 30/01/2008, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Jan 29, 2008 6:00 PM, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

> POV pushers get burnout or get weeded out? Really? How do we make this > happen faster?

...

I know that certain subjects (Israel-Palestine, for example) always have attracted a continual stream of people with an agenda. But I would say that for the most part, the culture that recognizes the value (not just the policy) of NPOV is growing, slowly but surely.

What tends to happen (that I've seen over and over) is that contentious subjects accumulate a core of editors who may hold very strong opinions on the subject, but realise we're here to write an encyclopedia and put that first. (e.g. I'm an ardent and hard-working critic and opponent of Scientology, but try to edit those articles for the good of the encyclopedia and happily acknowledge that the Scientologist editors on them have brought lots of them to better NPOV, even those whose edits tend not to stand. I'm really pleased on the whole with our articles on the subject.) I'm always heartened when there's a hot issue and activists issue a call to arms to edit the Wikipedia articles - we always get new good Wikipedians who do get the "write an encyclopedia" thing :-) Activists are activists because they're trying to make the world a better place, and we're also an enterprise to make the world a better place. - d.

Amir E. Aharoni

10:54 a.m.

On 30/01/2008, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

(e.g. I'm an ardent and hard-working critic and opponent of Scientology, but try to edit those articles for the good of the encyclopedia and happily acknowledge that the Scientologist editors on them have brought lots of them to better NPOV, even those whose edits tend not to stand. I'm really pleased on the whole with our articles on the subject.)

I try to do the same in the Hebrew Wikipedia. Unfortunately we haven't got any really constructive input from Israeli scientologists, although it would be interesting. We mostly get blanking of the parts about "space opera" and vague complaints of copyright violations from someone who called herself SCN spokesperson. I oppose SCN, but i researched it a lot on the Internet I tried to do my best to write a neutral encyclopedia article. Apparently it was so neutral, that a couple of editors accused me of being a stealth scientologist! They believed that an encyclopedia must be against SCN, while i claimed that an encyclopedia needs to be neutral. I won, more or less. :) The moral of the story: a POV which is unsuitable for an encyclopedia can manifest itself not only in the camps of religious and nationalist fanatics, but also among people who glorify science, skepticism and rationality too strongly. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni English - http://aharoni.wordpress.com Hebrew - http://haharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore

David Gerard

31 Jan 31 Jan

11:38 a.m.

On 30/01/2008, Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

I oppose SCN, but i researched it a lot on the Internet I tried to do my best to write a neutral encyclopedia article. Apparently it was so neutral, that a couple of editors accused me of being a stealth scientologist! They believed that an encyclopedia must be against SCN, while i claimed that an encyclopedia needs to be neutral. I won, more or less. :)

I haven't had that. http://www.suburbia.net/~fun/scn/ is my credentials in this regard ;-)

...

The moral of the story: a POV which is unsuitable for an encyclopedia can manifest itself not only in the camps of religious and nationalist fanatics, but also among people who glorify science, skepticism and rationality too strongly.

People can POV-push over the smallest things. And learn not to over the largest ones. - d.

White Cat

30 Jan 30 Jan

2:05 p.m.

Well, thats exactly the problem. Such userboxes tend to stir up a hornet's nest, and other users who are involved in related articles may become defensive as a result. For example, say you edit an article about Israel or Palestine. I go to your userpage and I see political issues you advocate. Then I start believing in you being a Zionist or Antisemitic (or whatever) and treat you as such. This seems to be the typical process especially on controversial issues. Especially new users get unnecessarily excited over such statements of political views on userpages. Even oldies have a hard time when you see views that are very unpleasant. For example imagine a userbox in support of the viet cong and a vietnam veteran seeing it who otherwise is a rational person on even issues related to the vietnam war. Userboxes are to comply with WP:NPOV. Why shouldn't they? If people want to advocate their political views they can do so on their own site, not on wikipedia. On Jan 26, 2008 2:12 AM, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

> >Firstly, there's the issue of inflamatory userboxes. It appears that> >userboxes supporting American troops in Iraq are acceptable, but

userboxes>

>supporting the Iraqi insurgensy aren't. Userboxes supporting the

killing

of> >Iraqi insurgents are acceptable, but ones that support the killing

of>

American troops aren't. Surely both the "support" ones should be

acceptable,> >whilst the ones that support killing should be delete.

Then

there's the ones> >that advocate peodophilia. Users who have these often argue that we accept> >homosexual userboxes, which is just a stupid argument, but they don't seem> >to be able accept that. >The answer is,

course, to ban all such userboxes and be done with>it. Trying to decide

what

it is and isn't acceptable to express>support for is just asking for trouble. Or, of course, to accept them all. As long as the userboxes dont

actually

*kill* troops, or *engage in* paedophilia, there are no policies against

it,

are there? We shouldn't have *any* bias here, pro- or anti- anything. _________________________________________________________________ Get Hotmail on your mobile, text MSN to 63463! http://mobile.uk.msn.com/pc/mail.aspx _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

David Goodman

10:49 p.m.

You would then oppose userboxes saying that someone supports their own government? Can one have a userbox saying one supports the Republican Party, or only that one is interested in it? Or can one only support, not oppose? Lots of different things get different people upset. Some get upset at indications of some particular religious or racial or sexual identities. Why is political different? How many must think it unpleasant? Yes, WP:NPOV it is, viewed rightly. On Jan 30, 2008 9:05 AM, White Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

<joke>I have a dream, that one day my four little adoptees will be

judged

not by their userboxes but by the content of their contributions</joke> I say we ignore the userbox problem. Seriously. The kind of person who would have userboxes advocating for killing or pedophilia is just the kind of POV pusher that gets burnout or is weeded out through poor behavior. The

vast

majority of good Wikipedians know that inflammatory userboxes are a bad thing. On Jan 19, 2008 1:09 PM, Richard Symonds <hawkertyphoon(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > > >Firstly, there's the issue of inflamatory userboxes. It appears

that>

>userboxes supporting American troops in Iraq are acceptable, but

userboxes>

>supporting the Iraqi insurgensy aren't. Userboxes supporting the

killing > of> >Iraqi insurgents are acceptable, but ones that support the

killing

of>

American troops aren't. Surely both the "support" ones should be

acceptable,> >whilst the ones that support killing should be delete.

Then > there's the ones> >that advocate peodophilia. Users who have these

often

> argue that we accept> >homosexual userboxes, which is just a stupid > argument, but they don't seem> >to be able accept that. >The answer

is,

of > course, to ban all such userboxes and be done with>it. Trying to

decide

what

it is and isn't acceptable to express>support for is just asking for trouble. Or, of course, to accept them all. As long as the userboxes dont

actually > *kill* troops, or *engage in* paedophilia, there are no policies

against

it,

_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

White Cat

1:54 p.m.

I would oppose the presence of ALL userboxes weather it supports or opposes US troops in Iraq. Such political userboxes were banned before. No reason why they were brought back. Seems like it is time for userboxen clean up phase two. I find it very disturbing a few individuals use userboxes and hence their userpages merely as a means to advocate their political views. Supporting pedophilia is no different from supporting the US troops in Iraq in the sense that both are political views. You cannot selectively allow/disallow political views. That's just asking for trouble. - White Cat On Jan 19, 2008 11:09 PM, Richard Symonds <hawkertyphoon(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

...

Firstly, there's the issue of inflamatory userboxes. It appears that>

userboxes supporting American troops in Iraq are acceptable, but userboxes> supporting the Iraqi insurgensy aren't. Userboxes supporting the killing

of> >Iraqi insurgents are acceptable, but ones that support the killing of>

American troops aren't. Surely both the "support" ones should be

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participants (7)

Amir E. Aharoni
David Gerard
David Goodman
Richard Symonds
Steve Bennett
Steven Walling
White Cat