[WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

[Stan Shebs]

Kelly Martin wrote:

>On 1/3/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>>Somebody compared userboxes to bumper stickers, and I think it's very
>>apt. While we may dislike seeing cars covered with bumper stickers,
>>we don't (usually :-) ) try to pass laws regulating the number or
>>type of bumper stickers on a car, nor do we try to outlaw the
>>printing of bumper stickers.
>>
>
>There have actually been attempts to pass such laws, and in some cases
>they've even been passed.  Such laws are unconstitutional in the
>United States, however, and so they don't last.
>
>Wikipedia is not a free speech forum, however, and does not have to
>worry about restrictions on advertisement, personal promotion, etc.
>being found unconstitutional.
>
Agreed. But even so, we don't tend to restrict user page content
beyond the basic requirements of civility, no legal threats, etc.
It seems generally accepted that user pages can be as POV as one
likes, that personal promotion is OK, advertising is OK, grotesque
graphic design is OK :-), etc.

To me, the verbiage in a user box isn't any better or worse than
if it were in the text directly. There was a comment that the
userboxes enabled like-minded people to find each other, but it's
been a longstanding practice for user pages to list "friends" and
"enem^Wpeople with which one respectfully disagrees". So the argument
against userboxes would have to explain why some kinds of permitted
user page content is OK in a box, and why some other kinds are not.

Stan