[WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

[Kirill Lokshin]

On 1/3/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Have you examined the figures?   This is a massive growth.  Political
> and belief-based userboxes have increased tenfold since the end of
> November.  A database check tells me that of our 3500 or so userboxes,
> 1500 were created in December, and a further 250 have been created in
> the first three days of January alone.  This is a serious push to
> reform Wikipedia as a network of users linked according to beliefs and
> preferences that can be accessed by a point-of-view pusher at the
> touch of a button.
>
> The house is on fire.

The other possible explanation, of course, is that users have been
creating them as userpage eye candy, and that the rate of growth is
caused by (1) users seeing a political userbox on another user's page
and deciding to make their own, and (2) the existence of the userbox
WikiProject, which has undertaken a systematic creation of such boxes
for every possible political belief.

At the very least, if (admittedly silly) things like {{user hell}} are
intended for POV-pushing, I'm having trouble seeing the particular POV
that users are being mobilized for here.

Kirill Lokshin