From:
wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of SCZenz
On 1/7/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 1/5/06, Ben Yates <bluephonic(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> To save this from double-posthood, this is a kind of cool
> development
> -- the userspace is coming into its own as a separate
construct from
the
encyclopedia.
Why is this cool?
Agree with Tony on this question. The userspace is not
separate from the encyclopedia; if it is, it is getting misused.
Plainly the userspace *is* a different space. Different rules apply. For
example, POV is allowed on user pages, and while we don't shrink from
editing article or talk pages, we don't modify others' user pages. They are
private, personal, full of OR and opinionated in ways that WP is not and can
never be.
If there are different rules and different modes of behaviour and discourse,
then clearly it is a different cyber-region. It would be wise to accept and
understand this, rather than trying to enforce the same standards and rules
that apply to WP.
Having said that, there is considerable overlap, and obiously the userspace
is closer to the articlespace than it is to (say) PhotoBucket or Google.
The userspace is *for* building the encyclopedia, and we can (and do)
edit userpages that are clearly for another purpose. People are
allowed quite a bit of leeway at current, but it is not a right or a
good thing for that leeway to expand. Wikipedia is not (primarily) an
experiment in evolving online communities, and it is certainly not a
webhosting service.
SCZenz