One of the issues that has not been addressed here is some of the stuff that
is being stored in userspace.
Disregarding the minimal (but not nonexistent) quantity of material being
kept in user subpages which violates BLP, there is an astonishing number of
fringe topics that are userfied upon AFD and sit, indefinitely, in
userspace, where they are visible to search engines. A non-wikipedia user is
not going to understand that, for example,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Xiutwel/7/7_Truth_Movement is not an
article (it was deleted as conspiracy cruft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/7/7_Truth_Move…),
and an OR trainwreck like that is not enhancing Wikipedia's image. That user
(who was recently topic-banned from all of the 9/11 articles) has about 20
deleted articles that have been userfied, some dating back to 2006, most of
which have never been edited *at all* after userfication. I'm confident that
there are other users who are doing the same thing; we found a user who was
saving multiple versions of the save kiddie-porn pushing piece that had been
deleted and endorsed; he was later indef-blocked, but it's likely that
there's more of the same out there. There is nothing in userspace that needs
to show up in Google search results; if nothing else, that section should be
cordoned off to eliminate userfied and non-encyclopedic junk from polluting
search engine hits.
I came across Template:Chinese at the Nanking Massacre
article. At first I thought this was a regular infobox,
but I soon realized that this was in fact something very
different.
It appears to me that something has gone totally awry in
the development of this template. On the template talk
page I suggest that it is a "'labour of love' that has
gone somewhat amok". I'm used to working also on the
Wiktionary project, and I find that the almost complete
absence of graphics there is very soothing and beneficial
for that type of work. The people working on
Template:Chinese obviously are of a completely different
mindset.
I attempted to raise the point on the template talk page
that the appearance of the template needed to be radically
revamped, scaled down or downsized. I was met with a
complete lack of understanding of what I was attempting to
convey. In fact, I realized that these people obviously
have developed a completely eccentric and proprietary set
of ideas concerning the relation of their pet project
infobox to other infobox templates. So I nominated it for
deletion, not really wanting it to go, obviously, but to
attempt to give these people a wake-up call. I was rather
unsuccessful at this, the TfD ended in speedy keep and
nobody appear to have understood in the least what I'm on
about. One editor explained that he had tried to make
changes in the color scheme of the template...
So, I respectfully subject this issue to this forum
requesting comments on whether we all (except for me)
think it's fine to have a linguistics infobox that wants
to make itself the centrepiece of any and all page on
which it is applied.
Halvor / User:meco
--
all communication to and from this person will be subject
to public availability
In a message dated 4/27/2008 8:53:05 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com writes:
Having our user pages searchable puts us on a level with , or below,
facebook. They at least let people have public and non public content.>>
---------------------
But are you proposing a situation where the users can have *no* public
content?
Or are you proposing excluding User page from this global proposal to hide
non-mainspace?
Will
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Blocking ALL non-mainspace Risker is still great overkill to simply blocking
ANI, isn't it.
All the specific examples are very very tiny, compared to what's being
proposed.
Will Johnson
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car
listings at AOL Autos.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
I would add that our project, imho, should be open and transparent. If we
hide the internal workings from all but the cognoscenti, we are not achieving
the greatest aim.
There are many ways to address DRV issues, without blocking all
non-mainspace searches.
Internal searching while helpful, should not be yet another way to shield
the world from the project. Quite the opposite imho. Forming a closed society
is not going to be a productive way to show our supposed higher ethical
standards.
Will Johnson
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car
listings at AOL Autos.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
The following bug, which I just entered into Bugzilla, may (if I worded it
right, and I welcome refinement or pointing out that it's a dup) be relevant
to this matter.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13864
I agree with NYB that this is a serious matter, with the potential to cause
harm to innocent bystanders, and that we should do the right thing (whatever
it is) because it's the right thing to do, not because of what some external
site or person wants us to do or not do.
With the recent improvements in internal search, the time is ripe to
consider doing this.
note that I have in the bug asked for the functionality to control the
defaults project wide, not just on en-wp.
Larry Pieniazek
Hobby mail: Lar at Miltontrainworks dot com
Magnus thank you for your comments.
My own thoughts were dwelling on Ayn Rand's perception of "action by
committee" and "product by committee", versus those actions and products that are
the result of a single artist developing their craft.
It is perhaps my own faulty perception that Ayn gave the impression that a
work created by committee would never achieve any degree of excellence.
Will Johnson
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car
listings at AOL Autos.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
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