A-men! I also strongly support *either* not deleting (nearly) any
userboxes *or* deleting (nearly) all of them, rather than the current
horrible debacle. I'm hoping that Jimbo will take action on one of
these directions.
Jesse Weinstein
On Mar 8, 2006, at 7:36 AM, John Lee wrote:
The userbox debate, on the other hand, has both sides
assuming bad
faith
of the other, and those taking a stand who don't ABF or otherwise act
like dicks are in the clear minority. It's the opposite of the
deletionist/inclusionist debate. Most of the "anti-userboxes" people
I've seen love to speedy/support speedying as many userboxes that might
be deemed factionalist as possible, regardless of disagreement because
"it's the right thing to do". Most of the "pro-userboxes" people
I've
seen will immediately yell "ZOMG ADMIN ABUSE" when an admin blocks a
pro-userboxen fellow because they *think* the admin blocked the fellow
for that reason, or when an admin speedies a userbox, regardless of
whether it really is divisive. (Case in point: the deletion of the
UDUIW
userbox, which I already brought up on the list.)
The userbox debate has been particularly poisonous to the Wikipedian
community because of how starkly the lines have been drawn, and how
belligerently those on either side of the line have behaved towards one
another. Whereas once the rogues were in the minority in the
deletionist/inclusionist spectrum, it is now commonplace to see people
yelling assumptions of bad faith and incivil remarks from the
tree-tops,
while the voices of those trying to be reasonable/civil on either side
are drowned out.
I think those trying to speedy delete/keep all userboxes have got it
wrong -- userboxes are not important in the long run to the fate of
Wikipedia. What's important is reasoning with each other, assuming good
faith, and spreading WikiLove. If we can't do this, we haven't just
lost
the "userbox war", we've lost the war to build an encyclopedia through
the wiki process. And that, my friends, is where I believe we are
headed. And please, don't cast the blame on "rogue deletionist admins"
or "unacculturated newbies". Practically *everyone* involved in this
dispute has been up to their neck in bad faith and WikiHate. I don't
know about you, but if sacrificing userboxes (or sacrificing the
deletion of divisive userboxes) is what it takes to restore good faith
and WikiLove to the community, I'd take the latter over the former any
second.