Tony Sidaway wrote:
Oh I completely agree. The babel boxes, etc, indeed most userboxes, are fine. Some may be used for attacks and must be deleted. Some promote factionalism by providing a handy directory for the pushers of various points of view (I have identified three such cases in the past three weeks) and they must also go. I don't thinkk we need be overly concerned about "powered by alcohol" and other joky stuff.
Hestitations, caveats, and all, I would say that Tony and I are mostly in agreement here.
The language boxes are actually incredibly useful and wonderful. Boxes that help me to know my fellow Wikipedians are useful. Boxes which attack people are bad.
Boxes which promote factionalism are bad, but this is in tension with the idea that these same boxes help me to know my fellow Wikipedians. It someone with a "Supporter of the Republican Party" userbox just being friendly and giving me information about themselves, or are they signalling a desire to engage in POV-pushing conflict? It all depends on the user.
As I have said elsewhere in a comment that played a role in setting off the Great Userbox War of 2006, I think we should try not to use userboxes that would suggest that we are ideological in our editing. Here we are wikipedians, out there we may be advocates, but here we just want to share knowledge and help each other get it right. (And those who want to use Wikipedia to advance a particular political or ideological agenda are invited to leave us alone, please.)
Fun little jokey stuff? Ehh... I agree with Tony: "I don't think we need be overly concerned..."
As with everything in Wikipedia, I'm sure the wisdom of the community in the final analysis will be somewhere in the middle ground (with a very long and tedious policy and procedure ha ha).
--Jimbo