On 1/4/06, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006, Nathan Russell wrote: As for the matter that some Wikipedians spend more time on Userboxes than contributing content, if this is the case then someone needs to have a talk with the person & explain that the goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia -- not a web page with lots of cute & colorful Userboxes. If they refuse to get with the program, then perhaps the solution then would be to either treat them like a vandal or haul them before the ArbCom for an official banning. (And if anyone is curious, I can identify one person who falls into this category -- so there are people with accounts on Wikipedia who need to get with the program.)
If their actions are not detrimental to the encyclopedia as a whole, why should they be ArbCommed? This seems like an overreaction to me. There's no reason someone who just makes userboxes should be forced to leave.
Honestly, I don't see how putting a couple of userboxes on one's user
page transforms the average Wikipedian into some drooling, lamer noob who uses Wikipedia only to hang with his bro's & to pick fights with his unkewl rivals. And for the record, while I have a few of these things on my User page, I find this phenomena silly -- like Sailor Moon anime, teen-aged Republicans, & people who can't understand the difference between "your" & "you're". However, I can cheerfully ignore it & spend my time on more important matters, like compiling material in order to add to Wikipedia an article on every population center in Ethiopia.
As another food for thought, does this make any admin with a userbox on their userpage a useless admin? I've seen that argument being bandied about.
--Jay Converse (Mo0)
-- I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.