On 9/9/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikipedia namespace should be indexed, so you can search for terms like "neutral point of view". It also contains pointers to tools. MediaWiki should probably be indexed. User talk is probably the only strong candidate for non indexing. The other talks are probably ok...there are times when you want to search them. User is probably ok.
It's been proposed that we no-index user and user talk.. It would solve a number of problems. But our search sucks, so some things would be inconvenienced by this change so people are generally opposed to it.
It's too bad... the fact that some people abuse us for free webhosting and we can't be sure if a particular person isn't is creating tension in our community... and many community members are discouraged from using their real names because they don't want their Wikipedia user page showing up on google when someone searches for their name... and then there is the stress of trying to spam patrol pages which we don't normally execute much editorial oversight over.... and then there is the issue of "this user is blocked" showing up on google. :(