On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Larry Sanger wrote:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/How_to_destroy_Wikipedia
This is a User page. We've never come to definitive policies on what should be "allowed" on User pages, but we've taken a mostly laissez-faire attitude so far.
Please understand, I'm not saying that that policy should be changed (while neither do I think that all users have an inalienable right to put *whatever* they want into their user space--but I don't think anyone is denying that right now).
The request for refactoring or moving such pages is not an attempt to infringe anyone's rights (for example, Cunc can continue to ignore the request without comment if he chooses). It's instead a matter of simple politeness and civility, of trying to make Wikipedia a place where people are *more* apt to treat each other respectfully than they are now.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_commentary/Responses_to_How_to_Destr...
This should probably be moved to meta, right? It's not an encyclopedia article, per se, so it shouldn't be in the main article namespace in the first place.
That would be a slight improvement but it wouldn't achieve what tarquin was trying to achieve, viz., demonstrating to new visitors that constant verbal warfare and nursing festering resentments isn't what we are about. (Of course, it's a matter of debate whether we should use this means of achieving it!)
This is why moving the "anti-American Wikipedians" page to m.w.o (linked directly from the main Wikipedia user space) misses the point as well.
We shouldn't be trying to balkanize ourselves for the simple reason that what we're doing requires cooperation, and a lot of it!
If we were *really* serious about making Wikipedia more civil, we would demonstrate that we have the maturity and courage to talk about such problems openly and seriously--and then finally committing ourselves to burying the hatchet.
I'm all for this. Perhaps Cunc will exercise some of the "ten noble virtues" from his "WikipediAhimsa" page and remove whatever pages in his user space are causing anyone discomfort. Such a gesture might be greatly appreciated and help forge a better path forward.
Yes, I agree totally, while acknowledging that he can continue to voluntarily host all that stuff in his user space.
Larry