On 6/2/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
On Jun 1, 2006, at 2:38 PM, Delirium wrote:
I can't say I myself see much problem with people saying on their userpages what their religious beliefs are.
This is a semi-straw man argument. Userbox templates *ARE NOT ONLY ON USER PAGES*. If they were, the conflict (while possibly still present) would be vastly reduced. Userbox templates are a number of other places as well as being on userpages. Specifically, they are 1) In Template space. 2) In subpages of Wikipedia:Userboxes. I look forward to your thoughts on the degree of problems (or lack of such) of having people say what their religious beliefs are in the two places I mentioned. Thanks!
Template space and Wikipedia: space are not linked to any user, and therefore, they are in a different position. The actual placement of the HTML on a user page to display the box will have the same effect no matter where it comes from. If someone does not understand the difference between user space and article space when they put a userbox down then it is a failure of wikipedia to make the difference obvious. User space is not classed as encyclopedic content, so why should template space come under the encyclopedic content category, as there are numerous in house templates that are clearly not contributing to human knowledge. The running of the encyclopedia and the personal notations given by users to help others understand their biases better are two very valid uses of template space in my view.
If an only if an editor transfers their statements of bias in a bad faith way to articles they personally should be told off for it. If an editor takes offense to anothers statement of bias they should think about how that particular statement could possibly contribute to the improvement of the community effort to build up a neutral human knowledge resource, without discounting opinions by others about statements of bias being useful. It is the inflamed person who chose to be inflamed, not the user who made a good faith statement in the place they felt was best suited to the overall effort.
A question I want to know an answer for is just how inflammatory can something be and still stay. Allusions have been made to pseudo sciences in discussions so far as well as beliefs. How many sciences for instance are deemed not to be inflammatory and divisive enough to be allowed as statements of belief and or interest on user pages.
Peter Ansell