Matt Brown wrote:
I believe that under most circumstances a user's main userpage [[User:X]] should be a place for that user to state what they want the community to know about them and their beliefs, philosophies, aims, goals, etc. In other words, the main User: page is intentionally POV and there should rarely be a need for other contributors to edit it.
It strikes me that some of those wanting their user pages protected from editing by other users are not doing so out of actually experiencing any problems, but rather, as UC says, from a sense of 'ownership'. This IS a bit troubling. Certainly userspace is different than other namespaces in the system, but it seems to me that the 'Wiki way' is to avoid trying to fix problems in software whenever possible - instead relying on community norms and consensus to set de facto policy.
'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' is the rule of the game here, I think, and I haven't seen sufficient argument that the current state of affairs is so broken as to override the objections.
I generally agree that user pages should be respected. Perhaps the only circumstance where I would feel justified in editing another user's page would be to fix a broken link that I created because of an edit that I did elsewhere.
Ec