From my reading of [[WP:USER]], it seems to me that a subpage in the
user namespace which expresses opinions about Wikipedia or admin behavior, or one which is the beginning of an attempt to organize users towards one goal or another (a pre-born Wikiproject), should be totally legal, irregardless of whether other users think the idea is a good one or whether or not it "takes up resources".
And yet, at [[Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion]], there have been a number of cases lately where things are nominated for just this reason. People seem to vote without any consideration other than whether they think the subpage is "a good idea" or a "waste of resources" (of course, the MFD votes often taken up almost exactly the same amount of database space as the pages in question, but let's not let logic get involved here).
There are two things I think we should do here. One is to try and hammer out if all user subpages must be "useful to the encyclopedia" (as many claim they must, when they are on the chopping block), and, if so, ADD THAT to the user page guidelines. If we DO want to go down that path, we should come up with some clear cut guidelines for what counts as "useful". Must it be useful for writing articles? For organizing research? For telling others about yourself? Does something which facilitates the community count as "useful", even if it does not directly apply to article writing?
For example, I have a page on my subpages which is a list of all free images I have drawn for Wikipedia. It serves no direct purpose except maybe for me to feel good about my accomplishments, and to encourage others to feel good about them too. Does that make it "useful"? Maybe. Since I'm not getting paid monetarily for my contributions (which take hours to create, mind you), a little ego stroking is a good way to make sure that I (and others) keep working at it. So in that sense, the page is very "useful": it guarantees that I will keep coming back and spending my valuable time on this project. (I of course do not mean this to refer only or even directly to "me", but mean it as "the hypothetical editor".)
But where do we draw the line? Is a page which criticizes the implementation of Wikipedia policy "useful"? Is a page which criticizes the policy outright "useful"? What if it makes blanket statements about the actions of "admins"? Does that go too far? Where does "useful criticism and disagreement" end and "personal attacks" begin?
I of course do not expect there are simple answers to these questions, but I've been really quite disturbed over the last week by the way some people have been voting to delete (or even speedying) pages in the userspace which in my mind were not a problem at all. (On speedying: I think if a reasonable number of people do NOT think a page is an "attack page", it should not be speedied under the "no attack pages" CSD. I am happy to "trust admin judgment" but in ambiguous cases, if we trusted the judgment of all admins, we'd end up with endless wheel-warring.) The reasons given were poor, in my mind, and people were labeling criticisms (however misguided or incorrect) as "attacks", criticized one page for creating "factionalism" (because it was trying to organize people to support a policy change, which would inevitably create some disagreement), and voting down pages because there was "no need for them" and they weren't "useful to the encyclopedia."
This dismays me. Not because I think my user subpages, of which there are a few, are ever going to be on the chopping block. It dismays me because reaching into what others perceive to be "their territory" -- and yes, I know that nobody "owns" any pages on WP, that WP is not a webhost, etc., but it cannot be denied that people feel a little proprietary about their userspace, and that this is not entirely discouraged -- is a rather presumptuous thing to do, and I think should only be done in cases where it is CLEARLY warranted. I think the "bad blood" created by nominating someone's stillborn Wikiproject for deletion is completely unnecessary -- if it is not "doing anything", then just ignore it! Perhaps this makes me a little more old-fashioned "if it ain't your business, don't mess with it", but I find it really hard to stomach when a group of people can vote down someone's user pages, often for reasons which have NOTHING to do with any of our user page guidelines.
Personally, I don't care if people want to write little half-baked essays relating to Wikipedia policies on the subpages. If someone wanted to write a little essay about why free content is dumb, let them do it. Who cares? It's not going to change the world, it's not going to sink the project (and if it did sink the project, then that indicates far bigger problems than one little essay). We don't have any "right to free speech" on Wikipedia, but I don't think people are out of line to expect that they have the ability to criticize things they don't like, as long as they don't cross over that fuzzy line to being "attack" (I think accusations of "attacks" should be reserved only for those things which are *clearly* personal attacks, and not just personal criticisms).
I think our user page policy needs an overhaul, and I think we need to have better guidelines for the deletion of pages out of the user space, because I think it is a place where feelings of others can get pointlessly trampled on. Who cares about feelings? I do. Not because I'm a bleeding-heart sort of person -- because I believe that Wikipedia runs on good will. People will only contribute well when they feel wanted and appreciated. The people who are happy to contribute even when they feel they are not wanted are, for the large part, pretty problematic (most POV-pushers know they aren't wanted, for example, but have decided it is their "crusade").
By all means -- edit the article namespace ruthlessly. Delete like crazy, if there is reason to. But I think we need to be a little more careful with the user namespace, and develop some explicit guidelines which say as much.
FF
On 5/19/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
From my reading of [[WP:USER]], it seems to me that a subpage in the
user namespace which expresses opinions about Wikipedia or admin behavior, or one which is the beginning of an attempt to organize users towards one goal or another (a pre-born Wikiproject), should be totally legal, irregardless of whether other users think the idea is a good one or whether or not it "takes up resources".
Conversely, if the nascent WikiProject would be quickly deleted once moved into Wikipedia: -- in other words, if its goals are not among those for which WikiProjects are intended -- then there's no reason to prolong its existence. This is particularly true for projects that are nothing more than anti-Wikipedia rants with a signup sheet.
Personally, I don't care if people want to write little half-baked essays relating to Wikipedia policies on the subpages. If someone wanted to write a little essay about why free content is dumb, let them do it. Who cares? It's not going to change the world, it's not going to sink the project (and if it did sink the project, then that indicates far bigger problems than one little essay). We don't have any "right to free speech" on Wikipedia, but I don't think people are out of line to expect that they have the ability to criticize things they don't like, as long as they don't cross over that fuzzy line to being "attack" (I think accusations of "attacks" should be reserved only for those things which are *clearly* personal attacks, and not just personal criticisms).
I recall a (fairly recent?) ArbCom decision mentioning something about userpages that "bring the project into disrepute"; is there any reason not to extend this criterion to user subpages? The denizens of WikiTruth and Wikipedia Review and their ilk already have the entire rest of the Internet to spout their garbage; there's utterly no reason to legitimize it and help spread it by hosting it (however inconspicuously) on a top-20 site.
On 5/19/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
I recall a (fairly recent?) ArbCom decision mentioning something about userpages that "bring the project into disrepute"; is there any reason not to extend this criterion to user subpages? The denizens of WikiTruth and Wikipedia Review and their ilk already have the entire rest of the Internet to spout their garbage; there's utterly no reason to legitimize it and help spread it by hosting it (however inconspicuously) on a top-20 site.
I have nothing in principle against a guideline like this, except for the essential undefiniability of what does or does not "bring the project into disrepute."
Again, I don't expect there to EVER be an easy answer to what is or isn't allowed, but some sort of guideline, along with a few examples, would probably go a long way towards articulating the policy and its spirit. (This has worked very well for WP:NPOV, for example -- the examples have practically eliminated hair-splitting over the issues of pseudoscience, creationism, fringe theories, etc. that used to consume NPOV disputes.)
FF
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
I recall a (fairly recent?) ArbCom decision mentioning something about userpages that "bring the project into disrepute"; is there any reason not to extend this criterion to user subpages? The denizens of WikiTruth and Wikipedia Review and their ilk already have the entire rest of the Internet to spout their garbage; there's utterly no reason to legitimize it and help spread it by hosting it (however inconspicuously) on a top-20 site.
I think that "bringing the project into disrepute" should be interpreted very narrowly. One of our great strengths as a project has always been our healthy tolerance of legitimate discussion and debate about various internal matters. If someone notices a trend toward abusive admins, and writes a respectful and thoughtful page about the issue, I think we would be very unhealthy indeed if we just deleted it for that reason.
(Indeed, overzealous policing of the user space content for alleged infractions would itself bring the project into disrepute.)
The sorts of things we should care about in user space are various kinds of hate speech and advocacy: pro-Nazi pages, pro-pedophilia or 'child love' pages, pro-violence, racist pages, things of that nature.
Criticism of the project itself seldom rises to the level of hate speech, although of course sometimes it does.
--Jimbo
G'day Fastfission,
From my reading of [[WP:USER]], it seems to me that a subpage in the
user namespace which expresses opinions about Wikipedia or admin behavior, or one which is the beginning of an attempt to organize users towards one goal or another (a pre-born Wikiproject), should be totally legal, irregardless of whether other users think the idea is a good one or whether or not it "takes up resources".
And yet, at [[Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion]], there have been a number of cases lately where things are nominated for just this reason. People seem to vote without any consideration other than whether they think the subpage is "a good idea" or a "waste of resources" (of course, the MFD votes often taken up almost exactly the same amount of database space as the pages in question, but let's not let logic get involved here).
It sounds like our descriptive policy is lagging behind actual practice. I guess it needs updating.
(And xfD is not a vote. If the reasoning behind a "vote" is lacking, it can and should be ignored. This applies even in the case of (imagine we're on AfD now) 20 "NN D"s and 1 "Keep, he was the World Champion in nude pipe-smoking three years running, represented Canadia in the World Nude Pipe-Smoking Championships, and was Leader of the Conservative Party in the UK for a period in the 90s".)
There are two things I think we should do here. One is to try and hammer out if all user subpages must be "useful to the encyclopedia" (as many claim they must, when they are on the chopping block), and, if so, ADD THAT to the user page guidelines. If we DO want to go down that path, we should come up with some clear cut guidelines for what counts as "useful". Must it be useful for writing articles? For organizing research? For telling others about yourself? Does something which facilitates the community count as "useful", even if it does not directly apply to article writing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:We_need_a_policy_to_deal_with_policy
Define, and define, and define. Broad definitions are tyrrany. We can't let random people decide what "useful" means!
For example, I have a page on my subpages which is a list of all free images I have drawn for Wikipedia. It serves no direct purpose except maybe for me to feel good about my accomplishments, and to encourage others to feel good about them too. Does that make it "useful"? Maybe.
Yes.
Since I'm not getting paid monetarily for my contributions (which take hours to create, mind you), a little ego stroking is a good way to make sure that I (and others) keep working at it. So in that sense, the page is very "useful": it guarantees that I will keep coming back and spending my valuable time on this project. (I of course do not mean this to refer only or even directly to "me", but mean it as "the hypothetical editor".)
But where do we draw the line? Is a page which criticizes the implementation of Wikipedia policy "useful"? Is a page which criticizes the policy outright "useful"? What if it makes blanket statements about the actions of "admins"? Does that go too far? Where does "useful criticism and disagreement" end and "personal attacks" begin?
If you're talking about one subpage I've seen, it ended when the user said "X, Y and Z admins are ignorant morons who don't know copyright law. I say we fight back and pepper our userspace with purdy pictures we have no right to use!" (in a somewhat less inflammatory fashion, admittedly). Core principles are not negotiable, and attempts to organise the community in revolt against being an encyclopaedia, being NPOV, respecting copyrights, etc., should not be tolerated.
<snip/>
I know of the cases you mean, I nominated various ones.
On 5/19/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
G'day Fastfission,
From my reading of [[WP:USER]], it seems to me that a subpage in the
user namespace which expresses opinions about Wikipedia or admin behavior, or one which is the beginning of an attempt to organize users towards one goal or another (a pre-born Wikiproject), should be totally legal, irregardless of whether other users think the idea is a good one or whether or not it "takes up resources".
And yet, at [[Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion]], there have been a number of cases lately where things are nominated for just this reason. People seem to vote without any consideration other than whether they think the subpage is "a good idea" or a "waste of resources" (of course, the MFD votes often taken up almost exactly the same amount of database space as the pages in question, but let's not let logic get involved here).
It sounds like our descriptive policy is lagging behind actual practice. I guess it needs updating.
(And xfD is not a vote. If the reasoning behind a "vote" is lacking, it can and should be ignored. This applies even in the case of (imagine we're on AfD now) 20 "NN D"s and 1 "Keep, he was the World Champion in nude pipe-smoking three years running, represented Canadia in the World Nude Pipe-Smoking Championships, and was Leader of the Conservative Party in the UK for a period in the 90s".)
There are two things I think we should do here. One is to try and hammer out if all user subpages must be "useful to the encyclopedia" (as many claim they must, when they are on the chopping block), and, if so, ADD THAT to the user page guidelines. If we DO want to go down that path, we should come up with some clear cut guidelines for what counts as "useful". Must it be useful for writing articles? For organizing research? For telling others about yourself? Does something which facilitates the community count as "useful", even if it does not directly apply to article writing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:We_need_a_policy_to_deal_with_policy
Define, and define, and define. Broad definitions are tyrrany. We can't let random people decide what "useful" means!
For example, I have a page on my subpages which is a list of all free images I have drawn for Wikipedia. It serves no direct purpose except maybe for me to feel good about my accomplishments, and to encourage others to feel good about them too. Does that make it "useful"? Maybe.
Yes.
Since I'm not getting paid monetarily for my contributions (which take hours to create, mind you), a little ego stroking is a good way to make sure that I (and others) keep working at it. So in that sense, the page is very "useful": it guarantees that I will keep coming back and spending my valuable time on this project. (I of course do not mean this to refer only or even directly to "me", but mean it as "the hypothetical editor".)
But where do we draw the line? Is a page which criticizes the implementation of Wikipedia policy "useful"? Is a page which criticizes the policy outright "useful"? What if it makes blanket statements about the actions of "admins"? Does that go too far? Where does "useful criticism and disagreement" end and "personal attacks" begin?
If you're talking about one subpage I've seen, it ended when the user said "X, Y and Z admins are ignorant morons who don't know copyright law. I say we fight back and pepper our userspace with purdy pictures we have no right to use!" (in a somewhat less inflammatory fashion, admittedly). Core principles are not negotiable, and attempts to organise the community in revolt against being an encyclopaedia, being NPOV, respecting copyrights, etc., should not be tolerated.
<snip/>
-- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse
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On 5/19/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
Define, and define, and define. Broad definitions are tyrrany. We can't let random people decide what "useful" means!
I agree -- but I think that's pretty much the way it currently works. I think we need at least some guidelines, examples, etc., if not definitions. An idea of what is definitely permissable and what is definitely not would at least allow people to reason in between the two extremes.
If you're talking about one subpage I've seen, it ended when the user said "X, Y and Z admins are ignorant morons who don't know copyright law. I say we fight back and pepper our userspace with purdy pictures we have no right to use!" (in a somewhat less inflammatory fashion, admittedly). Core principles are not negotiable, and attempts to organise the community in revolt against being an encyclopaedia, being NPOV, respecting copyrights, etc., should not be tolerated.
I've got the page open in front of me, and I didn't say that. The page, perhaps not terribly articulately, said that some admins had been using claims of bad fair use as a reason to delete all sorts of things, and that these admins did not themselves seem to have an understanding of fair use law. Whatever one thinks of the substance of the opinion (I have a complicated opinion on this issue which need not be inserted here), it 1. did not mention any admins by name, 2. criticized the policies as being perhaps not in accordance with the law, and 3. criticized certain implementions of the policy. I didn't agree with all of the page, but I didn't see it doing any harm just by existing, and certainly didn't think it fell under the "attack page" of CSD. I don't think our fair use policy counts as a "principle" policy of the encyclopedia, and I think it was pretty clear he wasn't trying to organize a "revolt" so much as a place for like-minded people to discuss potential policy changes (the user himself told me that he had invisioned it as an alternative to WPFU -- I encouraged him to think of WPFU less as a "cabal" and more as "a place to talk about these things," since most of the people there don't agree with each other anyway).
I know that anybody who makes blanket complaints about "admins" is going to get a pretty skeptical ear around here -- I've seen enough crackpots myself to know that 80% of the time, an blanket attacks on admins or a cabal or whatever are wooly-minded at best. But they are sometimes legitimate criticisms, or at the very least their ability to be voiced should be considered worthwhile (nothing is worse for any sort of bureaucracy or pseudo-bureaucracy than a calcification of process by means of a lack of criticism, in my opinion). I think if one reads the (now deleted) page with a more sympathetic ear -- the sort of ear which assumes good faith -- it is definitely not speediable, and probably should not be deleted in any case (if anyone has evidence of it causing harm, I'd be interested in seeing it).
Here's the other point I meant to bring up in my initial posting: if it is likely that more trouble will come from getting rid of a "threat" than the "threat" itself would cause, perhaps the threat here is not the page but the process. I should think this is a lesson from the userbox debacle -- surely the attempts to eliminate the userboxes have done more harm to the encyclopedia than the boxes ever did. I don't blame anybody for this in the userbox case -- it would have taken remarkable clairvoyance to see this -- but I do think as a general principle this could be quite useful. I think in most cases, deletion of pages in the user space whose "right to exist" is ambiguous causes more problems than it solves. Which is why I think we should try and make the guidelines here less ambiguous -- straightforward rules, however arbitrary, are a million times easier to enforce and follow.
FF