Mindspillage wrote:
I don't think setting down hard guidelines as to
what is and is not
acceptable is sufficient; it invites ruleslawyering. I don't advocate
disruptive editing of user pages, such as changing the text someone
has written to make it untrue, and I don't think anyone else is
either. But the current culture is such that many people think no one
else should be allowed to touch your user page, even if you have on it
material which is disruptive, offensive, or otherwise generally not
acceptable to the rest of the community.
I find it hard to see why people would need more in the way of a
guideline than the relevant paragraph from [[WP:NOT]]:
"*User pages.* Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they are
used for information relevant to working on the encyclopedia. If you
are looking to make a personal webpage or blog, please make use of one
of the many free providers on the Internet. The focus of User pages
should not be social networking but rather providing a foundation for
effective collaboration."
So let's run userboxes past that test.
* Babel boxes: yep.
* Location boxes: yep.
* Nationality boxes: probably. (I live in the UK but I can give an
Australian perspective, at least as of 2002.)
* Firefox/Opera/IE boxes: possibly (good for browser issues).
* "du-1:his user does not wish to speak or hear *dumbass*, but is
resigned to the necessity of at least understanding it in an
environment of massive collaboration." - probably not as a template,
which is why the one on my page is substed. But I put it there as a
restatement of what I say a lot, that on Wikipedia working effectively
with people you think are complete idiots is *not optional*.
* "This user is a critic of Scientology." I probably wouldn't use this
myself. It indicates an area of knowledge but also indicates a strong
POV in a way that may unduly alienate other editors.
* "This user is Catholic." I don't think this passes the test. It
states a POV but doesn't actually indicate a depth of knowledge.
* "This user is a Jesuit priest." This might be useful - indicates a
depth of knowledge as well as a belief - but would probably go better
in article text.
* "This user is a pedophile" - um, no.
- d.