I have watched over a period of months while the number of protected user pages has grown. Recently, I requested that a number of them be unprotected and Guanaco and several others were willing to do this.
There has been a backlash. Apparently there are a number of wikipedians who believe in the patently non-wiki notion that they "own" their user space and should be able to lock it up so that other users can't edit it.
Others have taken the step further and there is (I'm not making this up folks) a suggestion that we change the software to disallow all edits to user pages except by their "owners." Discussion, including calls for a "vote" on this change can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Protection_policy
There is also discussion there of the lesser measure of changing policy to permit any admin to protect their own user pages indefinitely for no reason other than personal whim.
UninvitedCompany
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 is certainly NOT a place for other users to place their opinion of that user under normal circumstances.
However, all this is accomplished with the current state of affairs. User pages are indeed rarely edited by anyone but the user. There are rare cases of vandalism, quickly undone. Few users' pages are regularly vandalised, and those pages can be (and are) protected under our current policy.
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.
-Matt (User:Morven)
In message 42f90dc004110215456670a8d5@mail.gmail.com, Matt Brown morven-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org writes
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 is certainly NOT a place for other users to place their opinion of that user under normal circumstances.
However, all this is accomplished with the current state of affairs. User pages are indeed rarely edited by anyone but the user. There are rare cases of vandalism, quickly undone. Few users' pages are regularly vandalised, and those pages can be (and are) protected under our current policy.
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.
-Matt (User:Morven)
Well, I just protected my page today, after it had been vandalised for the 10th time in 8 weeks by the same bastard, using a range of IP addresses so individual short-term blocks had no effect.
I strongly support the proposal to restrict the editability of user pages to the user concerned in normal circumstances.
On Wednesday 03 November 2004 02:29, Arwel Parry wrote:
proposal to restrict the editability of user pages
If you have a look at http://www.openformats.org you will see that the software it uses, WikkaWiki, has implemented ACLs (Access Control Lists) that cause every page to have an owner who can give read/write access to anyone he/she wants. You can even make a page non-readable by anons. I would like to see ACLs in MW1.4.
Arwel Parry a écrit:
In message 42f90dc004110215456670a8d5@mail.gmail.com, Matt Brown morven-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org writes
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 is certainly NOT a place for other users to place their opinion of that user under normal circumstances.
However, all this is accomplished with the current state of affairs. User pages are indeed rarely edited by anyone but the user. There are rare cases of vandalism, quickly undone. Few users' pages are regularly vandalised, and those pages can be (and are) protected under our current policy.
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.
-Matt (User:Morven)
Well, I just protected my page today, after it had been vandalised for the 10th time in 8 weeks by the same bastard, using a range of IP addresses so individual short-term blocks had no effect.
I strongly support the proposal to restrict the editability of user pages to the user concerned in normal circumstances.
I may have 30 or 40 user pages now. Anyone may edit them. If I do not like the edit, I just revert :-)
far more important than blocking or not blocking, is being able to have just one user page in all the different (wikimedia) wiki projects and all the different languages within that. or at the very least being able to act like a logged in user in (EXAMPLE) pt.wikipedia with my es.wikipedia username, and not being treated like a anon user.
paz y amor, [[:en:user:the bellman]]
I may have 30 or 40 user pages now. Anyone may edit them. If I do not like the edit, I just revert :-)
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Well, I just protected my page today, after it had been vandalised for the 10th time in 8 weeks by the same bastard, using a range of IP addresses so individual short-term blocks had no effect.
I strongly support the proposal to restrict the editability of user pages to the user concerned in normal circumstances.
Ten edits in eight weeks by one vandal is nothing. It could be easily rolled back, and you are just redirecting the vandalism to articles. The only time protecting user pages is useful is when there is a vandalbot that attacks a given list of pages.
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
On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 23:05:33 -0800 Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
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 maybe that`s the problem.people today do not seem to like
protecting each other.on wikipedia we are a family so that means we must protect each other and our views.we do this by being not so eveready to delete those views.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Ray Saintonge wrote:
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.
I once changed the "picture of the day" template to fix a problem with link table corruption. To complete the fix, I updated the inclusion code on all the user pages that used it. One of the users whose page I edited gave me this earful on my user talk page:
= Markup Editing on MY PAGE! NO! ==
As requested on [[User:JediMaster16|my page]], <i>please</i> do not edit my page without permission. Its annoying. Very annoying.
<center> <div style="color:red; font-size:300%; letter-spacing:.40in; background-color:black; line-height:150%;">THANK YOU</div> </center>
[END QUOTE]
I suggest we regularly edit each others' user pages in an attempt to break this bizarre perception of ownership.
-- Tim Starling
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Anthere&action=history
My page is nowhere from perfect, but I love it that way. The last major addition was the offering of a corruption flower by Dysprosia.
Tim Starling a écrit:
I suggest we regularly edit each others' user pages in an attempt to break this bizarre perception of ownership.
-- Tim Starling
Does not that beautiful flower offer not make it worth it ?
Tim Starling wrote:
One of the users whose page I edited gave me this earful on my user talk page:
= Markup Editing on MY PAGE! NO! ==
As requested on [[User:JediMaster16|my page]], <i>please</i> do not edit my page without permission. Its annoying. Very annoying.
<center> <div style="color:red; font-size:300%; letter-spacing:.40in; background-color:black; line-height:150%;">THANK YOU</div> </center>
Jedi Master, the Force was not with you that day. :-)
Ec