"Chris Howie" wrote

I think the closest we're going to get to a good technical solution would be to have some magic words __INDEX__ and __NOINDEX__ that will force indexing on or off for a document. The default could be set per-namespace, and I'm assuming we'd want articlespace to be the only one indexed by default.

This begins to start to sound like the right lines ...

In detail:

We surely would want all major policy and guideline documents indexed. But that could be done by opting "in" for those, leaving the bulk of the Wikipedia: namespace "out". The redlinks pages, such as "missing encyclopedia articles", should be opted "in".

I think we'd want the Category: namespace in by default - why not?

This then leaves a discussion about the User: namespace. Unnatural not to index user pages? Or leave it that the default is non-indexed, and you have to take the positive step to put your userpage or essay out there.

I believe this is a sane debate, at least.

Charles

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