Even if its true that you *need* Google for this purpose, its nowhere near
important enough a function to effectively argue against turning on noindex
for non-article/portal pages. Of the number of people using searches on
Google that might turn up a DRV, AfD, user page, etc. with damaging
information - few of them are going to be Wikipedians searching for dirt or
dish on other Wikipedians.
The purpose of Wikipedia isn't to be available to historians researching its
creation, or to various editors looking for meta-details - its to be an
encyclopedia, for the public, with useful information. Having damaging
information available on real people thats relevant only inside Wikipedia
doesn't serve that purpose, so making it unsearchable outside Wikipedia is
completely sensible.
Nathan
On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 4:21 PM, <WJhonson(a)aol.com> wrote:
---------------
You know perfectly well (I think) that that is not to what I refer.
I'm not looking for the user's page, but rather the user, wherever they
appear.
If there is an allusion to so-and-so getting into a nasty fight with
such-and-such, I need to look for the two of them together to see what it's
about.
It's not perfectly likely that that fight appeared on either user or user
talk pages of *them* but it may appear on the talk page of somebody else.
Historians need to preserve the ability to biograph the historians
themselves. That is part of the history of Wikipedia. We are not just a
series of
articles, but rather individuals and some of those individuals create
intriguing historians of their own. Noindexing user talk pages
effectively wipes the
ability to learn whatever-can-be-known about the people who create
Wikipedia.
Will Johnson