On 3/9/06, Ben Lowe ben.lowe@gmail.com wrote:

I found this on User:The Halo's page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AThe_Halo&diff=4225...

User:StrangerInParadise is explicitly using the categories in the userboxes to stack votes against *taking categories out of userboxes to avoid vote-stacking.* More than anything this frustrates the crap out of me because, until now, I've only heard of a couple vote-stacking incidents. Is there a userbox for "This user is unaware of absurd ironies"?

I think there was some pretty extensive discussion on WP:AN/I regarding those messages; it's probably been archived by now, though.

In some sense, the userbox situation is a microcosm of many of the various Wikipedia conflicts that have cropped up at some point: free speech/censorship, the role of administrators, vote stacking issues, the role of WikiProjects, the role of Jimbo and the Board, the role of userpages, organization of Wikipedians along POV lines, and so forth. The good news is that resolving it fully should resolve a lot of different issues. The bad news, of course, is that the presence of all these issues makes it much harder to resolve with minimal bloodshed on all sides.

Kirill Lokshin