On Mon, 8 Apr 2002, Jimmy Wales wrote:
You can count my vote for moving them, but like you, I'd like to see a consensus on this first.
My vote is to move and then delete all pages from the main namespace that belong under the user: and wikipedia: namespaces. I described my philosophy in a talk: page which slips my mind right now (I think it was the talk page for "pages to be deleted"), but to summarize I think it's appropriate to be able to browse around randomly inside Wikipedia as an encyclopedia and not come across any "behind the scenes" scaffolding unless I actively seek it out. Making sure the user and wikipedia pages are clearly separated from the main content of the encyclopedia will help give wikipedia a more "professional" and "finished" flavor, even if it isn't really. :)
(hope this email makes it through, I've been having a heck of a time getting the right address subscribed to this mailing list...)