[WikiEN-l] The sandbox incubator

[Erik Moeller]

Because the sandbox talk page is frequently vandalized, and because this 
is a larger issue, I'm posting this here. I'd like to know whether I'm 
alone with this position.

Currently, the Wikipedia Sandbox features 5 links to "experimental 
projects":
* Hangman
* Chess
* Go/Weiqi
* Checkers
* Poetry

Ever since WikiChess became popular and accepted on Wikipedia, the 
sandbox has turned into an incubator for new "wikigames". The problem 
with this is that, as long as a page is a subpage of the sandbox, it is 
very difficult to delete it, because it is regarded as "legitimate 
playground." On the other hand, once a game has found a sufficient 
number of players, these players are all likely to vote "keep" when the 
game eventually and inevitably creeps into the Wikipedia namespace, as 
has happened with chess.

Therefore, the sandbox has become an incubator for a potentially 
unlimited number of wikigames which are almost impossible to get rid of 
once they've become popular. While there's nothing wrong with some 
harmless games, I strongly feel that such games need to be limited because:

1) Eventually, these gaming activities will attract users who do nothing 
*but* playing games, and therefore use our donation-sponsored hardware 
effectively as an Internet gameserver. These users can exist outside our 
normal community framework, potentially causing problems when they 
interact with the rest of the community and the site.

2) A couple of wikigames don't make much of a difference, but once 
there's 10 or 20 popular ones, the constant edits to these pages will 
start to clutter up Special:Recentchanges.

3) The Wikipedia: namespace is meant primarily for policies; an 
abundance of gaming-related pages complicates browsing and searching.

4) The more visible these activities become, the more they become a 
reflection on our project to outsiders.

I'm not arguing that any existing wikigame activities should be 
suspended -- that would be an exercise in futility, as anyone trying to 
do so will be shouted down by the existing player community. No, my 
suggested solution is this: All subpages of Wikipedia:Sandbox should be 
deleted. There's no need to have any "experimental development" pages.

Users who want to conduct non-game experiments can use user sandboxes 
for this purpose. If someone wants to start a new wikigame, they should 
start it in the Wikipedia: namespace, where it will receive a much more 
intense assessment right from the start. If a game started in the proper 
namespace survives VfD, then it may very well be fun or useful enough to 
exist.

In other words, I would strongly argue in favor of shutting down the 
sandbox as a VfD-resistant incubator for games which distract from the 
purpose of building an encyclopedia. There is value to wikigames as 
entertainment and as an artistic effort, but there's a separate wiki 
dedicated to this already -- http://games.wikicities.com/ -- and I feel 
that our own gaming related efforts should be limited at best.

Regards,

Erik