[WikiEN-l] Thoughts from a relative newbie

[Sue Anne Reed]

Somehow I missed hearing about wikipedia up until a couple of months 
ago. I think I had seen it pop up on google searches, but I didn't 
really explore it until after I heard Jimbo either NPR or C-Span or 
maybe both. I started off editing by finding a broken link on a Survivor 
page and have continued editing heavily on Olympics pages and reality 
TV. As time has gone by, I have read a bunch on the RfA, AfD, etc.

While I'm a newbie here on WP, I've been online since 1994 (ah, the days 
of lynx). A lot of what I see going on here is similar to what I've seen 
elsewhere, especially as the popularity has shot up. I'm sure there are 
people that can remember when there were 800 editors and now there are 
800 admins.

It's interesting, especially with this most recent "wheel warring" how 
my views on userboxes has changed. At first, I thought they were just 
silly. Then, I added a few to my page. Right around this time was the 
issue of Kelly Martin deleting the userboxes and then came Jimbo's 
statement. Up until a couple of days ago, I held the opinion that 
someone else mentioned where user pages are like cubicle walls at work 
and people should be allowed to decorate them as they want, but that 
really isn't my opinion anymore. To me, setting up a system where some 
userboxes are okay and some are not is always going to create a turf war 
on where is the line. If user boxes are allowed, there is going to have 
to be a clear line that says, language user boxes are okay but these 
types of user boxes are not okay.

On the pedophilia issue ... I find pedophiles disgusting, but even if 
someone self-identifies as a pedophile, they are not breaking the law 
with that admission. If there is evidence that they are doing something, 
like trying to get in contact with children via WP, than there has to be 
some sort of process to take care of that. I mean, there is a fairly 
balanced article on NAMBLA on WP. This userbox issue over the weekend 
was the final thing that fully swayed my thinking on userboxes and if 
there isn't some sort of guideline, these sorts of things will happen 
again.

Sue Anne
sreed1234