On 1/7/06, Peter Mackay peter.mackay@bigpond.com wrote:
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of SCZenz
The userspace is *for* building the encyclopedia, and we can (and do) edit userpages that are clearly for another purpose. People are allowed quite a bit of leeway at current, but it is not a right or a good thing for that leeway to expand. Wikipedia is not (primarily) an experiment in evolving online communities, and it is certainly not a webhosting service.
I think the community role is important, and surely it is up to the community as to how the userspace evolves. Granted, the production of an encyclopaedia is the focus, but WP is run by consensus as few other internet communities are, and in many ways it is not a matter of dictating how things will happen so much as hanging on for the ride and watching what happens!
By and large userland seems to be a relatively tranquil nation, and I make no doubt that even the current user template row will find its own happy compromise soon enough. My appreciation of the WP community is that it is one that values freedom and "leeway" very highly, but co-operation in the shared goal is valued higher still.
Um, I am indeed opposed to ticking positive contributors off, and so I don't like mass deletions of harmless userboxes. Making people happy is good, because it helps the project.
But Wikipedia is only run by consensus to a certain point. Users cannot decide, by consensus, to devote any page anywhere on Wikipedia to *anything* that hurts the encyclopedia.
SCZenz