[WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 1/10/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/10/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> > Peter Mackay wrote:
> >
> > > <snip>
> > >
> > >If people are using Wikipedia to play rather than build an encyclopaedia,
> > >then they should be encouraged in this primary objective, not castigated for
> > >extraneous activies, because for every frivolous userbox, I dare say if I
> > >went looking, I could find some other piece of useless guff on the user
> > >pages of experienced editors. Let people play, if it does no harm and they
> > >are participating in community activities, but also encourage them to be
> > >more productive.
> > >
> > >
> > The difference is experienced users tend to contribute to article space
> > as well. Many userbox fanatics make minimal or no edits to articles. (Of
> > course, most people with userboxes aren't fanatics; I have quite a few
> > userboxes myself. But there are a few rogue bunch out there who seem
> > more intent on userboxes than building an encyclopedia.)
>
> Take a look at the edits of [[User:Jimbo Wales]] and [[User:Anthere]].
>  There are productive things to do other than edit articles.  (This is
> not at all to knock their contributions, it is instead to knock the
> notion that article count means everything).
>
Or [[User:Kelly Martin]].  I count one article edit in the last 500,
though I might have missed a few.

Deleting userboxes is as productive toward the goal of creating an
encyclopedia as creating them.