[WikiEN-l] Deletion of user subpages

[Joe Anderson]

I know of the cases you mean, I nominated various ones.

On 5/19/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> G'day Fastfission,
>
> >>From my reading of [[WP:USER]], it seems to me that a subpage in the
> > user namespace which expresses opinions about Wikipedia or admin
> > behavior, or one which is the beginning of an attempt to organize
> > users towards one goal or another (a pre-born Wikiproject), should be
> > totally legal, irregardless of whether other users think the idea is a
> > good one or whether or not it "takes up resources".
> >
> > And yet, at [[Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion]], there have been a
> > number of cases lately where things are nominated for just this
> > reason. People seem to vote without any consideration other than
> > whether they think the subpage is "a good idea" or a "waste of
> > resources" (of course, the MFD votes often taken up almost exactly the
> > same amount of database space as the pages in question, but let's not
> > let logic get involved here).
>
> It sounds like our descriptive policy is lagging behind actual practice.
>   I guess it needs updating.
>
> (And xfD is not a vote.  If the reasoning behind a "vote" is lacking, it
> can and should be ignored.  This applies even in the case of (imagine
> we're on AfD now) 20 "NN D"s and 1 "Keep, he was the World Champion in
> nude pipe-smoking three years running, represented Canadia in the World
> Nude Pipe-Smoking Championships, and was Leader of the Conservative
> Party in the UK for a period in the 90s".)
>
> > There are two things I think we should do here. One is to try and
> > hammer out if all user subpages must be "useful to the encyclopedia"
> > (as many claim they must, when they are on the chopping block), and,
> > if so, ADD THAT to the user page guidelines. If we DO want to go down
> > that path, we should come up with some clear cut guidelines for what
> > counts as "useful". Must it be useful for writing articles? For
> > organizing research? For telling others about yourself? Does something
> > which facilitates the community count as "useful", even if it does not
> > directly apply to article writing?
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:We_need_a_policy_to_deal_with_policy
>
> Define, and define, and define.  Broad definitions are tyrrany.  We
> can't let random people decide what "useful" means!
>
> > For example, I have a page on my subpages which is a list of all free
> > images I have drawn for Wikipedia. It serves no direct purpose except
> > maybe for me to feel good about my accomplishments, and to encourage
> > others to feel good about them too. Does that make it "useful"? Maybe.
>
> Yes.
>
> > Since I'm not getting paid monetarily for my contributions (which take
> > hours to create, mind you), a little ego stroking is a good way to
> > make sure that I (and others) keep working at it. So in that sense,
> > the page is very "useful": it guarantees that I will keep coming back
> > and spending my valuable time on this project. (I of course do not
> > mean this to refer only or even directly to "me", but mean it as "the
> > hypothetical editor".)
> >
> > But where do we draw the line? Is a page which criticizes the
> > implementation of Wikipedia policy "useful"? Is a page which
> > criticizes the policy outright "useful"? What if it makes blanket
> > statements about the actions of "admins"? Does that go too far? Where
> > does "useful criticism and disagreement" end and "personal attacks"
> > begin?
>
> If you're talking about one subpage I've seen, it ended when the user
> said "X, Y and Z admins are ignorant morons who don't know copyright
> law.  I say we fight back and pepper our userspace with purdy pictures
> we have no right to use!" (in a somewhat less inflammatory fashion,
> admittedly).  Core principles are not negotiable, and attempts to
> organise the community in revolt against being an encyclopaedia, being
> NPOV, respecting copyrights, etc., should not be tolerated.
>
> <snip/>
>
> --
> Mark Gallagher
> "What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
> - Danger Mouse
>
>
>
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-- 
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.