[WikiEN-l] User categories and the fear of becoming a social network

[Kurt Maxwell Weber]

On Friday 28 December 2007 19:05, Ned Scott wrote:
> I'm also confused as to why people seem to think that [[WP:MYSPACE]]
> applies to anything that they don't see as helping Wikipedia.
> Certainly, useless categories should be deleted, but being useless
> does not mean something is being (or is even practical to be) used for
> social networking. It also seems to set people off, in that since they
> are assuming these categories are being used for social networking,
> reasonable arguments that demonstrate wiki-related use will not be
> given proper consideration.
>
> Like I said, a lot of these deletions are dead on, but we're also
> losing a lot of categories that were realistically usable. Should some
> be taken to DRV? Should a kind of "rationale" page be created to help
> avoid confusion? Are any of these categories realistically being used
> for social networking, or are we overreacting? Are babies in lurking
> in the bath water? Is it bath water in the first place? Green or
> yellow? Up or down? Paper or plastic?

Why do any of them need to be deleted?  What do they hurt?

I strongly suggest you (and those who agree with you) read [[Wikipedia:Why do 
you care?]], an essay I wrote on this subject a few weeks ago.
-- 
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>