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

[Tony Sidaway]

On 29/12/2007, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> It's A Tricky One. The trouble is when the fine line between "useful
> for encyclopedic collaboration" and "social networking at best,
> POV-pushing list at worst" is way too blurry.
>
> I'm mindful of the de:wp answer, which was to allow *only* languages
> and location in userboxes.
>

At this stage I'd say there isn't the community will to do something
about these things.  I think the worst of them tend to die so perhaps
by natural selection we'll end up with relatively benign user
categories.

My solution would simply be to ask the developers to disable
categories in userspace and talkspace.  Where aggregation of users  is
either required for operational purposes (blocked socks and the like)
or for skill sharing (languages, education, vocational skills), list
pages in project space would do the same job in a much more reliable
and trackable way (category membership has no history).  But we won't
get my solution so that's just a pipe dream.