On 13/09/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
A user page is your personal page for *project* purposes - the volunteer equivalent of a work intraweb page. (Except the world can see it, but anyway.)
I think the best thing to do with it is to use it as a way of introducing yourself to fellow project workers who may not know you yet - they see you editing, they look at your user page to get an idea about you. (This is what I look at others' user pages for and why I think they're a good thing.)
Others combine this with handy links they use a lot, i.e. they use their user page as a personal working portal page.
So there's no obligation to have any sort of user page, or to write anything on it at all - a lot of people (including admins) redirect their user page to their talk page. But I think it's worth keeping in mind that everything you say or do - or don't say or do - on your user page is part of how you present yourself to others on the project. Like real life, really.
- d.
A bit high-profile to be just 'how you present yourself to others on the project' - it will probably be the #1 Google hit for your name or pseudonym.
People keep going on and on about 'accountability'. Might some people be more inclined to reveal whatever personal info is enveloped by 'accountability' if the User namespace were hidden from Google and other search engines?