[Wikipedia-l] An opinion on personal pages

[Jimmy Wales]

I think that we should eliminate personal pages, but more importantly,
we should eliminate the notion that personal pages are ones own to do
with as one sees fit.  Every wiki page should be open to edit at any
time.

There's a tension between the wiki philosophy of edit-anywhere and our
traditional feelings of authorship, and this tension comes out most
strongly on personal pages with commentary.  In an encyclopedia
article, no one gets mad if someone else edits it -- we all agree that
this is what we are here for, after all.  But in personal pages,
people are getting mad every day about edits.  That's because they
think of themselves as the "authors" of those pages.

I've got a few of them myself -- my statement of principles, for
example.

I think that's a bad idea, even though I've done it myself.  I support
proposals to move commentary out of the wiki, but I don't yet support
any *particular* notion of how to do it.  A separate wiki?  A separate
namespace?  There are pros and cons to either, I think.

-- 
*************************************************
*            http://www.wikipedia.com/          *
*        You can edit this page right now!      *
*************************************************