Wikipedia talk:Userbox policy poll

Call for cancellation of vote

The diffs here show that the stated policy is capable of completely incompatible interpretations. Clarifying would probably change a number of votes, so this poll should be considered strongly suspect, and should only be considered "consensus" with a much higher percentage of support votes. I think 85% might be adequate, but I'd need to be convinced. The "traditional" 75-80% should not be adequate. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

1. Support - I've already shown on the talk page evidence of users not fully understanding what the proposal would actually accomplish. Also I think it's apparent that the policy is written in a confusing way, the addition of the "Clarification" section when the poll was already at (88/25/11) means that alot of users voted on rather unclear text. Seraphim 02:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that cancelling the vote is premature at this stage. Although some voters may have misunderstood the proposal, I'm not convinced that the number who would object to a clarification, or change their votes based on a clarification, is statistically significant. The largest bloc of votes seems to me to be people who are happy to see a compromise which allows free expression on user pages and removes POV content from template/encyclopedia space. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the proposed policy has changed significantly, not just voters' understanding, during the vote. Under the circumstances, that, if this were a poll, it would be fair to drop the Support percentage by 10% before applying the 75-80% guideline for "consensus". — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 03:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

You can't go and try to cancel the vote just because you don't like how it is going! I voted oppose, but have accepted that it is going to pass, so I'll support the communities decision. It seems everyone knows exactlly what they are voting for --T-rex 21:00, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's less than 70% support right now, so it looks like it won't pass (though the margin is very close). --AySz88^-^ 21:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Well it was around 74% when I wrote that and looked like a done deal at that time. So is there an alternative policy being proposed anywhere? --T-rex 20:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

There are at least two alternative policy proposals, but the 2 or 3 RfAr's show that there's no point in making a proposal unless Jimbo formally states he's not opposed to it, as some Admins will boldly delete userboxes which state a point of view, regardless of policy. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:50, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed policies include Wikipedia:Unacceptable userspace material, Wikipedia:Userfying userboxes, and Wikipedia:Proposed template and category usage policy, and a proposed meta-poll presently at User:Arthur Rubin/UPP. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

1. Support - This policy has changed so much that a re-vote would be healthy with a new revised policy. Also I have a solution at the bottom the page that could make everyone happy so there is no need to force through this divisive policy.--God Ω War 21:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Let the vote go on a bit longer, I think. It seems to me that the vote will fail. It will only get about 65 per cent support at this rate, and the people supporting will do so for many different and even opposed reasons, so no one can draw any conclusions about what the majority attitude is to userboxes that contain personal beliefs. If the vote does fail, I'd like to see a debate on your proposal. Metamagician3000 00:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Outsource userspace to community.wikimedia.org?

While we're talking of grand technical solutions, I have an even grander castele in the sky: Outsource the userspace to a shared project like the Commons (think users.wikimedia.org). Leave only encyclopedic content only on en.wikiepdia.org. This "only" depends on a good single sign-on solution. -- grm_wnr Esc 19:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

1. Agreed. Sure, I'd prefer a Christian republic, but this separation of church and state idea you have seems like the best solution we could hope for.    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 20:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
2. Strongly Agreed. The userspace being separate and independent from the many Wikis seems like a great idea in itself. I have three (03) separate user-pages: one for Wiki-PT (my main userpage); one for the Commons; and yet another for my contributions here. It would be great to have, instead, a single page for all Wikis. - - - In addition, this hypothetical users.wikimedia.org would be much better if it accepts that no individual possesses something like a "neutral" point of view. I honestly believe that providing to all users good tools to declare their POVs and the ability to organize themselves around these POVs in an honest and open fashion is the best way to achieve the goal of NPOV in the encyclopedia. (PS.: Each user's duty to edit all the articles with the goal of a neutral point of view would be kept, of course! A user well aware of his own POV is better equipped to not let this bias get in the way of his objectivity.) --Leinad ¬ ^{pois não?} 21:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
3. Conditionally agreed. Hmmm, the entire userspace, including talk pages, with no userpages on the individual projects? I could be persuaded, provided the means of declaration, association and negotiation were not interfered with, i.e., we do not refight this whole matter on users.wikimedia.org. This is appealing, as the community would not be dissolved and scattered, only to commute back to sanitized, sterile userpages. BTW, neither of our proposals are that problematic technically, and both may be done (my functionality to be added to users.wikimedia.org instead of Wikipedia, et al). Finally, as a friendly amendment, could I suggest community.wikimedia.org? StrangerInParadise 22:02, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
4. Strong Agree. The fact that we have User pages at all seems to be promoting a bias. However, it is important to have declared POV's so that people can understand the reasons for some things, even though we are still required to adopt the optimal NPOV strategy when editing official Wikipedia Articles. Moving things out of the en.wiki.x.io domain would enable people to have a clear distinction between what is designated for NPOV and what is designated for declaring their POV's. Of course, the united login feature is essential for this to proceed. Ansell 23:45, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
5. Strong Agree. I don't like having to maintain 6 diferent user pages. Gerard Foley 00:18, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
6. Strong Agree. Is this page the only one with discussion about this proposal, or has it been brought up in other places? TheJabberwock 03:34, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
7. Weak oppose I agree a common userspace between projects would be nice, but there would also be difficulties. What language would the common user space be in? Everything added to userspace from wikispace would add extra complexity as a result, eg adding a vandalism warning template would also have to specify what language you are warning the user with. Links to wikispace would always require explict project prefixes. Talk pages for people who contribute to multiple projects would have intermingled languages. And if the rules on what users could post on their userpages is unchanged, it would result in added complexity for the majority of users with no great benefit. I'm assuming that most contributers contribute on one main language (no source for this, but I would be surprised if that wasn't the case) Regards, MartinRe 19:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Operating some userpage site is outside of the charter of the foundation, I opposed that notion strongly. If any of you want to run some personals wiki, I'd be glad to help you setup mediawiki... Or it could probably go on Wikicities. --Gmaxwell 03:47, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

So why is it that User: space is inside the charter but not a separate domain. It would have the content that is inside wikipedia now. Ansell 04:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The User space now on Wikipedia is intended to be used by editors and writers of the encyclopedia to keep notes, plans, and otherwise help them to do the writing and editing they are doing. The proposed namespace would not be organized for that purpose, that's why it would not be under the charter. JesseW, the juggling janitor 07:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Right. I understand the confusion here, it is because so many of our (esp new) users have no clue what the user namespace is for. --Gmaxwell 23:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

JesseW, I don't believe the idea is to exclude the community.wikimedia.org from the charter. To answer Gmaxwell, this is not about fragmenting the community into a thousand shards, this is about recognizing that the community itself is not under an NPOV obligation, only it's products are. As to the idea that this proposal is somehow negated by the notion that operating some userpage site is outside of the charter of the foundation: Wikipedia is a project with a community, not vis versa, however to undertake this and other large-scale projects authorized by the Foundation requires a community. To deny that community- an assemblage of a million intelligent, passionate, motivated human beings- modes of declaration, association and notification is neither realistic nor desireable. Scattering them to various new wikis is far more divisive than simply allowing them to be human in community and governing actual contributions to various projects. Again, the likelihood is that people will be far more self-policing, taking admins largely out of the NPOV policing/userbox censoring/category depopulating business. It is imperative that administrative and editorial powers be separate.StrangerInParadise 07:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't see at all where it's been demonstrated that a community, in any strong sense of the word, is actually required. There are plenty of large volunteer organizations where their is no more 'community' than in a fairly typical for-profit company. You are confused, just because we don't pay people to edit doesn't mean we should accept them acting unprofessionally. Wikipedia has a serious mission, it's not a MMORPG. There is no reason to believe that we couldn't continue, or wouldn't benefit, from imposing a little more direction on things. If you were to go volunteer for the red-cross they wouldn't permit you to plaster your workspace with rants and screeds and offensive content... especially not if your workspace was visible to the public... if you did they'd ask you to stop, and if you refused they'd show you the door. Our behavior should be no different in that regard. --Gmaxwell 23:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

(Sidenote: regardless of the recent milestone, don't fool yourself into thinking there are anywhere near a million Wikipedians. I suspect about 900,000 of the registered usernames are Willy on Wheels sockpuppets. Angr/talk 08:18, 10 March 2006 (UTC))

Actually according to the statistics page, only 20,000 users are "active" meaning they edit more than 5 times per week.--God Ω War 19:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess it was a mistake to bring the idea up in this discussion. It was originally intended to serve a different purpose, namely that of licensing terms for userpage images (a userspace wiki could allow cc-nc, for example). It would also remove the need for multiple user pages across projects, and keep the category namespace of the Wikipedias cleaner. It was not intended as some kind of myspace lite where anythig goes. -- grm_wnr Esc 09:22, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Our goal is to produce free content, why the heck would we be interested in hosting content that was cc-nc or cc-nd or other such nonsense? --Gmaxwell 23:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

To keep it from being a new MySpace, there could be a requirement that if the user has no Wikipedia-space edits in the last 90 days his user page is deleted, and user name will require rebooting by an admin to get started again.    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 13:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Even better, the IP address would also need rebooting by an admin to get started again. This would have the additional benefit of stopping some sockpuppeteers. If someone creates a sockpuppet, goes off and forgets about it, in 90 days his main username is also blocked, because of having the same IP address.    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 13:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose for people who work in several languages this is absolutely horrible idea.  Grue  20:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose I don't see why this problem, for those to whom it is one, can't be solved by installing redirects to en:User:Username (or whatever language you prefer) and the associated talk pages. Those who prefer separate user pages can have that too. Septentrionalis 20:40, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I thought the MAIN point of this idea was to solve the userbox issue. That it does, and well (IMHO).    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 22:23, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

How does it do that? It just changes the URL, I don't see how that matters at all in the context of solving the issue. --Gmaxwell 22:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, because user-space would no longer have anything to do with Wikipedia-space, no more userbox templates on Wikipedia at all (they would all be at community.wikimedia.org). I called it separation of church and state before. That's what it would be: the NPOV article site would be institutionally unrelated to POV community site. Do you not believe that POV church members can be NPOV bureaucrats in the government? Same idea.    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 23:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

• See Dubya. (Sorry, I just had to)--God Ω War 17:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose - What if two users share the same username on different projects - who would get a userpage? Ian13/talk 22:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

My Space already exists

My Space already exists. Why can't people who are complaining here simply open a free account there (and other places) and provide a link to that on their Wikipedia user page? Just as the userbox caught on, so too could a simple link at the top of your user page catch on, and at another site you can make any association (friend list) you want. Go for it. Get all your friends to join the movement! Link to where you are in control. World > Internets > The Internet > WWWeb > Wikipedia > Wikipedia User Space. WAS 4.250 04:19, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: Outsourcing to somesubdomain.wikicities.com

Why not make a Wikicity for all users wishing to express themselves more than wikipedia allows? This would have to be a bit of a privileged Wikicity however - for near-seamless integration, I think of the following:

1. User are allowed to redirect their userpage on Wikipedia to the user Wikicity using special syntax. This would be the only technical change to Wikipedia itself. If we don't do this, it's not really an attractive alternative.
2. Wikipedia adopts a strict policy on usage of templates and categories in user space, like the one Cyde peoposed above.
3. Account creation on the user Wikicity is limited to users requesting it on Wikipedia (so that the usernames stay synchronized). A bit like the requests for permission on meta, maybe with a bit more automation. It's reasonable to request some effort to get more functionality.
4. The user Wikicity automatically creates backlinks to all relevant pages on Wikipedia (the user's watchlist, preferences, contributions, talk page, whatlinkshere, etc.). All namespaces apart from the User namespace redirect to their Wikipedia equivalent; So do non-existant user namespace pages.

This has a few benefits:

• Minimal changes to Wikipedia itself
• Compatible software - Any markup learned on the user wikicity is helpful to Wikipedia
• Wikicities is GFDL, so any sandboxes or similar on the user Wikicity are Wikipedia-compatible.
• Wikicities is tangentially related to Wikimedia, so we don't use some site totally outside our community.
• Wikicities, however, allows some restrictions on image use (cc-nc, cc-nd), making some people more comfortable with contributing personal pictures.
• Wikicities is not bound by NPOV and the foundation charter, though.
• Wikicities has advertising, making the effort worthwhile for the host.
• Anyone not interested in this project is, of course, free to keep a basic userpage here.
• Other Wikimedia projects can adopt this approach too, making the Wikicity a shared user space.

Any comments for or against this? This is just I wild idea I had just now, it may be half-baked, but I think it seems reasonable to me.

-- grm_wnr Esc 14:42, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

• Bold Oppose. Sorry - I just don't understand what this would help. It would make everything all rather confusing, and if people want a homepage/myspace, they can do that themselves - it's not for Wikia/Wikimedia Foundation to supply it. Athough I do see the possible advantages of the groupness and relation, I can't see it as worthwhile, for a start, which talk page would I use, and would they notice it there? Ian13/talk 22:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose: This proposal is merely deflecting the problem onto another project. Seraphim 23:26, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, but to a project where it wouldn't be a problem. -- grm_wnr Esc 23:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
    • If people are simply redirecting their user/talk pages to a page on another wiki it's still a Wikipedia problem. This seems to be basically "we don't want to deal with it so lets just dump the problem elsewhere" which is not a good path to go down. Seraphim 01:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
• Part of the reason that there is no POV-pushing cabal in everyday encyclopedia dealings is that there is no feasible vector for it. Something like this doesn't seem to make it any better for those who dislike userboxes and their possible detrimental effects, but quite a bit worse, since Wikipedia/Wikimedia/Jimbo would simply lose any possible jurisdiction over the pages in case something undesirable happens. --AySz88^-^ 01:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC)