Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines/Userbox content: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:17, 22 January 2008

Revision as of 22:35, 22 January 2008

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:: (outdent--the colons are making me woozy) Doug and Wnt both make very salient and coherent points. Doug seems to have hit upon what I believe to be the most rational solution to all of this: If you don't like them, don't use them, and if it helps, ignore them. (Of course, it's a little more nuanced than that, but that's the gist.) Wnt points out an interesting truth about the way that both userbox and userpage content is treated on Wikipedia. Instead of adhering more to the tenet that Wikipedia is not censored, it seems that there is a group of users who would much rather never be offended in the user namespace and insist upon the adage that one should never discuss money or politics in polite company. (Again, a simplification, but cut me a little slack here.) The whole issue just needs treatment with a big, strong dose of common sense. Wikipedia has never tried to cater to the hypersensitive in article space; why should userspace be any different? So long as we keep it civil and legal (with BLP issues, libel, copyright, international law, etc. etc.) just live and let live. [[User:LaMenta3|LaMenta3]] ([[User talk:LaMenta3|talk]]) 21:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

← To Doug: The request in the comment was to say people should do it voluntarily, yes. But the rationale he states is the real value of the comment -- It's the "why" that's important, not the "how". How should we go about it is another story (enforcement/encouragement/whatever), but first we need to figure out if there actually is anything that needs doing. Jimbo is stating here his opinion that political userboxes are somehow incongruous with what Wikipedia is. But what he's really saying, of course, is that political userboxes are incongruous with what Wikipedia ''was'', and ''should be'', ''according to him''.

I'll try to break this down, maybe it'll simplify things. There are really four different disagreements at play here (in the entire debate, as I see it):

#Do political userboxes affect Wikipedia in any significant way?

#If yes, in what way?

#What should Wikipedia be?

#:Here's where I propose we ditch the notion of negative/positive effects. Assuming userboxes have an effect that we can predict, some people will think that effect is a good thing, since it agrees with their vision of what Wikipedia should be. Those who think Wikipedia should be something else will think it's a bad thing. So it's not a positive/negative argument at all, but a disagreement over the nature of Wikipedia.

#Once we get ''all of that'' settled (g'luck), we'll know if something needs to be changed. If it does, ''then'' should that change be made through encouragement, policy, or ''other''?

The "how" is pretty far ahead in time, if it is even realistic that we'll reach that point. In my opinion. <small style="font:bold 10px Arial;display:inline;border:#009 1px dashed;padding:1px 6px 2px 7px;white-space:nowrap">[[User:Equazcion|<font color="#000">Equazcion</font>]] [[User talk:equazcion|•''✗'']]/[[Special:Contributions/Equazcion|''C'' •]] ''22:35, 22 Jan 2008 (UTC)''</small>

==General discussion==