[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism userbox

Fri Jun 2 01:02:35 UTC 2006

On 6/2/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> On Jun 1, 2006, at 2:38 PM, Delirium wrote:
> > I can't say I myself see much problem with people saying on their
> > userpages what their religious beliefs are.
> This is a semi-straw man argument.  Userbox templates *ARE NOT ONLY ON
> USER PAGES*.  If they were, the conflict (while possibly still present)
> would be vastly reduced.  Userbox templates are a number of other
> places as well as being on userpages.  Specifically, they are 1) In
> Template space. 2) In subpages of Wikipedia:Userboxes.  I look forward
> to your thoughts on the degree of problems (or lack of such) of having
> people say what their religious beliefs are in the two places I
> mentioned.  Thanks!

Template space and Wikipedia: space are not linked to any user, and
therefore, they are in a different position. The actual placement of
the HTML on a user page to display the box will have the same effect
no matter where it comes from. If someone does not understand the
difference between user space and article space when they put a
userbox down then it is a failure of wikipedia to make the difference
obvious. User space is not classed as encyclopedic content, so why
should template space come under the encyclopedic content category, as
there are numerous in house templates that are clearly not
contributing to human knowledge. The running of the encyclopedia and
the personal notations given by users to help others understand their
biases better are two very valid uses of template space in my view.

If an only if an editor transfers their statements of bias in a bad
faith way to articles they personally should be told off for it. If an
editor takes offense to anothers statement of bias they should think
about how that particular statement could possibly contribute to the
improvement of the community effort to build up a neutral human
knowledge resource, without discounting opinions by others about
statements of bias being useful. It is the inflamed person who chose
to be inflamed, not the user who made a good faith statement in the
place they felt was best suited to the overall effort.

A question I want to know an answer for is just how inflammatory can
something be and still stay. Allusions have been made to pseudo
sciences in discussions so far as well as beliefs. How many sciences
for instance are deemed not to be inflammatory and divisive enough to
be allowed as statements of belief and or interest on user pages.

Peter Ansell