[WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

Wed Jan 4 06:52:18 UTC 2006

Stan Shebs wrote:
> Ryan Delaney wrote:
> 
>> On 1/4/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The scope for abuse  of these userboxes has been amply demostrated.
>>> They fulfil no function useful to the encyclopedia that isn't done
>>> equally well by simply stating one's affiliations on one's user page.
>>> They must die.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> You really ought to learn to pick your battles. Yes, some people do
>> things
>> on Wikipedia that are less than entirely productive. But some of these
>> things boost community morale and connect people with each other in fun
>> ways. Yes, in an ideal world, we would spend all our time working on the
>> encyclopedia and doing nothing else. But tha door swings both ways. In
>> that
>> world, you would spend all your time working on the encyclopedia, not
>> launching a crusade over trivial crap like this.
>>
> Taking a longer perspective, we do have fads that sweep over from time
> to time. About the time I started, three years ago, lists were a big
> issue - lots of lists being created and expanded, lots of argument
> about the value of lists. Now they're just part of the scene, don't
> get much attention.
> 
> Somebody compared userboxes to bumper stickers, and I think it's very
> apt. While we may dislike seeing cars covered with bumper stickers,
> we don't (usually :-) ) try to pass laws regulating the number or
> type of bumper stickers on a car, nor do we try to outlaw the
> printing of bumper stickers.
> 

Most people try to avoid cars with lots of bumper stickers because they
are likely to be rednecks/lefties/greenies and you wouldn't trust them
to give you the time.

> Similarly, if there are somebody who admire WP so much that they want
> to be associated with it, even if they don't have anything to
> contribute to the encyclopedia, that seems like a good thing. In fact,
> if their language skills are abysmal and their library skills
> nonexistent, I would rather have them tinkering with user pages and
> talking about WP with their friends rather than editing on articles
> proper. For some, I imagine that the user page is a good way to learn
> about editing without disrupting article development. (It does suggest
> that we should fine-tune our metrics so that user-space edits are never
> counted.)
> 

Similarly, "user has too many useless userboxes/user has < 500 article
edits" could become a regular "oppose" reason at RfA... after all, if
it's bad userboxes and stupid admins who are being targeted here, why
not draw the conclusion that "stupid userboxes -> bad admins"?

-- 
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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