[WikiEN-l] Userbox compromise proposal (Was: Proposal on userbox disagreement)

Wed Jan 4 18:39:52 UTC 2006

On 1/4/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/4/06, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think it's possible to reach a compromise where users can keep their
> > userboxes (even the silly ones) while eliminating (or at least greatly
> > reducing) the potential for creating POV factions. I wanted to get
> > some feedback here before tossing it out to the wolves.
> >
> > The core of my proposal is that anything that doesn't help to create
> > the encyclopedia shouldn't exist as a userbox template. Instead, it
> > should exist as code which users would be free to paste onto their
> > user pages. Thus, to anyone viewing a user's page, the userboxes would
> > look exactly as they do now, but the harmful side-effects (easy
> > identification of POV factions, increased server load, etc..) would
> > mostly be eliminated.
> >
> > Userboxes that do help in building the encyclopedia would be allowed
> > to remain as templates. This would include the Babel templates or
> > anything that concerns a user's skills or expertise.
> >
> > The "approved" userbox template would be listed in central location
> > and any user could add them to their user pages. There would have to
> > be consensus to approve any new templates.
> >
> > The "unapproved" userboxes would also be listed a central location,
> > but they could be added to this repository by anyone. They would exist
> > only as code and an example of what the userbox looks like. This code
> > would have to be free of fair-use images and must not include any
> > categories. Any "unapproved" userboxes that existed as templates could
> > be speedily deleted.
> >
> > With this setup, a userbox stating "This user is a Democrat" would be
> > no different that a sentence on their user page stating that they're a
> > Democrat. The user wouldn't be included in a category and couldn't be
> > identified through Whatlinkshere. There also wouldn't be any concerns
> > about censorship or stifling of free speech.
> >
> > I'm sure this proposal could use some development, but it's a start. Thoughts?
>
> If you really wanted to be thorough, you'd need two further qualifications:
>
> 1. No images in userboxes, since the usage list for, say, a donkey
> used in the Democrat userbox would show all the user-page inclusions
> of the code.
> 2. Similarly, no links to articles in userboxes.  If, say, the code
> for the Democrat userbox contained [[U.S. Democratic Party]], a
> determined individual could examine Whatlinkshere for that article to
> identify all users with the code.  There would be some false
> positives, obviously, from unrelated users having the link on their
> userpage; but not so many that this would be infeasible.
>
> The other option, obviously, is to avoid relying on technological
> solutions to an essentially social problem ;-)
>

You're certainly correct on those points, but this proposal would go a
long way towards addressing the current problems with userboxes. I
think this issue needs to be solved by a combination of technical
solutions (making the userboxes simply a statement than a membership
in a faction) and social solutions (any suggestions?).

Carbonite