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

Thu Jun 1 21:38:11 UTC 2006

Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 6/1/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>So we can promote things only if they are not divisive and
>>inflammatory in American English Christian culture?
>>    
>>
>
>No, this is an encyclopedia.  We do not promote ANYTHING.
>
>However, if we're going to have to debate this issue thousands of
>times (roughly once per five userboxes removed, I suspect) then at
>least we can weed out the obviously absurd reviews.  Such as those
>that should be rejected on other grounds, even if people are prepared
>to pack polls and vote against "What Wikipedia is NOT".
>
I certainly agree as far as the encyclopedia goes, but user pages aren't 
part of the encyclopedia proper.  I say on my user page that I live in 
Atlanta, which isn't particularly encyclopedic, nor even very helpful 
for writing an encyclopedia, but I don't see any harm in it either.

I think you're using the wrong set of criteria here.  The primary 
purpose is indeed to write an encyclopedia, but that doesn't mean that 
userpages must themselves meet the criteria for inclusion in an 
encyclopedia.  I do agree that Wikipedia isn't a general 
social-networking site, so if they actively harm the task of writing an 
encyclopedia then they should go.  That's a different criterion than 
saying they should go because they "promote" something.

I can't say I myself see much problem with people saying on their 
userpages what their religious beliefs are.  Some (like "I'm a 
Satanist") will offend people, but then so do a lot of things ("I'm 
gay", for one), and I'm not sure proscribing them all helps the project 
of writing an encyclopedia more than it harms it.

-Mark