[Wikipedia-l] Subpages for user & talk pages

Tue Jan 28 16:36:29 UTC 2003

I'm quite opposed to this.  The benefit is negligible, and the cost
is substantial.

The benefit, as I see it, is merely to eliminate some typing on user
subpages, and to enable automatic backlinking on those same pages.
This is a very tiny part of our overall mission, and so the benefit 
here is quite small.

The cost is that we are adding syntax in one part of wikipedia that
new users will discover and come to expect throughout all of
wikipedia.  Increasing the befuddlement of newcomers is always a bad
thing, although it can sometimes be overcome if there is a very very
strong and compelling reason.

--Jimbo