Wikipedia talk:User pages

• UI Spoofing archive (2007)
• Temporary userpage template archive (2008)

Userpage info

If a user, at one point, had their email address on their userpage but removed it due to harassment they were receiving for edits, is there some way they can have those versions of the userpage suppressed so that the address cannot be viewed by regular users? --nsaum75^{¡שיחת!‎} 00:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. The revisions in the page history that contain the email address can be deleted by an administrator, which will leave the address visible only to administrators who check the deleted pages history, or they can be oversighted, which will hide the address even from administrators. –Black Falcon ^(talk) 17:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Removal of comments from other people's pages?

WP:UP#CMT states Policy does not prohibit users, including both registered and anonymous users, from removing comments from their own talk pages. Is there any policy regarding the removal of comments from other peoples' pages? (That is, A writes on B's page, and then C deletes A's comment.) Jpatokal (talk) 07:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Have a look at WP:TPO. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer, but surely that's for article talk pages, not user talk pages? I wouldn't be very happy if somebody started refactoring my talk page! Jpatokal (talk) 13:39, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe that guideline is for all talk pages. But you're right - not all parts may be relevant in all situations. I don't know of any specific guideline for user talk pages. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

From my understanding, the general view is that C should not remove A's comments from B's user talk page unless it is a serious WP:CIVIL violation, or A is a banned editor editing with a sockpuppet (the later case being where all their edits are reverted). If C removed A's comments just to remove them, that would be refactoring and against guidelines. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 19:23, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Deleting one's own user pages

If a user is retiring and asking to delete his/her user pages the request should be granted. Why? Usually the users, who request their user pages to be deleted are very, very upset and hurt. Most of the time the users will reconsider few hours or few days later, but, when the request is made, it is better to comply with it even, if it is not the right thing to do. After all how anybody's user pages could be compared to the suffering of a person? It is not even important, if a person has the reasons to be upset and hurt, it is important that for whatever reason he/she is. As I mentioned above in most of the times, a user will come back, and have his/her user page undeleted, but, if he/she will not, so it be. A leaving wikipedia user should not feel himself/herself as a tormented piece of a flesh that is attached to his/her Wikipedia user pages forever.--Mbz1 (talk) 01:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

And we typically do delete such pages on request. However their main user talk page is typically not deleted, because it holds a record of the messages left for that user. –xeno^talk 01:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the main user talk pages, it is what I am talking about. I do not know how often users request to delete their main talk pages. I do not think it happens very often. I know I requested my talk page to be deleted, and today I saw that one admin (Spartaz) deleted his own pages, and what a drama it created. I cannot explain why on January 26 I requested my talk page to be deleted. There were absolutely nothing there that could have hurt me more than I already was on that day, just the opposite. There were some nice messages, barnstars, FP promotion notifications at my talk page, yet I did, and when I was repeatedly refused in deletion of my talk page, it made me feel even much worse than I did before. All I needed were just few hours to feel better, and maybe some words of understanding... As I said above in most cases a user will reconsider deletion of his/her talk pages few hours or few days later, but, if he/she will not, so it be. If a user is gone how his/her talk page's history could be so important? --Mbz1 (talk) 01:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

This courtesy should be granted because it costs us nothing. If a user unretires, then the talk page obviously needs to be undeleted for transparency. I consider the courtesy of own talk page deletion to be part of the right to vanish (which is actually a courtesy, not a right). Jehochman ^Brrr 19:51, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

User pages may be speedily deleted via {{db-u1}} ... and restored just as easily if the editor wishes. However regarding talk pages, I agree completely with Jehochman.— Kralizec! (talk) 00:01, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

No, we do not normally delete user talk pages, and never by speedy. They are kept as a record of an editor's interactions with other editors. In the case of retiring admins they are likely to contain material relevant to admin actions they have taken, and which need to be visible to ensure that actions can be reviewed. DuncanHill (talk) 20:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

User talk pages frequently contain records of transactions which may continue to be relevant after the user has left. A while ago I needed to check the history relating to certain editing, and found that i could not read some of what i needed to because a user had managed to get her user talk page deleted by a bit of trickery. I managed to get the page restored, but I see no reason why I should not have had direct access to it. Finding what had happened to it and recovering it took time and effort that could have been more usefully employed. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• Sometimes (often?) when badgered users quit (even temporarily) their pages might be targeted for more parting insults, as evidenced by the keen observation: a "user should not feel himself/herself as a tormented piece of a flesh" (well stated, I think that happens a lot). Perhaps a small, dedicated group of decent users could patrol for such parting insults, you know: "I am a recent insults patroller". Those user-page changes could be quick, logged with summary undid WP:CIVIL vio. For protection, the decent people could use WP:SOCK#legit alias usernames (perhaps known only to decent admins), to thwart the insults being directed at them (after the token victim has quit WP and the tormenters lack a squirming target). In the past, people have tried to organize a set of decent people, as a haven against WP:Wikihounding, but more groups would be helpful. It is much easier to simply protect people, with support, than to ban difficult, insulting users who are eager for a conflict. Shield the victim from abuse, and the abusers often lose interest, without needing to directly confront them or call an exorcist. In the guideline, mention the idea that other users are expected to undo hate-posts to a retired user page. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:20, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Adding noindex to userspace pages

See WP:VPP#Userspace guidelines to allow NOINDEX as a remedy? and this edit by Xeno.

Amending Xeno's edit to add the critical piece that discussion and consensus is best before removal of a {{noindex}} tag, which makes it effective. Noting that the {{noindex}} template is transparent and harmless to legitimate userspace use and can only help if there's a possible concern. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Reverted addition. It's good to be enthusiastic and forward thinking. Changing to noindexed userspace is a contentious change the community's turned down in the past, repeatedly. Adding license to do it piecemeal or ad hoc, and with to sidestep discussing a userpage among cited aims plus provisions they're forbidden from doing anything about it unless they seek and achieve consensus, after opening another village pump discussion that's been open not even a day I think is a bit too enthusiastic. –Whitehorse1 16:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

You're misunderstanding. This isn't "changing to noindexed userspace". It lets other users NOINDEX a userspace page. Currently that's difficult because addditions to userspace has very wide leeway for removal. If there is a problem, such as BLP or the like, it's better to de-spider first, then discuss. The tag can be removed if the concerns are resolved or consensus is comfoortable with it.

I'm not seeing any real objection at the VPP discussion, indeed it was another user (Xeno) who made this edit initially. It looks like you're the only person objecting there. Everyone else seems to be fairly comfortable with the idea. A significant number would like to go further than this rather modest addition. Would you reconsider your stance on the basis this seems to be something that has more comfort than not, is transparent to valid editing, and is only capable of removing harm? Please take another look? Thanks - FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't think I am misunderstanding. The very core of the change is non-indexing userspace. Specifically, individual pages in that namespace, chief among them often the userpage. For problematic userpages we do have templates that switch on noindexing (such as {{db-attack}}, {{sockpuppet}}, {{banned user}}, {{db-copyvio}}), and I am in support of them.

The VPP discussion had been open less than a day at the time the edit was made, and the other user you mention had even commented there the several times proposed noindex of userspace had not met with consensus. Aside from you as proposer and me, just six users commented, and two of those just asking questions related to the proposal while another only mentioned templates of some bearing on the topic. One user expressed what'd be described as lukewarm support at best, ambivalent is probably closer. That leaves, like, two people. It may be I'm the only person yet to express reservation there, but then it really isn't the most participated in discussion. Another three since chipped in, and in favor. We've the earlier proposals eventually linked at the VPP discussion which, notwithstanding users that did like them, saw strong opposition. Sure, no problem, I'd certainly be comfortable taking another look at this. I'll rethink the proposal, and'll give the points you brought up some careful thought. Thanks, Whitehorse1. 02:08, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

←Reading through various archives related to this left me with as many questions as answers. I'm uncertain about its scope, application, implementation and value. Both xeno's edit here ("will remove it from search engines and may preclude the necessity of a formal discussion") and your proposal ("guidelines state that where a user page may be used inappropriately the user should be asked, and deletion may be discussed. This can take considerable time and effort though") present tagging as an action to take to sidestep effort or "headache" of discussing material.

The rationale considers since userspace is distinct from mainspace, with subpages, absence of categorizing etc., user pages may go a long time between being noticed or before being remedied. Yet it's not possible to tag it if it's not noticed. It's when a page is noticed, action can be performed. Essentially you're saying the user can't remove it, while opting to not raise it for discussion, though in contrast the user must build consensus, yet the content deemed inappropriate may be neither (where only individual segments are the focus) redacted or (where a whole page is the focus) removed by deletion being sought.

Problem user content of the unambiguous type comes under speedy deletion; the ambiguous type comes under miscellany for deletion. If it is problematic, requiring action upon it, one of those two methods exists. It's explicitly stated on this page that users should refrain from creating user pages likely to bring the project into disrepute. This was added after this, here. When such material is encountered it needs to go, not receive a tag it shouldn't be spidered.

I think the problem of the userspace guideline, its subjectiveness, is also its strength. I think it has to be like that, too. Its scope though is vast. The provisions in the present guideline extend to abandoned otherwise uncontroversial userspace drafts and the like. Noindex is surely opaque, for a legitimate use of userspace, short contributor profiles and the like, as the wider sphere of the web is unable to see in. On reflection, the guideline's form and scope are a significant part of why I'm uncertain about scope and application of the noindex tagging.

I wonder, is there value in increasing use of {{historical}}, which through namespace detection adapts to userspace, as here? That may give a page context it otherwise lacks.

Also, why is Noindex not implemented by the {{mfd}} template? Disabling spidering for the duration of the discussion seems unobjectionable and reasonable to me. Or even, new parameters could be added to the template to override a default, so it can be enabled using |blp=yes or |noindex=yes, aliased to each other, with template documentation advising their use for contentious content on a living person, or otherwise sensitive material? –Whitehorse1 00:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The MfD template noindexes because the material so tagged is often objectionable or promotional in nature. Gigs (talk) 15:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The MfD discussion pages're noindexed, I was talking about the {{Mfd}} template applied to miscellaneous-pages proposed for deletion which doesn't seem to do so. –Whitehorse1 16:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that's odd. It looks like it does. The VPP discussion mentioned manually noindexing while under formal MFD discussion, and I could've sworn it didn't already either. –Whitehorse1 16:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• I (and I'm sure some others) already noindex pages on occasion as a low volume way to not have to go thru MFD. This is permitted by WP:UP#OWN and WP:BOLD. Adding it here just ensures the guideline reflects common practices. –xeno^talk 16:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Either of us two adding noindex to a page in special cirumstances when judged suitable, is v. different from changing a guideline to say 'this is the common established practice, do this'. –Whitehorse1 16:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't believe that's what the paragraph said, though [1]. (Now having just read what FT2 changed it to, I liked my version better. I especially don't like the "should not be ... removed without consensus" - BRD ought apply and the status quo - indexing - is the default position). –xeno^talk 16:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
      • That is what you said, in your preceding comment considered with the banner that guidelines have at the top. BRD, is an essay. It's not in dispute there are many who support or approve of it, but there are others still who think it encourages edit-warring or're otherwise not behind it. Is indexing the status quo default position? You said six days ago at the VPP proposals to noindex userspace had not found consensus [2]. The focus is ad hoc tagging though. The guideline is open to wide interpretation as well as broad. The material considered to fall within its interpretation is many and varied, whereas something like this is clear promotion. Had I come across it (and the {{mfd}} didn't implement noindexing as it's now become clear it does), I would probably have {{noindex}} (+ {{mfd}} ) tagged it myself. –Whitehorse1 18:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Is it clear with concerns/uncertainties I've raised above what I'm talking about? If I've explained poorly I'll do my best to clarify. Thanks. –Whitehorse1 15:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Addition + discussion of any refinement needed

The VPP discussion's been there a week now,along with a second discussion started above. Combined responses:

7 appear to be in favor of allowing tagging of userspace with {{noindex}} by uninvolved users (either specific pages or entire namespace) - Nominator, Xeno, Roux, SPhilbrick, Jclemens, Ohms law, Kslays

1 appears broadly in favor though wary of instruction creep - Killondude

2 commented and did not appear to object - The Wordsmith, Gadget850

1 Not in favor - Whitehorse1

Adding back as clear consensus at VPP after a week + no other objections were made on this page other than same one person + there is both a very low risk of harm (it doesn't interfere with legitimate uses) and significant benefits to project (in addressing userspace concerns).

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment to Xeno and Whitehorse1 and invitation to improve

A quick recap of key points:

1. Status quo and proposal - Because there is no consensus to unindex the entire namespace, the proposal was to allow case-by-case unindexing of pages which gave rise to concern.
2. Effect - The tags don't impede editing in the slightest, so adding them does no harm to legitimate uses. Its sole effect is to prevent external spidering.
3. Current remedies - Not all pages with concerns are suitable for CSD or MFD (it may be a BLP in the course of drafting and not yet cited or balanced, MFD may be too heavyweight and discouraging to the user, or the page may simply need edits requested rather than outright deletion, for example).
4. "May not be removed without discussion" - the reason for this is that unless WP:UP otherwise states, users may decide what's on their user pages and subpages. So a user who wants to promote something on their userpage has the right to remove any edits or tags others place there, and it's easy to lawyer tendentiously over their addition or possible issues. This is a tag placed for good cause; unlike most edits to others' userspace it should not be free to be removed just because the user wants their content spidered. If the content matters and is suitable to spider then it'll still be suitable after discussion. This way gives good motivation to fix the issues; if they choose not to then it's an internal linked page only and can be left or discussed at leisure.
5. Costs and benefits - Re-permitting spidering of an noindexed page isn't as likely to imply urgency, compared to unindexing a page due to a concern. If the community or tagging user agrees the page should be spidered (or it has been fixed), then the tag can easily be removed.
6. Mirroring - Agree that we cannot address mirrors and spiders that don't honor robots.txt. But that's true for all content, including all other uses of {{noindex}}. Not relevant. This will be honored by most major search engines.

Xeno - I appreciate you think your wording was better. My concern is that (like a few other tags) a noindex tag on a userpage stays until it's removed by discussion. That's not the norm for most of userspace but you can see why it needs to be that way. If the wording can be improved while keeping that explicit, please do.

Whitehorse1 - I understand you have concerns. Although consensus seems to agree with adding this, if they can be met in any practical way I have summarized the points above so we can discuss it further.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:36, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

What does "except by consensus" mean? It's kind of confusing. Anyway at the last RfC there was actually pretty strong consensus for compulsory tagging of all userspace pages with a banner informing readers that they weren't reading an article. Never was implemented, but we had consensus for it. Gigs (talk) 04:42, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, I just couldn't think of a better short wording. The sense it's trying to convey is "if someone noindexed your user page, don't remove the tag unilaterally without either discussing with them or some kind of wider consensus." If you can word it better, please do. That was the best I managed, it's "one small step" to help handle one aspect of the issue. If there happened to be consensus for more in future, then more would be done I guess. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:59, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I still think that "nor removed without discussion or consensus" goes too far - I've removed it for now. We are setting out a new rule here and the pendulum is swinging a bit far from where it was before. If the user does remove the noindex tag then the available and appropriate remedy is to take the page to MFD. –xeno^talk 14:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't really agree on that. It was covered in the proposal, and saying "do not remove tag X without discussion" is quite a small change given the good it can do. VPP + talk page discussions open for a week is enough to check if there was general support (there was) or any substantial level of objection (there wasn't).

1. Many issues aren't suitable for MFD if disagreed.
2. Problems are much more nuanced; often the material is not a clearcut remove and really needs editing. This on a user page can easily be 'lawyered, delayed or unsatisfactory. Noindex solves the overriding concern without affecting legitimate uses, but if it can be removed without any discussion it doesn't solve a thing and the proposal (which got a very clear consensus) would not achieve its aim.
3. Some 50% of views on the proposal supported a blanket NOINDEX of userspace. While that isn't what was proposed it does suggest that allowing noindex to "stick" pending discussion is within the clear consensus.

I've reinstated for these reasons. The whole purpose of a consensus-seeking exercise is to check if users will or won't endorse a change and they clearly had. If it was a radical change then that might be different, but this doesn't affect legitimate editing; its sole use is to allow de-indexing to be achieved upon concern until discussed and sorted out. Considering the "no harm" aspect, strong consensus, and that about 50% wanted to go far further, reinstatement looks right.

Is there any overridingly strong argument that was not considered in the discussion? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:17, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to've thought I brought up some good points; I guess not though. :\ –Whitehorse1 19:47, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Where in the proposal was it said that a NOINDEX tag unilaterally placed could not be removed without discussion? –xeno^talk 18:05, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Obviously any edit can be placed and removed already. (X can add noindex or any other reasonable tag to Y's user page already, and Y can remove it if they don't like it). An edit that merely noted the status quo would not be a "proposal", it would just be an edit noting the status quo.

The proposal clearly wasn't a suggestion to just note the status quo. "A NOINDEX tag can be added by any admin" tends to make it clear that this means add and not arbitrarily removed. In case it wasn't absolutely clear, the proposal then notes under rationale, "Allows immediate handling, with follow-up by discussion at leisure, if the page creator objects to NOINDEX..." -- again, making clear the route is discussion, not "if the user objects they can remove it as usual". So it was clear in the proposal.

To make it clearer, the proposal was posted at 19:41, 24 February. The first question asked was at 19:52 and the reply at 20:17 stated that the point being asked wasn't quite correct and clear it was an additional option to MFD ("[A]n additional option... At present it's unclear if an admin could NOINDEX someone's user page, and if they did a belligerent user could arguably remove it") .

All of these were visible under 40 minutes from the proposal being posted. The proposal was then open for over 9 days (24 Feb - 5 March) during which time comments were summarized as above. About 50% wanted it to go much further, but that wasn't the proposal being put forward.

As well as the above, at 07:29 25 February (less than 12 hours after the proposal was posted) the further post was made "All that is missing is consensus that if there is a concern over a userspace page, it can be tagged as NOINDEX by an admin (which is transparent to any legitimate use) and this must be left in place unless consensus agrees otherwise. That's what is being proposed". Still no objections except the same person who had objected already. Again the comments during the 8.5 days after this were the same as summarized above. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I still disagree, but I think this argument is by-and-large academic at this point since I doubt many people will go around no-indexing anyway. –xeno^talk 21:42, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if I'd put Roux as in favor from his comment, Xeno differs I believe on the removal aspects; Killiondude's comment I'd interpreted above as lukewarm at best, probably ambivalent; still, glass half full or half empty I suppose. That'd make it about 5 in favor; the degree to which that's further tempered by previous marked opposition to noindexing proposals might be another matter.

On noindexing the user namespace at least, we've a contentious change repeatedly turned down in the past. The rfc a year ago saw wide participation; when proposed again six months-ish ago similarly failed to gain a consensus of support. Given that, it shouldn't be implemented by side route or by attrition.

The thing about the User page guideline is it comprises vague sweeping statements that are being the subject of wildly different interpretations.The new provisions for userspace instruct people to noindex tag what they consider "inappropriate" or "contrary to" the guideline or a "source of concern", entirely without qualification.

The MFD archives show it's seeing pages right from clear self promotion I linked above, to one-line userpage statements of someone saying they're an up and coming musician or short contributor bios written in a perfectly ordinary and mundane corporate report author's profile style that the contributor is presumably used to using.

There seems to be a disturbing trend as well of people "having a good ol' nose", basically. Rather than the intended emphasis on pov forks, preserving hotly disputed versions or similar, what's going on is acting on things like innocuous old scrappy drafts & similar, be it by deletion, blanking or quick & easy tagging. –Whitehorse1 19:48, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

And (to take your last point first) that's exactly what this will help, because a page that's a concern right now goes to MFD. This way a concerned user can noindex it and it doesn't affect any legitimate internal use within the project. It doesn't impede any reasonable use whatsoever. It takes a lot of the "heat" out of such discussions by allowing the indexing concerns to be met. User pages are intended for project use anyhow - even their personal inclusions are for the benefit of other community members not the wider world - so this way allows the best of both worlds. Suppose an uninvolved user thinks X's userpage or subpage contains material that is "too promotional" or something. The worst case is they tag it (which does zero harm and is virtually invisible to X), and if X really wants to have their userpage reindexed, which isn't the main purpose of userspace, X needs to seek some measure of agreement or consensus over the concerns. Or X can fix it, or leave it "as is". Easy and pretty mild stuff. Effective damper on unsuitable use (WP:NOT#HOST) though. Even if ignored completely it doesn't impede X from any legitimate communal use of the page whatsoever because noindex only affects external indexing. The user with a concern is happy, any possible issue is reduced in impact and the user and page are for all project purposes, not even slightly in a different position.

Taking the other points, the proposal was considered for 8 or 9 days, fully explained and detailed, linked here as well. The wording proposed was posted and removed and clearly described. Anyone could have readily said "I think it's a bad idea", for example. Roux stated (in effect) wouldn't it be as easy to blanket noindex the entire namespace, which is hard to interpret as any kind of objection; Killiondude stated he'd done this himself, saw merit in it, his sole hesitation was creep, not any objection to the principle of it, and so on. Again, it's worth noting that while this was not a proposal to noindex userspace, about 50% of responses did suggest or imply support for doing that, which would go a lot further.

If there is a way this significantly impedes legitimate user page usage for project purposes, please let me know? Realistically {{noindex}} is a completely unobtrusive tag. Without express "visible=yes", it's actually completely invisible. It adds __NOINDEX__ to the page. That is all. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:26, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

We're at cross purposes. A small amount of personal information, some notes or works in progress, todo lists and the like are perfectly legitimate uses of userspace. This is the same argument you used advocating noindex of all non-content namespaces (please correct me if I'm wrong); the consensus was to allow indexing. You've talked about legitimate user page usage, but what I'm saying is, according to the community, indexing pages of users in good standing is legitimate and acceptable, even desirous. Among benefits highlighted in earlier discussions were openness, it attracts involvement, sits in line with the principles of the project, and provides vital background context; cutting off from the rest of the web prevents that. I've already said with examples it's acceptable in some cases.

I'm wondering about placing {{disputedtag}} on the guideline section. Instructing people to noindex tag won't _help_ the increase of acting on abandoned otherwise uncontroversial userspace drafts and the like, it'll make it worse. As I talked about earlier, the proposal presented it as a low effort quick action to take on supposedly problematic material. With this, you don't even need to create an MfD subpage. If there's nothing wrong with a userpage, there's no reason anybody should be touching it. –Whitehorse1 00:00, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia works by consensus (you know that of course) and I'm just not seeing any failing of consensus here. Seriously, if there was considerable disagreement it was not visible then, and a week later it's not visible now. Disputed would mean somebody has added it and others disagree, or a disagreement of the WP:BRD type. It isn't about winning or losing, "I and perhaps one other person don't agree" just isn't going to prove the endorsement was disputed. At the same time as you are arguing on the basis of what "the community consensus" is, you're trying extremely hard to ignore the fact that in this case what you wish the consensus to have been, wasn't. consensus can change. Maybe this shows approval of a more open approach to the matter that previously.

The points you make are also non-issues. If a user page was tagged as noindex and the user page owner disagreed, then the consensus of others is what will finally carry weight - exactly the same as most things. A small amount of personal information is allowed so if the community feels a small amount is all that's there, they will surely agree that the noindex tag may be removed, hence not an issue. And yes, you would still MFD unsuitable pages.

On this matter other users didn't seem to significantly agree with you. I cannot see one other person having said "endorse Whitehorse1" or "per Whitehorse1" for example, or having argued a similar view. Not one. You even removed the edit at one point as premature (which was appropriate) leading to a talk page thread, and even so not one other reader disagreed as a result of seeing the diff presented. Not one.

If you can point to evidence that there was no actual consensus in the proposal, do. I don't think that's so. A number of people contributed and others saw it and did not feel moved to object. Those who did comment almost entirely endorsed it. You unfortunately were the sole person to strongly feel opposed. It happens. There are matters I've felt strongly on that didn't go as I believed best, because I was in a minority. The disagreement of a small minority does not make a matter non-consensus. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:42, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not denying the earlier discussion consensus, such as it was. Here, not a single person commented on the original discussion after 2 days, and it auto-archived after just a few days. The point almost everyone agreed is made substantially weaker when hardly anyone participated anyway. This isn't about me disliking an outcome as you say. If it were, I'd suck it up. Incidentally, the disputed tag simply adds 'the following section's wording or inclusion in this guideline is disputed or under discussion.'

It'd be unreasonable to avoid adding anything to guidelines or policies if existing parts are misinterpreted or ambiguously interpreted. There does seem solid basis here though to think the addition may exacerbate interpretation issues. Yes, consensus can change; it can even change quite quickly. I've not seen evidence it has changed though: You seem to ignore the extremely well attended earlier discussions that weren't in favor of (globally) noindexing, over this one composed of fewer than 10 people that was. One of whom, disagrees above with a central part of the proposal and acquiesces since they doubt it'll be used much, which is hardly a ringing endorsement. If you're just counting signatures of whoever didn't say no, then yes there's consensus. However, consensus, as you know, is not a vote but built on arguments. ...Although, you've also dismissed my points as non-issues.

At all times I've bent over backwards to work collaboratively here, providing examples of cases for disabling noindexing, asking if concerns were clear, bringing up specific problems, even replying to you on my usertalkpage agreeing to look at and improve on it while it's live on the page. You could have sought to contribute ways to address concerns about its application. Instead, you pretty much alleged I was petulant, obstructive and obstinate. I'm still willing to collaborate with you or anyone else on this. Thank you. –Whitehorse1 05:36, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

If you look up, you'll find I did just that. During the 8 or 9 days of discussion those are visible on the VPP page, and even after it, a number of posts addressing concerns you (and perhaps later Xeno) might have had, which were unprompted but made specifically because it's about collaboration and the fact a discussion's concluded one view doesn't mean others' concerns should be fogotten. Specifically in those you'll find numerous comments regarding application, usage, removal, consensus, and impressions of (lack of) harm done. I would say that was clearly "seeking to contribute ways to address concerns about its application". Most of those were not responded to. To name three: a statement that 'noindexing the entire space was previously rejected' doesn't speak to a proposal that merely requires a user to check consensus before reindexing a specific page where others have concerns; the addition of noindex does not affect any legitimate editing; and "consensus needed for X" is commonplace on many policies and guidelines so "may be misinterpreted" is unlikely.

The core of the objection is... what? That consensus hasn't endorsed noindexing the entire space unconditionally, therefore specific pages causing concern need consensus before reindexing is against the community's view? That it won't be used much? That many people who didn't comment saw it, and yet of those who commented almost all were in favor and almost none (well, one) spoke against in the course of 9 days? That in counting arguments rather than heads it's clear that the majority who felt it was a big enough deal to leave a comment, almost entirely felt it was a good idea and almost half stated it should even go further? That some specific harm will be done by requiring users with contentious (but not deletable) userpage material to check consensus before it's spidered on search engines? That harm will be done by being able to forcible noindex userspace content of concern during an MFD even if the user for that page demands the right to have it spidered? I just don't see a strong point.

I'm sorry, but try as I can, the central points you're giving, whether that you were not responded to (you were/are), that the consensus was disputed or flawed (Not as far as I can see), or that arguments not !votes count (same either way), just doesn't seem to go anywhere. Each of those was visibly attended to in the discussion and afterwards. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:53, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

To try and address what you've said I've posted (below, outdented) a possible starting point. –Whitehorse1 01:24, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Unanimously accepted:

1. site global userpage noindexing per community is undesirable
2. individual userpage indexing in certain circumstances is desirable

Generally accepted:

1. the userpages guideline is subject to widely different interpretations
   1. as such, editors act on pages outside those which the guideline provisions were intended to address
      1. acting on such pages has drawbacks:
         1. unnecessary – time, lost opportunity cost (poss. multiple editors per page e.g. w/MfDTooltip Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion)
         2. can be bitey (deterring or discouraging contributors, old or new)
      2. of the actions suggested in the guideline, adding a noindex tag is the easiest / most visually discreet action
         1. accordingly, of all the listed actions a higher volume of use is probable
         2. additionally, the introduction of this easier non-labor-intensive action may exacerbate the problem (a.) above, because of its ease of use
2. to remove a noindex tag, a tagged user must 'build consensus'
   1. if tagger says they may not remove it, where do they go?
      1. if MfD may be too heavyweight or discouraging to the user, AN/ITooltip Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents may be equally or more so
3. the following templates switch on noindexing automatically:
1. {{copyvio}}, {{sockpuppet}}, {{db-attack}}
   1. any pages suited for those should have those used
2. {{mfd}}
   1. a userpage or subpage clearly suited for deletion should have mfd applied; noindex tagging will not delete it. (the mfd template simultaneously noindexes)

Self evident:

1. must be a good and valid reason to apply a noindex tag
2. high volume, non manual, or en masse tagging means less time was allowed to consider a page, therefore risks going against (unanimously accepted) point 1, plus generally accepted point 1, as well as self evident point 1

Solutions:

1. seek to clarify when is it appropriate to act (period) and when is it not. e.g.:
   1. not okay: may require action
      1. blatant & excessive self promotion
      2. long-term repository-style preserving of previously deleted material, pov forks, hotly-disputed versions
      3. long-term repository-style storage of a page that has not been and cannot conceivably become a valid article. e.g., '9 year olds writing obituaries on pet hamsters and articles on rock bands who will hold their first rehearsal next Tuesday if they can find a bass guitarist' (orig. by User:WereSpielChequers)
      4. bio of living person (BLPTooltip Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons)/corporation attack page
      5. in-progress draft of BLP that is not yet cited or balanced, but not a BLP violation or attack page
   2. okay and acceptable: requires no action
      1. a statement or two on a userpage saying, for example, they're an up and coming musician
      2. small contributor bios that happen to be written in 'corporate-speak', that the contributor may be used to
      3. any notes, draft or work in progress that isn't a "problem", isn't a problem; applies irrespective of age or otherwise how diligent the contributor is in completing it
2. seek to clarify appropriate and not appropriate noindex tagging, possibly through examples
    corollary: avoid facilitating 'lawyering' over pages that should be indexed yet are dissimilar to examples
   1. example v. above may be an appropriate example of suitable candidate for noindex tagging
3. seek to clarify where a user may build consensus necessary for them to de-tag, when tagger disagrees

...  –Whitehorse1 01:24, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. This kind of detail may help to find if there is an issue or not. I do disagree with some of the matters you're citing as kind of principles:

1. You've stated "site global userpage noindexing per community is undesirable" as "unanimous". In fact far from it. It didnt get consensus in prior discussions, but it did get considerable support, and in this case about 50% said that blanket mandatory noindex was more desirable - that's very far from "unanimous" too. This was not the proposal. In any event I agree (if it wasnt obvious) that past noindex of the entire space has not reached consensus. Basically not salient.
2. Not convinced that a claim of a guideline having "widely differing interpretations" in other areas is relevant at all.
3. Disagree with "unnecessary" as a concern, would agree that egregiously WP:POINTy use could perhaps be bitey. (Hence my initial suggestion only an admin could do this). But on reflection, disagree. No real evidence of a problem. Someone adds "noindex" to a page. Little to no harm is my impression. Its not a deletion, it's not a comment on the person. Its de-indexing the content only. It does not even leave a message for the user unless the tagger chooses to do so.
4. Disagree with the conclusion that something being easy means it was not thought out.
5. Disagree that it contradicts a general noindex for the space - tagged pages will by definition be those where a specific concern exists, not random pages or the whole userspace generally. (No consensus on blocking all users doesn't even slightly contradict blocking some users, so to speak.)

On to the points where we might have more productive discussion:

1. The wiki is fixable. If a page such as a small but appropriate bio, or an appropriate user page in a corporate-speak style is written, and noindexed by another user, then a few things immediately come to mind:
   • The tag would not harm legitimate purposes. The purpose of user pages is to allow other collaborators to know a bit about those they work with. Nowhere in WP:UP does it say the purpose of user pages is to create an external search for the user. It has that effect, but that's not its "purpose". I hope we can agree on that. (Speculatively, if someone did try to add to WP:UP a clause like "The aim of user pages is to facilitate collaboration and allow users to have a searchable page of arbitrary content on the internet" it would probaby be rejected.)
   • It is not likely to be mass used for small appropriate user pages. If it is, then we may need to clarify a bit, but that's part of the usual development of norms.
   • A tagged page will very likely get one of 2 responses - indifference (becaue it has no effect on editing) or an inquiry to the tagger who will explain what the concern is - ie dialog.
   • Only if unreasonably tagged and discussion goes nowhere is there more needing saying.
2. Agree "if there isnt a problem then there isnt a problem", and age as usual is not a criterion. (Except for the one case of oversightable information about minors, which will vanish anyway so not relevant here).
3. Three remaining points are worth discussion:
   • Clarifying of appropriate and inappropriate noindex tagging, if there were issues on it -- the proposal suggested "only admins may tag; no tagging to make a point" for those exact reasons. I think if there was an issue then restricting tagging to admins would be a good way to prevent this issue. In all other cases where there is a new area of development, it gets refined over time. This may be refined too, as cases emerge.
   • Avoiding lawyering - same really, see previous bullet?
   • Ensuring if there is a concern a user knows how to seek consensus as stated - agree. I am hooping to see {{uninvolved}} promoted as a universal standard means to get help on a page or issue. If so this would be an ideal candidate for it, and include it in the text of {{uw-userspacenoindex}}

Quick thoughts as I'm away from home today. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, my bad. The word choices could've been clearer. The Unanimously accepted part just meant what we (those taking part in this discussion) all agree on, e.g. that, at least last time it was looked at, the consensus by some margin was to keep userspace indexed by default. Age was meant to refer to the age of the page not author (a mundane uncontroversial draft is no more a problem when 5 months old than when 2 weeks old).

Comparitively, tagging for something other than deletion may be less harmful, but that doesn't mean it is harmless. It still increases the amount of noindexed pages within a namespace, where consensus is to index -- the attrition problem. It still wastes time. I can also see how noindex tagging on userspace pages unnecessarily, i.e. with weak reasons, will increase readiness and prevalence of acting on them by other methods as the given weak reason comes to be seen as a need to intervene.

"Widely differing interpretations" of any guideline will always be, at least to some extent, a consequence of how that guideline is written, and therefore can be improved upon. Its ease of use doesn't quite mean an individual tagging was not thought out, but that it is more likely to be used; combined with an already ambiguous and differently-interpreted guideline, that promises uncertainty about its use. A look through the mfd archives or the timeline for drafts discussion below shows lots of uncertainty over what's acceptable for userspace and in what circumstances. The {{uninvolved}} template is good; I hadn't seen that before. –Whitehorse1 18:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Creating a Subpage

I don't think it is very necessary to create a link on your user page because you can just type in the Search box "Special:MyPage/Sandbox". Keyboard mouse (talk) 16:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course you can. But then again that's more complicated, especially to new users, than simply clicking on their name in the upper right corner and then on the link that appears. Regards SoWhy 16:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. A link for personal sandbox would be useful. Too complicated for new users otherwise.--Fountain Posters (talk) 08:08, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Discussion on a timeline for userspace drafts

Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Codify_a_timeline_for_stale_userspace_drafts Gigs (talk) 01:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Removing the noindex tag

Although I agree that it has no effect on talk pages, I wonder if the comment about not removing it should be replaced but alongside the comment about adding it. Dougweller (talk) 19:05, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Almost by definition a namespace such as user talk: that's entirely noindexed, won't have noindex tags on any of its pages. So the only pages one might see a noindex tag and therefore have the possibility to remove it will be in user page (which is indexed and where noindex is therefore meaningful).

So in effect, users can be told "don't remove noindex tags without discussion" without further details, because the only place they would find a noindex tag in their user pages is in User:X or its subpages, not User talk:. Listing it with the other "stuff not to remove" and not confusing it by noting it only applies to one branch of userspace (when they won't ever need to remove it from user talk because it'll never get added there)... that's my 1st thoughts. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:23, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

user:Xeno made a similar point elsewhere; the observation below is one outcome of it. By mixing up "user page" and "user space" it gets a bit confusing what's covered at times. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 22:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, confusing user space and user page doesn't help. We don't want people removing noindex tags from User:X or its subpages and we should say so to avoid problems. Dougweller (talk) 06:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Should be better now, with the reworked guideline being clearer about whether it covers user space, user pages or just the user page. Added back, go take a look. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:46, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Proposed rename and copyedit

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Page moved. NW (Talk) 19:58, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

---

Following discussion I've had a go at redrafting WP:UP which needed a good cleanup. I was amazed how much improvement is possible.

• Proposed reworked draft: User:FT2/User pages
• What's moved where and list of changes: User talk:FT2/User pages

I've deliberately made few or no substantive changes to allow focus on style and flow improvement.

I would also suggest a rename to "Wikipedia:User pages", removing the ambiguity that "user page" normally means just the one main user page.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:13, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

• Looks good. Style and flow is not something you get from a multitude of small edits. Thank you. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:26, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse, generally. –xeno^talk 14:01, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

• Much better. Changing the name is a very good idea. Do we need to point out that the 'right to vanish' may be denied? Dougweller (talk) 14:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Edited to include "discretionary". Also added "If agreed..." to remove implication it's automatic. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 14:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support rename. I think user talkspace is included by implication, too. This will enhance clarity. –Whitehorse1 00:00, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

5 days on... anyone with any objections? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 14:11, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

• The logical structure is good. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:43, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support rename. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

• Looks good to me. — Kralizec! (talk) 23:24, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"restoring talk page notices and Whois templates is not a listed exception to the three-revert rule"

Who is this aimed at? Everyone? If IPs aren't supposed to remove Whois notices, does this apply to editors restoring them? Dougweller (talk) 21:43, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Those restoring. — Kralizec! (talk) 22:31, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Negative material

Separate to the above, would anyone have thoughts on this? It's possibly worth adding a short section to clarify.

=== Storage of negative material === For this section, negative material includes: (1) lists of negative evidence, claims, perceived flaws, and past actions of other users, and (2) negative or excessively critical material for draft articles or dispute cases that are not being visibly worked on. Wikipedia articles, processes, discussions, and disputes can require very negative or critical material to be considered or taken note of. However users should not keep compilations of negative notes and information related to others in public view on the wiki without very good reason. Compilation of factual reasonable wiki-based evidence on a subpage, for purposes such as preparing for imminent dispute resolution process or discussion, is usually permitted provided it will be used in a timely manner, and should usually be removed or courtesy blanked afterwards. Material for legitimate active article development may also be reasonable to keep (note: tag as {{userspace draft}}, and BLP policy can override this). In general though, negative evidence of these kinds should be removed, blanked, or kept privately (ie not on the wiki) if they will not be imminently used, and the same once no longer needed. Sections of talk dialog containing personal attacks can also be worth collapsing, courtesy blanking, or archiving at times, once the discussion is ended, though this is more likely to be down to the user's discretion.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 22:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I support the current:

(1) "Users should not maintain in public view negative information on others without very good reason"

over

(2) "actual compilations of negative information related to others should generally not be maintained in public view on the wiki without very good reason."

This view is based on some encounters with disputes over such things brought to MfD. The first is direct and in simple terms. It is hard to argue (wikilaywer) with. If you want to list negative information, the onus is on you to have a "very good reason". The second contains extraneous words introducing ambiguity. What is the intended modifying effect of "actual"? Compilation? "Generally" is an escape clause for every worked up person, every worked up person believes that their situation is special. When someones records-transitioning-into-rants gets called into question, I would much rather be quoting and explain the first. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:31, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Slight concern is people 'lawyering about user talk threads, SPI/ANI threads, other legitimate discussion, etc. Although ideally all such material could vanish or be collapsed, this section's mainly about users who try and indefinitely keep stuff they wrote that's about specific individual/s, group/s or user/s (or copied from elsewhere). It's not so much about genuine archived talk threads, and not really at all about project space, etc. Any suggestion for a wording that would do what you're saying but take this into account? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Slightly edited, re-check? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It took me a long time to find the edits you refer to. You edited the box above! It now says "However users should not keep compilations of negative notes and information related to others in public view on the wiki without very good reason". I support it. The sort of cases I remember coming to MfD involve material composed entirely by the user, and maybe one or two talk pages containing multiple and lengthy screeds. I don't see this text being misapplied to meaningful multi-sided discussions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:37, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Small grammatical error

Under General Guidance>Personal and privacy-breaching material it says, "It could be copied elsewhere or even used to harass you in future". I can't fix it myself, but it looks like it is missing a "the" before "future", or perhaps it is meant to read "future circumstances". /pedant ReySquared (talk) 16:56, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I edited the section and took the opportunity to slightly reword it. We'll see what others think. Johnuniq (talk) 03:31, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Secret pages: Ok or not?

Should "secret pages" be discouraged in userspace? Jclemens (talk) 03:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

this edit was reverted as lacking discussion, so let's start one:

Support

Support the inclusion of this diff, discouraging secret pages.

1. Jclemens (talk) 02:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
2. Cunard (talk) 03:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
3. Johnuniq (talk) 04:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
4. Nancy ^talk 11:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
5. Aren't they already discouraged? We might as well document that we already discourage them. Gigs (talk) 18:54, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
6. WP:NOTMYSPACE. There are any number of creative ways to make a constructive game around improving the encyclopedia. Rd232 ^talk 21:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
7. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
8. DustFormsWords (talk) 05:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
9. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 13:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
10. Dougweller (talk) 16:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC) - if Wikipedia isn't a social network, Facebook or MySpace, these don't belong here.
11. RL0919 (talk) 16:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
12. (X! · talk)  · @848  ·  19:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
13. MZMcBride (talk) 19:23, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
14. as per any silly useless game of no novelty nor educational value. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
15. The guideline already indicates that these are not acceptable: there is no other intelligent way of reading Games, roleplaying sessions, and other things pertaining to "entertainment" rather than "writing an encyclopedia". However, some editors choose to interpret the lack of explicit mention of this particular case as implying that this case is not covered, and so making it more explicit can't harm and may help. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
16. I believe that secret pages violate both the letter and the spirit of WP:MYSPACE, and I would be pleased to see such explicitly codified on WP:UP. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
17. Secret pages aren't original and not particularly a good way of community-building. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 14:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
18. Yes, secret pages should be discouraged. Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:42, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
19. This is a Encyclopedia. In other words, we should only give info. Secret pages aren't good. This isn't a social network! (Though with all the discussions, it seems like Wikipedia wants it to be one.) --Kaleyann (talk) 18:33, 1 May 2010 (UTC)Kaleyann

Oppose

Oppose the inclusion of this diff.

1. User:Kizor. [3]. Added 11:27, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
2. Reyk _YO! 02:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
3. ^Avicenna_sis @ 09:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
4. Seems to be based on the deep-seated fear that someone, somewhere is enjoying themselves. DuncanHill (talk) 13:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
5. As to DuncanHill Mlpearc MESSAGE 20:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
6. Different people have different learning styles; some users cut their teeth in wiki markup with sekrit pages. As long as they move on to being productive in the mainspace I see this as perfectly acceptable. Sometimes I wish that a few more of our newbies would do their early testing in userspace. ϢereSpielChequers 15:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
7. A quick sanity check for supporters. Does the rule and the enforcement of the rule waste more or less time than the behavior under discussion (since there appear to be no malign outcomes from the existence of the pages per se)? If so, then why in blazes would we bother with it? Stop trying to busybody around in their userspace. Storage is cheap. Reputations are not. Protonk (talk) 23:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Discussion of the merits of the proposed discouragement of secret pages.

I can't see how secret pages build the encyclopedia in any meaningful way--even arguments about them being harmless fun seem weak: I don't really want to encourage people to hang around who are so easily amused, I'd rather have editors who gain satisfaction from improving the encyclopedia in some way, no matter how minor. Jclemens (talk) 02:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Secret pages are unacceptable in an encyclopedia. Barnstars are devalued when they are awarded for the "hard work" of finding secret pages. Instead of being given barnstars for commendable work on articles or vandal patrol, users are rewarded for playing games on Wikipedia. See an extreme case at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Hi878/Secret Page List where Wikipedia is used as a hide-and-seek game; with seven secret pages, five of them are fake.

This is an encyclopedia, not MySpace or Facebook. Cunard (talk) 03:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

While occasional recreation is fine, there has been a trend towards the proliferation of secret pages and guest books, and an increase in indiscriminate barnstar and wikilove templating. Some argue that an editor who is largely interested in such pastimes now, may become a useful contributor later, and others claim these practices are harmless. However, I am concerned that a subculture could become established so that in two or so years it may be difficult to restrict various forms of play (due to a large number of ILIKEIT votes). Secret pages conflict with WP:USERPAGE and give new users the mistaken impression that they own their userspace and can use it to express themselves in any way they like ("MYSPACE"). There are plenty of places where a largely anything-goes attitude is encouraged (wikia.com and lots of others), but here it is a fundamental conflict with our focus on the encyclopedia: the attitudes are simply incompatible. Johnuniq (talk) 04:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Ot

• How about... Secret pages should be protected on sight by an administrator. This could make the silly old game into something potentially interesting. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
• As a point of note, the ArbCom case referred to in the revert ES did not "okay" secret pages, simply made a ruling about the manner in which a batch of them was deleted. — Coren ^(talk) 20:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm taking this to mean ArbCom is perfectly fine with this RfC as a means of ascertaining consensus on the matter and formulating a way forward? Jclemens (talk) 20:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
    • ArbCom doesn't make policy. The case made it clear that it was not OK for one administrator to take unilateral action, and this merely backed up the existing and continuing wording prominently at the top of WP:CSD.
    • Jclemens' proposal "Should "secret pages" be discouraged in userspace?" is too soft to have much use. They are already discouraged. Perhaps not explicitly enough for people. But when someone insists on having them, what then? Are they to be forbidden? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
      • The edit is to the WP:UP#NOT section. Since I don't see that it meets any current speedy deletion criterion, I'm interested in how you would suggest it be made stronger. I don't oppose a stronger statement, but will take what community consensus will support. Jclemens (talk) 21:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
        • I think silly games, including secret pages, should be discouraged. The question is what do you do with the secret pages that do occur? Should they be tolerated? Should they be tolerated based on some assessment of the editor, on his productive edit history and percentage productive edits. Should they be tolerated for a new user, if under one week old, but not over one month? I recall agreement that userpages involved undisclosed alternate accounts (an effective technique at creating hidden pages) are directly contrary to WP:SOCK and are not to be tolerated for that reason. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
          • I'm OK with that, but those nuances do indeed go beyond the initial scope. If seen, yes, I'd MfD 'em. If invited to an MfD discussion on a secret page, I would !vote delete in many cases. I personally don't see how anyone who knows anything about Special:PrefixIndex can think such games can be fun or challenging, but yeah, I don't like BITEy XfD's. If I saw a secret page that no one else had MfD'ed, I'm more likely to give the "author" a talk page note about Special:PrefixIndex than to actually MfD it myself. I think that should be sufficient discouragement in most cases, really. Jclemens (talk) 22:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
            • We are in agreement then. My concern is that imprecise wording may lead someone to start unilaterally deleting pages that they consider to be silly and hidden, and that mistaken deletions (false positives) cause much more problem that ignoring a thousand silly hidden pages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
              • All I can fall back on is the limitation inherent in the narrowly drafted CSD criteria. I don't think anyone here has argued that such pages are so harmful that an out of process deletion is necessary to prevent harm, and nor would I. Thus, the most disruptive thing that can be supported by this change, in my view, would be a mass-MfD'ing. I wouldn't ever do that, but I don't doubt that someone else might feel it appropriate. Is that possible outcome problematic? Jclemens (talk) 23:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The inappropriate pages are listed at Wikipedia:User pages/Secret pages to be deleted. Why would you oppose a mass MfD on such pages? Cunard (talk) 01:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• Because I'd reserve an MfD for people who couldn't be convinced through polite discussion to g7 their own silliness. Jclemens (talk) 02:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• I don't think it is a bad idea to have an MfD discussion that covered a very large number of very similar pages. I recommended trying for a consensus here first, and nominating the pages (listed at Wikipedia:User pages/Secret pages to be deleted) as a group. I'd like to see this perennial issue resolve. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that it is worth explaining to those who devalue barnstars why doing so is a bad idea, and have no objection to the deletion of sekrit page barnstars. Otherwise I see sekrit pages as almost as harmless as guestbooks. ϢereSpielChequers 15:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Should secret pages that exist despite discouragement be tolerated?

1. sometimes. I assume "not tolerated" means "sent to MfD". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
2. No. Secret pages should be deleted. Cunard (talk) 01:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
3. Yes- No harm in them, since they're not in the mainspace. Reyk _YO! 02:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
4. Yes - It's more disruptive to the encyclopedia to hunt them down and AfD them than to leave them be. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
5. No - but they are only disruptive if they take up people's time, so people looking for pages in order to delete them is counter-productive. They should merely be deleted (MFD'd) as and when they are discovered. Rd232 ^talk 07:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
6. Yes I am sure a number of discouraged practices also have a positive side. People are also "strongly discouraged" from making WP:COI edits, and I am sure there are editors who have contributed greatly to an article with which they had a COI, but did so in a NPOV and positive light. ^Avicenna_sis @ 09:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
7. No. Of course nothing requires an editor to submit a page to WP:MFD just because they find it (nor could such a requirement be enforced even if we wanted to), but there should not be any official policy of "tolerating" them. --RL0919 (talk) 13:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

   It wasn't meant to be a question of establishing a precedent or even policy of toleration. Do you think that an MfD should be filed to have Cunard's list of violating/discouraged secret pages deleted? Do you think that all obviously silly secret pages should be deleted next week in an MfD, subject to the formal discussion at MfD? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

   I don't see much point to the question if it isn't about establishing a precedent or policy/guideline. Anyone who sees a page has the choice of putting it to MFD or not bothering no guideline will change that fact. I would not favor putting large numbers of unrelated pages in a single MFD, nor do I go out of my way to look for such pages to nominate, but if I see a nomination for such a page at MFD, I !vote "delete". You can count that as tolerant or non-tolerant as you see fit, but the idea of this talk page is to discuss the UP guideline, and on that score I hope I've made my position clear. --RL0919 (talk) 23:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

   I think you are saying that if the pages are discovered and nominated, they should be deleted. Well, they are automatically generated at User:MiszaBot/PSP and Cunard has removed the many false positives, see Wikipedia:User pages/Secret pages to be deleted. We could have the bot not report previously vetted pages, and routinely delete via MfD all such obvious secret pages. Some people have strong feelings wanting to do this. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:51, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

8. Yes ϢereSpielChequers 15:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
9. No. The idea of having policies which say that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a playground, but then going on to say "but if you want to ignore these policies and guidelines then we will let you do so" makes no sense. Obviously any editors are free to tolerate such pages, i.e. to ignore them and not propose deletion, but to have a guideline or other agreement that we will collectively tolerate them, i.e. in effect that nobody is allowed to propose deletion is unreasonable. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:53, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

   James, your contributions here and in the next section are sound and persuasive. Can you say something about the difficulty in achieving consensus to delete sekrit page once they are listed at MfD? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

10. Not really. I believe the question is whether extant secret pages should be grandfathered in; my response to that is that they should not be. When we modify a policy or guideline on Wikipedia, we should usually try to conform preexisting material to the new standard, or delete it if it cannot be edited to conform. That's not to say that grandfather clauses are forbidden – heck, WP:STICKY recently became policy with just such a clause – only to say that this is not the exception to the rule. Editors should not feel to compelled to nominate secret pages for deletion if they do not want to do so, but the doctrine of ex post facto is in all ways irrelevant here. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
11. No. If policy changes to discourage secret pages, then they should be taken to MFD as they are found; without being POINTY. There should NOT be a rush/contest to find these and delete all of them. Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
12. They should be deleted. This isn't a social network! --Kaleyann (talk) 22:28, 1 May 2010 (UTC)Kaleyann

Should secret pages be tolerated based on some assessment of the editor, on his productive edit history and percentage productive edits.

1. Probably. Users should be given leeway if that leeway is for things that are a small fraction of their productive edits. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

   As per below, this is the single deciding factor as to whether these pages get deleted, in practice. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:58, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

2. No. All editors are equal and should be treated equally when they violate policy such as WP:NOTMYSPACE which applies to games such as secret pages. Cunard (talk) 01:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
3. Certainly. Reyk _YO! 02:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
4. No - All editors should be treated equally. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
5. Partly - As a minor consideration of net gain for Wikipedia. A user having 10,000 positive mainspace edits and only one to a secret page vs editors who do little else but secret page hunts - one is clearly contributing to Wikipedia while the other is wasting resources. However, this factor should not be taken alone. Editors matter. 09:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)^Avicenna_sis @
6. Yes If an editor shows no signs of outgrowing the sekrit page phase and doing something useful, then after appropriate nudges MFDing of their sekrit page might be appropriate. But newbies and useful editors should be tolerated. ϢereSpielChequers 15:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
7. No I can see the attraction of this idea, but if we allow some people to do this, then it will be very difficult to justify not allowing someone else to do it. "Such and such a user has 37 secret pages and nobody objects, but I had 2 and you deleted them". Also it introduces the whole "where do we draw the borderline?" issue, and endless arguments in MfD discussions as to whether a particular editor should be given allowances or not. The idea that established constructive editors should be allowed leeway is not a wholly unreasonable one, but I disagree with it. Firstly, the fact that established and respected pillars of the community are allowed to do something makes it look very unjust to someone with less standing in the community that they are not allowed to do the same. This is exactly the sort of thing which is likely to encourage some people to see Wikipedia as run by a self-appointed cabal of editors who run things just for their own pleasure. I am not, of course, suggesting that that is the intention of those who advocate leeway for established editors, but that is how it would look. Secondly, in my experience not many serious editors spend time on this kind of thing anyway. On the other hand the idea that newbies should be allowed such secret pages, but that after a while they should be stopped is an odd one. Someone who comes here just to play, and is allowed to do so with smiles from the community, is one day told "Hey, you've done this long enough: all these pages are being deleted". That seems odd, to say the least. Then there is again the "where do we draw the line?" question, and the endless arguments about individual cases, and MfD discussions for old "secret pages" left by users deemed to have passed this stage. Or is the idea that these old pages are left in place, but no more can be created? If so what do we do if the user does continue making them? Delete ones created after a particular date, but leave those from before? And where do we have the stupid arguments about where that borderline should go? And couldn't the time we would spend on this be more usefully employed on other tasks? Then there are the strings of sockpuppets to ensure that there is always a "newbie" account available to play with. For a whole string of reasons it is much easier and more effective to say "no" than to say "well, no, but sometimes yes" and have to deal with the complexities. Finally, I am quite unconvinced by the argument "newbies who are allowed to play with Wikipedia will grow up to be proper editors". I am not saying that never happens, but my experience suggests that far more often people who are allowed to play with Wikipedia think that playing is what one does at Wikipedia, and continue to do so. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
8. No. Put simply, one of our principles is that editors are on a level playing field because we don't have vested contributors. For example, we block admins for edit-warring just as we block regular editors for the same; we don't maintain a double standard. I believe that we should avoid a double standard regarding secret pages as well. We should not be telling newer users who ask, "Why are you deleting my secret pages and letting admin X keep his?" that "Admin X is a better user than you, that's why." That's unacceptable; we should only pass judgement on an editor's merits if he solicits such judgement (i.e. at WP:RfA, WP:RfB, WP:RfBAG, WP:ER, etc.) or if his conduct is so problematic as to demand such judgement (i.e. at WP:RFC/U, WP:WQA, WP:ANI, etc.). I also agree with James's comment that editors who have secret pages and yet remain productive are the exception and not the rule. Generally, those who come to Wikipedia for a playground will continue to use it as a playground. We've all seen it. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
9. No, being a user in "good standing" has no bearing on secret pages. If the policy changes, then delete via MFD. (without being POINTY) Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:51, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
10. Yes per this. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 21:44, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Actual practice. Secret pages judged by editor behaviour

Looking at the results of the recent rush of secret page MfDs:

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Spider1224/SandboxOWL,
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:PhishRCool/Bravo,
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Pedro João/Cheated.
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Hi878/Secret Page List,
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Meisfunny/Topeka,
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Smashbrosboy/Talk,
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:TheNewPhobia/Secret Page!!!

Secret pages are, as a rule, effectively undeleteable if the editor is an active and mostly productive editor, and deletable if the editor is long since inactive and/or not a serious contributor. This is in keeping with my impression of these things over some time. Why not document this consistent, predictable practice, so that we might avoid repeating the same lengthy no consensus debates over and over again? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:51, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Should they be tolerated for a new user, if under one week old, but not over one month?

1. YesNew users should be welcomed, pointed to WP:UP, and asked to remove the page. This should not override Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. Newcomers should be welcomed and educated. Note, however, that undisclosed alternative accounts (WP:SOCK) are not newcomers. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
2. No. All editors are equal and should be treated equally when they violate policy such as WP:NOTMYSPACE which applies to games such as secret pages. It would quite suspicious if a new account's history begins with the creation of secret pages. Instead of allowing secret pages to remain for a month and then MfD'd after a month has passed, secret pages should be nipped in the bud. Removing secret pages before the new user becomes obsessed with them is kinder and more helpful than the new user learning afterwards about acceptable use of the userspace when the policy-violating material is deleted. Cunard (talk) 01:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
3. N/A- any definitive statement one way or the other would be pointless instruction creep. Reyk _YO! 02:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
4. No - All editors should be treated equally. But in enforcing policy, attention sould be paid to WP:BITE. There's a polite way of doing things and a mean way. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
5. Yes WP:AGF and WP:BITE goes a long way. An editor who is very familar with policy and has a long history on Wikipedia may be blocked for violating the WP:3RR, while a new user, responding on their talk page (and clearly confused about the rules and policies here) is often helped and coached along, possibly making 7 or 9 reverts in their learning attempts. If new editors are to be given leeway, it should be for all policies or none. ^Avicenna_sis @ 09:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
6. No. Yes, be particularly nice to them in saying it's not appropriate. But what's the point in letting them get used to something for 29 days, and then coming down like a ton of bricks? Rd232 ^talk 10:24, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
7. No. Of course be polite and assume good faith, but there is no reason to say these pages are OK one day then not OK the next. --RL0919 (talk) 13:24, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
8. No See my comment above at Should secret pages be tolerated based on some assessment of the editor, on his productive edit history and percentage productive edits. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
9. No, we should not hold a double standard on this for anyone. That we should be polite about sending newbies' pages to MfD is unquestionable. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
10. Would new users even consider making a "secret" page if they hadn't seen the concept done on other userpages? —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 15:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
11. No, it's counter-productive to let secret pages be created in the first place. I agree with what Scott5114 said above, new users probably wouldn't consider creating them if it was documented in policy, and the existing ones were deleted. Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:54, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

View by A Stop at Willoughby

In a nutshell, my view is that secret pages violate both the spirit and the letter of WP:MYSPACE, and that it's about time we made this clear in WP:UP.

WP:MYSPACE, as you know, is a longstanding part of a core Wikipedia policy, WP:NOT. It states: "Wikipedia is not a social network like MySpace or Facebook. You may not host your own website, blog, or wiki at Wikipedia. [U]ser pages...may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia. ... The focus of user pages should not be social networking, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration."

Some secret pages are in the userspaces of active editors who did not register a Wikipedia account for the purpose of social networking. However, this policy is clearly applicable to all Wikipedia users, not just users who have registered accounts solely for the purpose of social networking. Therefore, all users must avoid creating material in or adding content to their userspace that is used solely for social networking, instead utilizing their userspace to provide "a foundation for effective collaboration." Some userspace content that is borderline social networking is protected by this "foundation for collaboration" clause:

a) Userboxes Although userboxes are often not related to the construction of the encyclopedia, they allow editors to get to know other editors better. By learning about other editors' interests, hobbies, views and biases, etc., a "foundation for collaboration" is built.

b) Barnstars Barnstars are usually related, directly or tangentially, to the construction of the encyclopedia. They also allow editors to commend other editors for their work. Although some barnstars are irrelevant to the construction of the encyclopedia, most are sufficiently relevant to building a "foundation for collaboration."

c) Signature pages Although I personally dislike signature pages, they do allow editors to expand their contacts in the Wikipedia community by meeting other editors, thus assisting in building a "foundation for collaboration."

However, secret pages and other games are not only completely irrelevant to the encyclopedia – they also do not and cannot serve any purpose with regards to "providing a foundation for effective collaboration." They might be acceptable on a site designed for such social networking, such as Facebook or MySpace, but not on Wikipedia. While it is true that, in general, these pages are not described by their creators as "social networking" or "games," I argue that de facto that's what they are. In the long run, it will be helpful to draw a line in the sand here, so WP:MYSPACE will be taken more seriously in the future.

Are secret pages directly harmful? No, they are fairly innocuous. However, we have to keep in mind that most users who have secret pages are not very productive editors in the mainspace or in project maintenance/administration. Let's not lose sight of the fact that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, first and foremost, and therefore we have no obligation to allow those who are not contributing much to use Wikipedia as a playground for social networking. Wikipedia is a community, but it's not a community in the traditional sense where members spend nearly all of their time. If someone wants to social network, they can do so on numerous websites – just not on Wikipedia. That's the essence of WP:MYSPACE. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Should guest books NOT be part of the site

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Resolved

 – Consensus here seems to indicate that there is a lot of support to keep guest books around. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

There are several editors who have guest books on their user pages (you can see several of them here). It was my understanding that guest books fell under the WP:NOTBLOG section of WP:NOT, but they are not specifically mentioned there. So, I want to bring the discussion here to determine if guest books should be listed there as they serve no purpose whatsoever as far as working to improve the encyclopedia. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• As I understand it the consensus is there's reasonably free reign with what goes on in user space as long as it's vaguely connected to the process of building an encyclopedia. Guest books encourage the spirit of community, consultation and interaction that a collaborative project like Wikipedia is built upon and as such they're at least arguably an asset to the project. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

No. As a veteran of the userbox wars still no. Trying to control what legit editors put in their user namespace isn't worth the drama it cause.©Geni 00:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreeing with Dust and Geni on this. They're relatively harmless, and they're uplifting to some people. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 00:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Geni and Jimbo. Trying to change people's user pages just upsets them. --Falcorian ^(talk) 03:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• Should really be discussed at WT:UP. Coincidentally, there's an ongoing discussion there about secret pages. –xeno^talk 00:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

We are human beings and to work efficiently and have good morale some of us need these things that make us feel our work is appreciated.Camelbinky (talk) 00:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they do any harm, as long as that is not all that users are doing; in my time, I've occasionally seen Jimbo invited to sign users' guest books, and done so. If users are only dong this, and using charitable resources as a social network, then we owe it to our financial contributors not to be seen to be wasting their money. Until then, a reasonable amount of leeway should be allowed. Rodhullandemu 01:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo has his own too User:Jimbo Wales/guestbook, see his quote at the bottom of it--Jac16888^Talk 01:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• Stop trying to mess with peoples' userpage. Insofar as WP:NOT applies to benign userspace content from editors who are not disrupting the encyclopedia, you should ignore it. Monitoring someone else's space to see if it meets your definition of "productive" is the opposite of productive. Protonk (talk) 02:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Please assume a little good faith here. Instead of boldly deleting all the guestbooks, I came here to have a discussion about it. I'm not trying to "mess with peoples' userpage[s]". I'm merely asking about this feature which has absolutely zero relation to working together on the encyclopedia. I've reworded the header to better reflect what I'm asking. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I assume mean well, hut the basis for creating some overarching policy about userspace is suspect to say the least. I have a dozen things on my user page that may not serve the encyclopedia in your opinion. The wonderful thing is I don't care what your opinion of my userspace is--i don't mean to be combative, but your opinion is almost completely irrelevant. It is MY space, carved out by community norm to give me a place to do what I want in order to keep myself sane. Often that is just a navigational aid or a picture I like or a plug for a wikiproject. But sometimes it is a quote or a game or a rant or whatever. Unless I actually don't contribute to the encyclopedia or I am actively creating problems, organizing some well meaning transfer of control of that space (and that is what is happening, since your opinion goes from irrelevant to central in the calculation of what goes in the user page) is always negative sum. You are going to pis people off, add nothing of value and create busywork in a space that doesn't need it. Protonk (talk) 21:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they are a good thing, but I think it would be an uphill battle to suppress guest books. They seem a manifestation of immaturity. They may involve camaraderie but of a particularly vacuous sort. I think they foster personal bonds that are at best irrelevant to building the encyclopedia. I would not advocate taking any action against them because the howls of protest would be unbearable. Bus stop (talk) 03:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• Please, since when is a "list of associates", a "show of camaraderie" a "Blog" last time I saw a Blog I saw "hey what's up ? saw your mom, Hey how's your sis.....? Please what's wrong with a list of fellow editors showing "Community Unity"?

Mlpearc MESSAGE 03:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

list of associates are not always productive to building community spirit. Gnangarra 03:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

And "Smoking " is not "Always" the cause of Cancer Mlpearc MESSAGE 03:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

and ducks always quack like ducks. Gnangarra 03:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for getting my point. Mlpearc MESSAGE 03:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with Geni. This stuff seems harmless, the benefits of a ban are uncertain, they are not worth pissing off even a single editor. Perhaps, at best, I might support MFD of abandoned guest books of the kids who grew up ... NVO (talk) 05:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• I've already commented above, but after reviewing the discussion on secret pages at WP:UP, I would add that I'm happy with guestbooks being discouraged through policy - after all, we want to encourage people to be actively improving the encyclopedia rather than tinkering with userspace - but that it's not a policy that should be enforced through warning messages or deletions. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

  I agree: we should discourage guestbooks, but "enforcement" should be (mostly) voluntary and non-conflictual, with the exception of deleting abandoned guestbooks. The gain from deleting guestbooks is not enough to justify the negative consequences (time spent, conflict, drama, etc.) of attempting to delete them. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

These things serve no encylopaedic purpose, but having a policy against them serves no purpose either. --Mkativerata (talk) 05:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• If guestbooks serve in building a sense of community (and probably they do, at least a little), they contribute indirectly to the encyclopedia, and should be tolerated. Note also the negative consequences of enforcement, per Black Falcon. There is a slight contradiction at times between WP:NOTMYSPACE and the fact that this is a community-built and maintained encyclopedia. Some community-ish stuff serves an indirect purpose for the encyclopedia without crossing a line into merely using WP bandwidth for other purposes, and that should be recognised. I'm not definitively saying guestbooks do that (I've not come across the idea before...), but they may fall into the class of things which do. Rd232 ^talk 08:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• There are decent arguments for benefits of hosting guestbooks. The arguments in support of hidden/secret pages are much weaker, and we have trouble achieving consensus on whether they should be deleted. see Wikipedia_talk:User_pages#Secret_pages:_Ok_or_not.3F. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• Guestbooks, not much of a problem. Hidden pages, waste of space, myspacery. The so-called "sandboxians" who spend most of their time here playing sill games in the sandbox - well, that should be a WP:NOT. Guy (Help!) 12:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• Kill with fire. It's tolerance of this sort of pointless rubbish that leads to more damaging things, such as not being able to stop people abusing the retired template, or not being allowed to label banned editors as banned because it might hurt their feelings, and all the other clap-trap that has previously fallen under this wierd idea that there is some sort of user page bill of rights here. MickMacNee (talk) 13:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
  • The fact that Jimbo has one makes it a bit hard to take that strong a line. See also the quote at the bottom of User:Jimbo Wales/guestbook. Rd232 ^talk 13:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
    • The fact that Jimbo has one is no more relevant than the fact that any other editor has one. DuncanHill (talk) 13:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
    • Jimbo thinks the article title 'climategate' is blatantly and obviously not a violation of NPOV. If his opinion makes jack difference in that serious issue, I hardly think his posession of a guestbook is a dealbreaker in this discussion. He thinks it fosters people being nice and friendly to each other, I think it encourages site norms here that do far more harm to the community friendliness than deleting people's guestbooks ever would. MickMacNee (talk) 13:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• Stop wasting our time with this perennial proposal - I don't have a guestbook, have never signed one. I do find it odd that otherwise sane editors waste huge amounts of their time seeking them out in order to complain about them. Guestbooks seem pretty harmless, and I am sure that for those who use them they foster friendship and collegiality. For those of us who don't use them they are pretty much irrelevant. DuncanHill (talk) 13:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
  • • I searched the archives of the pages where I thought the discussion might be, but found no discussions. I don't waste my time seeking out guestbooks in order to complain about them. Perhaps it would be good if people like you didn't assume bad faith on the part of people who bring up these things. I asked a simple question offered my opinion on the issue, and requested that people offer their opinion on that issue. I didn't ask for catcalls from the peanut gallery. Please try to be a little more productive in your comments instead of ragging on someone who asked a sincere question. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
      • Sorry, it's just I've seen this so many times on AN, ANI, XfD and god knows where else, that I assumed an experienced editor would have seen it too. The only guestbooks I've ever even seen have been ones that have been linked to from these discussions, so I've no idea how anyone would find enough of them to think that they were a problem. DuncanHill (talk) 07:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
  • hear hear. That should be the summary with which this discussion is closed, preferably ASAP. Rd232 ^talk 13:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• Moved from WP:VPP –xeno^talk 13:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Oppose banning of guestbooks Per Jimbo's quote. Also, I don't see a big issue in having one. There are also several admins that have one. ~NERDYSCIENCEDUDE (✉ message • changes) 13:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on this, but I think it's ironic that people keep referring to the quote at the bottom of Jimbo's guestbook as some kind of point in favour of guestbooks. It rebuts an argument-against-guestbooks by pointing to Esperanza, which has itself been sunsetted. –xeno^talk 13:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

  Did you read the rest of Jimbo's quote? Guestbooks are also about saying hello and being friendly. ~NERDYSCIENCEDUDE (✉ message • changes) 13:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

  I just think it's amusing, that's all. I generally agree with the sentiment that guestbooks are mostly harmless and if they aren't the only thing someone is doing on Wikipedia, should be left alone. –xeno^talk 13:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• Let it go. Do I think guestbooks are silly and pointless? Yes I do. Do they harm Wikipedia in any way? No they do not. In my opinion about 95% of userspace edits (other than drafting new pages) are an off topic waste, but so what? There's no harm in it, and there is harm in stirring up drama just because you don't happen to like something. If you don't like guestbooks, it's not hard to ignore them. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• As with many other silly user page features, guestbooks are for community building, which can lead to effective collaboration. Should not be prohibited. The spirit of NOT is that people should not use Wikipedia exclusively for social or personal activities without actually contributing to the project. This is obviously not a case of that. Dcoetzee 21:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• Allow people to have guestbooks, a variant of a talk page, giving a minimal but informative feedback to the operator. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

As it appears that most people are not interested in getting rid of them, that's what I wanted to know. Anyone who feels like it welcome to close this section. There's no point in keeping it open. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unclear sentence in WP:BLANKING

The following sentence in the list of things that may not be removed by the user seems to me unclear:

Declined block, ban and confirmed sockpuppetry related notices (while any sanctions are still in effect)

What does "declined block" mean? If it means "declined unblock requests", it should say so; and should separately make clear the position on block notices which are still in force - may the user remove them? JohnCD (talk) 19:39, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the history, I see that the change was introduced, I guess inadvertently, during a major rewrite by FT2 (talk · contribs) on 15 March. Before that, it read "declined unblock requests". I have amended the line to read:

Declined unblock requests, ban and confirmed sockpuppetry related notices (while any sanctions are still in effect)

and will check with him. Block notices while a block is in effect are not covered, but I see no reason to prohibit removing them as anyone editing the talk page or looking at the user's contributions sees a block notice anyway. JohnCD (talk) 10:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 21:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

This page is not part of the MoS. Gigs (talk) 19:32, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

New tables

I don't like them. I started reading down the first column, and then I started reading the second column, and it made no sense. There's nothing to indicate the right side is detailing the general concepts on the left side. It's just a mess of bullets. The old way with two-level bulleted lists was much better. Gigs (talk) 19:31, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

takedown of controversial map

It was agreed in the discution of Reactions to the Gaza flotilla raid that the map will be removed. Please don't add it without discution first. Thanks. ShalomOlam (talk) 16:05, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Plan to ensure wide TOC

I am planning to change the display of guideline WP:User_pages, at the Table of Contents (TOC), to ensure that the TOC-box does not compress on narrowed (or half-screen) windows. The following wikitable will keep the TOC as 340 pixels wide, avoiding the namespaces-box, so that the TOC will not compress as 2-words-per-line on narrow windows:

{| width=340px
|__TOC__
|}

Such special typesetting of tables, for narrow screens (800x600 pixels), is part of guideline WP:Accessibility. The screen could actually be narrowed even more, but users with wide laptop screens should be unaffected, and would not see any difference about the Table of Contents on their laptop screens. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:21, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused...are you talking about all TOCs or just the one at WP:User pages? And why is it necessary? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 05:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It's just the display of that guideline page, not a rule to be added to the guideline for all TOCs. Setting the width for the Table of Contents will prevent squeezing it (as a 2-words-per-line TOC box) on 800x600px display (so the page would looked balanced on narrow windows). Users with wide laptop screens will see no change. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:58, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Why just that page? And I'm still a bit confused....I just looked at it in a very small window, and it seemed fine? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 21:07, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

@Wikid77: Would you please spell out the section of WP:Accessibility that you believe justifies adding such complexity to the wikitext of this guideline. Is there a discussion somewhere that such hacks are desirable? Accessibility is great, but simple wikitext should be strongly supported. If your change is warranted here, why not on a thousand other pages? Johnuniq (talk) 04:18, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

• In WP:Accessibility, the issue is to beware how narrow windows "stretch paragraphs vertically". The full text is:

"The lowest resolution that it is considered possible to support without adversely affecting other users is 800x600; all articles should look acceptable at this resolution without excessive horizontal scrolling. This is sometimes an issue in articles with multiple images on both sides of the screen; although lower resolutions will tend to stretch paragraphs vertically, moving images apart in that direction, be careful not to add images or other floating content on both sides of the screen simultaneously."

The problem actually does occur on thousands of other pages, as well, so that's why WP:ACCESS says to be careful "not to add images or other floating content on both sides of the screen simultaneously". Perhaps that phrase could have been re-worded more clearly, with examples, but that is why the change is being made, to conform to WP:ACCESS. I have removed the HTML comments, in the change, to show just the simple wikitext. For more cases, see: HELP:Table. Again, there are many thousands of pages that need similar changes, when 2 images or tables are floated around text (or a Table of Contents), and that is why WP:ACCESS was written: to formalize the reasons to change page layout to support sight-impaired users or those with smaller screens. Perhaps over 20,000 pages need to be changed, so that users with special needs can read those pages easier. I brought the issue here, at this time, to avoid the questionable irony of guideline WP:User_pages not conforming to guideline WP:ACCESS, while expecting others to heed both sets of rules. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:02, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm really not seeing what the problem is at all. I looked at the page in 800x600, and smaller, and it looks just fine. WP:Accessibility is primarily geared towards articles, and I'm really not seeing any reason at all for this change without some better evidence that it is, in fact, any kind of problem. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:28, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

• The view might change depending on which browser is used: MS Internet Explorer is often different than the Firefox, Safari or Opera browsers. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:38, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Looked at it in both FireFox and IE. The menu is slightly more scrunched in IE, but rather than changing the width, why not fix the namespace box and guideline box to stack instead of being side by side (which would seem to be a far better fix than hacking the menu width) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:47, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

This is a solution looking for a problem IMO. If, as alleged, this affects "thousands of other pages", then it should be take to a more central forum to discuss fixing the problem directly by altering how MediaWiki outputs TOCs rather than hacked around on this one page. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:01, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

• Solved: Thanks for stacking the namespaces box & guidelines box, as a better solution to fit the Table-of-Contents box for narrow windows. I did not realize the lower shortcuts-box would simply float alongside those stacked boxes. The "more central forum" about the alignment-problem is with WP:ACCESS, which has formalized the problem, hence this discussion. I would not have raised the issue here, except it has become another existing guideline. Again, thanks for the solution: the more times WP:ACCESS is solved, the easier it becomes with other pages. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Format of: You have new messages

I was wondering if anyone thinks the box is confusing about the "...have new messages..." and might consider a side-note of "EXAMPLE" to be added. The result would be:

EXAMPLE:

You have new messages (last change).

By putting the bolded word "EXAMPLE" beside the new-messages box, it would not appear to be a live anouncement that someone has new messages. Should some other words be inserted instead? Otherwise, we can just leave it the way it is. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:13, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Seems fairly clear to me, but wouldn't object to having it more clearly identified as an example. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:REMOVED - should current blocks be in the list?

A point for discussion, following the recent addition (4 days ago) and even-more-recent removal (today) of "current block notices" being something which should not be removed from a user's talk page.

I have no firm opinion on this one way or another, but I thought it would be useful to discuss it.

At the moment, it says that Declined unblock requests, ban and confirmed sockpuppetry related notices (while any sanctions are still in effect) may not be removed.

Should current blocks be added to that list, or not? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:11, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

• FYI the exceptions were originally discussed here, there was a brief discussion regarding removal of block notices here. There was a time when I thought that block notices should remain while they are in effect, but I've been moved off that position somewhat. One example I can think of as food-for-thought is a user who has been indefinitely blocked for some dispute, or what-have-you, and they don't want to change their behaviour, appeal, etc., they simply want to blank their talk page and {{retired}}. Should they be allowed? I daresay they should. –xeno^talk 17:18, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I say current blocks should be there. Editors who are blocked shouldn't be allowed to edit anyway, except to post an unblock request. If they want to remove old warnings and messages from their talk page then fine, but current block notices should stay since they provide a clear sign to any editor who views that talk page that the account has been blocked already. Then the editors won't keep placing useless warning templates or filing needless reports at AN/I or AIV, thinking the account is still able to edit. Kindzmarauli (talk) 17:32, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Why would editors be placing warning notices after a block notice? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:35, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

They wouldn't if the block notice wasn't blanked by the blocked account. That is why we are here. If you happen to see an article that was vandalized by someone and you go to their talk page to place a warning, a current block notice tells you they're already blocked. If the page is just empty, chances are many people will just go ahead and place it not realizing the account is already blocked. Many people do not look at block logs. Kindzmarauli (talk) 18:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

If they're editing manually, they'll see the note that the user is blocked when they edit the talk page. If they're using semi-automated tools, perhaps the tools should double-check if the user is blocked. I don't really see this as a compelling reason to add block notices as an exception. If a garden-variety vandal gets a warning after they're already blocked, I don't see a huge problem with that. –xeno^talk 18:16, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

(ec)This is probably what separates experienced admins who always look at recent contributions where the talk page edits will be the most recent, and usually the talk page history as well. The type of behaviour you describe is restricted to the types of editors who warn people for vandalism after someone else has warned them for the same vandalism. In any case placing a warning after a block has no beneficial or detrimental effect. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:19, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

• I believe not, for the simple reason there is no reason to keep them there. Many users will blank their talk page in a huff if they get blocked for a short time. What would ensue would be an edit-war with an over-keen guideline-quoting RC patroller, a request to RFPP, an indefinite block, and a permanently disgruntled blockee. We have seen this over and over again and it benefits no one. Current blocks are easily seen when looking at an editor's contributions. There is no reason to retain them on the talk page - it's not like the user will be editing while it's there. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:34, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

If "Account A" vandalizes a page and I view the diff in the page history, I'm not going to automatically view the accounts contributions, chances are I'll just click the link to their talk page. Kindzmarauli (talk) 18:14, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

They won't be vandalising if they're blocked. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:19, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

A best practice would be to check their contribs for vandalism on other pages. –xeno^talk 18:24, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

• I also don't think current block notices need to be shown. The block notice is there for the benefit of the person being blocked. If they've seen it and want to remove it, I see no reason to revert them. Unblock requests, ban notices, sockpuppet tags...those are there for the benefit of the people who may be dealing with an ongoing issue. --Onorem♠Dil 17:41, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
• I've been thinking about this in the last hour or so, and I think that they should not be counted as something that has to remain on the page. My actual thoughts are pretty nicely summed up by Onorem above - the user themselves knows that they are blocked - once they are blocked, the only page they can edit is their talk page (which, if abused, they lose the right to do), so no further warnings, etc, will be needed. The items on the "do not remove these" list are (as Onorem says) needed for other users who may be dealing with the issues. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 18:22, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
• Agree that block notices should not be added to the list, per Onorem, and to avoid unnecessary edit-wars. JohnCD (talk) 19:08, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Vandalspaces

Should "Vandalspaces" be allowed or deleted, according to the recent MfD for User:NerdyScienceDude/Vandalism space? In other words, following this MFD (please take a look at the consensus for delete; its really important), I've decided to create this discussion for the deletion of this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. Avicennais suggested that I bring it over here. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:47, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps having a "my vandalism page" was once funny, but any humor has long gone, and these pages are not appropriate. All instances should be deleted because they serve no purpose; indeed, such pages may promote the idea that some forms of vandalism are fun. I have seen a claim that having a vandalism page helps to reduce vandalism on the user page. This claim is very misguided because a genuine vandal would not even notice a vandalism page, and they certainly would not respect it. The best procedure for handling vandalism is revert, block, ignore because vandalism thrives on attention: denying that atttention is the best response. No page on Wikipedia should contain WP:BLP or WP:CIVIL or WP:NOTMYSPACE violations – this consideration also rules out having a "my vandalism page". Johnuniq (talk) 07:36, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, which is why I opened up the discussion on an MfD page (if that's a mistake, then I'm sorry; but it looks like it's going nowhere at this moment). There should be a policy against this kind of thing. Probably we should get more admins on this. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 03:34, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Johnuniq; vandal spaces should be banned. In addition to what Johuniq stated, they serve as a source of a dirty reputation for Wikipedia; as I and others have said in past AFD discussions, there have been attacks made on them that range from racist comments to homophobic slang. The fact that Wikipedia supports content like that being on here is simply preposterous to me; it doesn't matter where it appears, it's there, and it's hurtful. I believe that they very rarely, if ever, actually "divert" vandalism; if a vandal wants to actually vandalize Wikipedia, they won't be doing it in a spot meant for it. In addition, all the edits in vandal spaces does not necessarily mean that those edits would have appeared elsewhere otherwise. A long while ago, I made a "vandal" edit to a vandal space; but does that mean that if that vandal space wasn't there, that I would have vandalized elsewhere? Of course not. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 20:18, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they should be specifically disallowed unless people are just myspacing on them. I haven't really seen much "real" vandalism on most, but they don't really encourage vandalism to me. Perhaps redirect all of them to the sandbox, or just keep them as is. But there's no reason to waste our time with this discussion--it's not that big of a deal, really. And who might be practicing something other than what he or she preaches...? —fetch·comms 22:17, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I placed no such homophobic comments on their page! I simply called the page "useless"and experimenting Wikicode. That's not that big a deal, right? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 00:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

In reply to Fetchcomms: Forgive me for not understanding, but what do you mean when you say "real" vandalism? Regarding myspacing, I don't really understand that rational either. If myspacing is bad because it distracts from building an encyclopedia, how is a vandal page any different? It certainly doesn't contribute to building one. As for whether or not it encourages vandalism is up for debate, but the perception of what Wikipedia is may very well be distorted by such pages. JamesBWatson, in this MfD, mentions how he has "actually known vandals to object to reverting and warning, giving reasons which amount to 'Wikipedia is just supposed to be somewhere where you can have fun editing.'" ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 00:29, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

"You're useless"? Could have been clearer. Don't you have your own sandbox...? Real vandalism, as in not just regular users being bored, but like a vandalism-only account targeting the page. I said that the vandalism pages can be deleted if there is MySpacing on them--which I have not really seen. It doesn't hurt, and has the potential to help. Perception due to these pages? To be blunt, that's ridiculous. Perception of Wikipedia is bored kids thinking they can be stupid and no one can find them. These pages help to reduce vandalism in mainspace, not promote it. —fetch·comms 17:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

"Doesn't hurt"? MySpacing is the thing that doesn't hurt; uncivil and slanderous claims do. I don't understand why you find MySpacing to be bad on vandalpages, but insulting content to not be. To be blunt, that's what's ridiculous to me. Do you have any evidence that suggests that these pages help reduce vandalism is the mainspace? I don't see any; the most interesting thing I've seen are anonymous users who "vandalize" a vandalpage, then proceed to actually vandalize the mainspace. I've seen that happen at least once. If that supports anything, it's not your claim that it helps reduce vandalism in the namespace, but rather, it supports the opposite claim that it does support it. In addition, individually deleting vandal spaces when MySpacing occurs on them is also an odd concept to me. You state that this discussion is a waste of time; well, individually having discussions for vandalpages that happen to have MySpacing going on on them is an even bigger waste of time. Deleting these pages would be the best solution; their negative characteristics outweigh their only positive one, which is that they divert vandalism from the mainspace (which, even that claim is debatable). ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 18:21, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Both hurt. I have NEVER, EVER said that any BLP vio, libelous comment, slanderous claim, or any other form of attack statement made ANYWHERE is by any means acceptable. So I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't slander me with that sort of accusation. I do indeed have evidence that these pages dispel vandalism in mainspace pages--look at a more active one's history. Do you have any evidence that suggests that these pages defame Wikipedia? None that I have seen so far. There are always exceptions--there is no proof that the vandalpage caused them to vandalize an article. In fact, it likely caused them to NOT vandalize an extra article! I think all claims here are debatable--there is no really solid evidence either way. I think MfD for these sorts of things are odd; see my comment below about my "official" view--if no one cares about them, then just CSD. If it belongs to an active user, then there's no real issue when they are diligent in removing libelous comments. —fetch·comms 21:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Apologies if it seems that way; the point I'm trying to bring across is that if vandalspaces are present, then that sort of thing will appear on them, and that supporting the presence of vandalspaces is, in essence, supporting the appearance of that negative content. I know you, or any one of us, definitely don't want to see that, but if vandalspaces are present, they will. Most of the current active ones do not contain any significant problematic material, the worst being "lol, you suck." The recent ones that have been deleted, however, showed the worst of the worst; these contained the things I was talking about, such as racial insults and homophobic comments. These linked pages have the potential to become the same thing, which is why they are a problem. And I still don't see any evidence - as I said before, edits made to a vandalpage don't necessarily signify that those edits would've appeared in the mainspace. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 21:27, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

But my point is, that sort of thing appears inevitably everywhere. By your logic, we should semiprot all BLP pages due to potential vandalism. And I do agree that there is no evidence either way. —fetch·comms 22:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

RFC: Vandalspaces

Across Wikipedia in userspaces, you'll find plenty of sandboxes for developing articles, testing wikicode, and more. Then, you'll find vandalism spaces (places for semi-/experienced editors to be "funny") serving no purpose. Many of them contain innappropriate content,^{BLP violations, MYSPACE violations, and CIVIL violations} while the typical rationale to keep them is "having a vandalism space helps to reduce userpage vandalism", which, as Johnuiniq points out, is "very misguided" and "the best procedure for handling vandalism is revert, block, ignore." Finally, as SuperHamster indicates, "they serve as a dirty reputation for Wikipedia," expecially when they turn up in search results. monosock 23:00, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

• Wuh? If 'sandboxes' are outside policy, I'll happily zap them. Examples? Fences&Windows 23:41, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

• See the pages linked in TeleComNasSprVen's post above for examples. I would be inclined to delete the lot since they encourage exactly the type of edits we are supposed to be discouraging. They can also turn up in search results as pointed out unless NOINDEXed. Not good for WP's reputation if you are making homophobic comments or claiming that a certain (named) Hollywood actress likes to have sex with horses or whatever... --Jubilee♫clipman 23:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I was attempting to say: "Sandboxes good. Vandalspaces bad." monosock 00:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Dear me. Yes, all those should be deleted, per WP:NOTMYSPACE: "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia."; WP:UPNOT: "there is broad agreement that you may not include in your user space material that is likely to bring the project into disrepute, or which is likely to give widespread offense."; and WP:UP#GAMES: "Games, roleplaying sessions, secret pages and other things pertaining to "entertainment" rather than "writing an encyclopedia"." We may want to update WP:USERPAGE to specify that these are not acceptable pages. I'm not aiming to be a curmudgeon, but a trawl of Category:Wikipedia humor might also be wise. Fences&Windows 16:12, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

If and when vandal spaces become "officially" not allowed, it would be wise to also list vandal pages at Wikipedia:Subpages#Disallowed_uses in addition to, as you said, WP:USERPAGE. This may be a bit excessive for this small topic, but would it be a good idea to create a page at, for example, Wikipedia:Vandalspaces? On this page, it could describe what vandalspaces are, that they are not allowed, and give reasons why. I'd be happy to make it, then have it reviewed. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 16:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to say that this is only part of a time-wasting campaign by mono, et al, to purge the project of any sort of "MySpacing" in userspace. Should we delete all the humor pages as well? Can we remove guestbooks too? (Oh wait, who's been changing his opinion on those for the past month?) This is a ridiculous discussion to be having. Do those pages hurt? Well,
  • "(places for semi-/experienced editors to be "funny") serving no purpose. Many of them contain innappropriate content,^{BLP violations, MYSPACE violations, and CIVIL violations}" -- well, let's see. Uh, regular users introducing BLP violations? Block, please. MySpace violations? How frequent is that, and how many times have you MySpaced that often? Everyone does it occasionally; no one actually vandalizes for fun regularly. Show up in Google searches? Yeah, can I have an example please? Unless anyone actually looks for, say "User:Chancellor Alt/vandalize", you find it. I searched for

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• and did not come up with User:King of Hearts/Notepad/Vandalism on Wheels!, which does not have noindex as far as I can tell. Reputation? Who takes us seriously, we have a disclaimer! Wait, the media is the one who has caused the current perception of Wikipedia. Not these vandalspaces, saying that these bring us into disrepute is just absurd. And ""very misguided" and "the best procedure for handling vandalism is revert, block, ignore.""--misguided how? "because a genuine vandal would not even notice a vandalism page, and they certainly would not respect it."? Can someone explain how just even one vandal noticing and not vandalizing an article is a Very Bad Thing? And revert-block-ignore is something that needs to be applied on a case-by-case basis, because of AGF--any VOA can be blocked quickly, yes, but if one decided to be silly on a vandalspace, how does that hurt? Prove that that's never happened, and I'll be happy. Lastly, if our vandalism patrollers can't catch BLP vandalism on these pages, we have a much more serious issue in the mainspace, too. Obviously, things will fall through, but that doesn't mean all such pages should be deleted (can we remove the Seigenthaler page too?) —fetch·comms 17:57, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't take it too kindly to be considered as part of a "time-wasting campaign". I'm not sure about others, but the reason I'm against vandal pages in not because I am against all MySpacing, and it is not part of my evil plan to "purge the project of any sort of "MySpacing" in userspace". I support the use of guestbooks and humor pages. By all means, I like guestbooks and humor pages. I have a guestbook and I do read humor pages quite frequently. These pages, as long as they are in limitation and are in good humor in relatedness to Wikipedia, are great. The reason why I'm against vandalpages is because those pages are a host for scandalous claims, racist and discriminatory comments, and other insults. Yes, MySpacing does also occur on them. But there is a formidable difference between the MySpacing that occurs in guestbooks/humor pages and the MySpacing that occurs on vandalpages. The MySpacing that occurs on vandalpages is often not in good humor and not related to Wikipedia in any way. It is often random junk that is only humorous to a select group of people, usually only being humorous to the one that is writing it. Guestbooks and humor pages, as far as I know, are not a place for this sort of thing. If they are, I'll happilly support the banishment of them.

Now, you state that things such as BLP violations, in addition to appearing on vandalpages, also appear in the mainspace, which is very well true. But there is a difference in it appearing in the mainspace and the vandalspace. In articles, such things are not allowed. But on vandalpages, it is allowed for such things appear. Of course you won't delete the Seigenthaler page, because what has happened before is not supposed to happen. On vandalpages, however, it is supposed to happen, and that's just wrong. But let's say that it isn't allowed, and that vandalpages are to be patrolled to rid of any over-the-line content. Suddenly, vandalpages have become pages that have to be patrolled just like normal articles have to be. That would be a complete waste of time, to patrol pages that have barely any, if any at all, positive return for Wikipedia. Beyond that, the whole point of a vandalpage has been destroyed, because it is now being patrolled just as articles are (of course, with more leniency, but being patrolled just the same). You call this discussion a waste of this; it is patrolling vandalpages that would be the big waste of time.

As for reputation: No, of course Wikipedia won't be known as the place that has evil and malicious content on it's vandalpages to the entire world. But to a select group of people, these pages are offensive. Regarding your comment where you say, "Can someone explain how just even one vandal noticing and not vandalizing an article is a Very Bad Thing?", I believe you read the comment wrong. Johnuniq is saying in the sentence that you quoted that a genuine vandal who wants to vandalize would not vandalize on a vandalpage, but would rather vandalize on an actual article. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 19:25, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

MySpacing is okay, when used in the spirit of building an encyclopedia, and only to a certain extent. I'll use the most extreme example of bad humor out there: do you actually like to visit this page? I'd be comparing vandalpages to such a page; whereas other pages such as guestbooks are treated in lighter respect. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 20:50, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

When has a vandalpage been a "host for scandalous claims, racist and discriminatory comments, and other insults"? Al that I've seen is general harmless messing around with code and stuff. And "But on vandalpages, it is allowed for such things appear."--no, it is certainly NOT allowed, anywhere. It is not supposed to happen. "Suddenly, vandalpages have become pages that have to be patrolled just like normal articles have to be."--uh, all pages need to be patrolled. Like, one's user sandbox, or one's guestbook, or some obscure project page, all of which I have seen gross vandalism on that was not caught for weeks. Obviously, anyone who wants to cause real harm (like a run-of-the-mill VOA or Willy on Wheels, etc.) would target an article. But a curious, new user, might decide to vandalize a vandalspace page instead, thereby reducing the overall amount of mainspace vandalism and letting them avoid a warning--which sometimes defeats the purpose of DENY for certain users, but that's a whole different issue. If a user chooses to create such a page, it is his or her own responsibility to patrol the page--and if they leave, sure, feel free to delete those pages as useless. But for someone active in vandalism patrols, and whose userpage might be a target for persistent vandals, it is a useful page to keep. I never said that you are personally part of a time-wasting campaign--but I just see this as a useless discussion. I have, however, seen some other users continue to lead a sort of crusade against these sorts of pages--most of which are inactive and do no harm. Let sleeping dogs lie, no? Some of the rationales I have seen from others are rather POINTy to me, and some seem more valid. But can we just write articles and forget about this?

When would MySpacing be in the spirit of helping the encyclopedia and be OK? The concept of MySpacing is detrimental to advancing Wikipedia. ED is NOT close to a vandalpage at all. They do not exist solely to attack people. Their purpose to avoid such attacks.

My "official" stance is, for any user whose vandalpage serves no real purpose because no one will see it, sure, delete. But for anyone whose page is still employed in a useful fashion, keep. We can't mass delete these things--it has to be case-by-case. —fetch·comms 21:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Do you suggest that we tag vandalism pages with "no real insults allowed"? So we delete some vandalpages and keep others. The problem here seems to lie in how useful a vandalism page actually is. For an example in how difficult it is in determining the usefulness of a page, see Chancellor Alt's: :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 22:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Your mom dad! oooh...
Dar-Ape 03:03, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I would say that usefulness is determined by pageviewability--so any editor who has edited recently (maybe the past year to be a bit broad and general) and who was a vandalpage can keep their page in light of it being useful. But any useless page, from someone with maybe 20 edits or who hasn't been around for years, those can be deleted as generally useless. (Also, I moved your comment down...) —fetch·comms 22:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

How is ED not a vandalpage, when it clearly exists to disparage BLPs such as President Bush? This content-free encyclopedia is exactly what's encouraging vandals and co. to mess up main- and user-space. And what is pageviewability? I think the usefulness of a vandalism page should be determined by whether it fulfills its purpose or not. For example, you mention that it diverts vandalism away from userspace; has anyone vandalized this, as opposed to the Userpage (see userbox to right)? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 03:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• Of course, yes, we're here to build a reputable and reliable encyclopedia, but do you propose to turn the whole of Wikipedia into a Victorian school, or some sort of dictatorship where any form of amusement is treated with the upmost scrutiny? Honestly, what is the point of living if you can't have a bit of fun in a while? I personally have a slightly amusing user page (whilst I do not have a vandalspace), and I don't think it at all distracts me from doing work on Wikipedia. No, we're not a social network, but my page, and I'd say that most, if not all user pages I've been on have not in any way reminded me of my Facebook profile at all, they are just a bit of harmless fun that helps other users mesh with other users so that our work only here is a little less painless. WackyWace ^{talk to me, people} 20:26, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

@Fetchcomms: the NSD vandalpage contained several very racist, homophobic, and sexist comments; this Google search contains three vandalpages, including the cached version of Nsd's page from 16 May 2010. I initially also thought that Mono's action against NSD's page was a waste of time but quickly realised he was correct in his assessment. "Reputation? Who takes us seriously, we have a disclaimer!" Well, if no one takes us seriously, not even us, ourselves, there is little point editing...

@Wackywace: no, I don't want "to turn the whole of Wikipedia into a Victorian school, or some sort of dictatorship". The last thing I want around here is the Ministry of Happiness ensuring everone is miserable and working as hard as possible on articles, policies, deletion discussions etc. On the other hand, we have Policies and Guidelines for a reason: we are ultimately working towards the same goal so we need to follow the same strategies even if we use different tactics for certain aspects of the campaign. The ultimate goal of WP is the creation of an encyclopedia. Certain things would seem to be peripheral to that goal but are actually there to motivate the editors: guestbooks, humour pages, userboxes, and many other things. Many of my user talk discussions go off at weird tangents and we often do discuss things off-topic to WP, such as other websites we have joined or what grade piano we got to. If all we were doing was discussing such stuff, we might as well join MySpace or FaceBook; but those aspects of the discussion are generally short and intended as light relief from the often onerus tasks we have voluntarily decided to undertake. Nothing wrong with that.

One issue only touched upon so far is that these pages contain "rules". Well, vandals have no rules so how do you expect anyone vandalising a vandal page to follow the rules? It is a contradiction in terms.

The main reason I object to vandalism spaces, though, is that while they might not cause Wikipedia's reputation to be damaged they certainly contribute to that damage. Imagine if we all had such pages: the perception that the rest of the world would have of us would be that we are a bunch of hypocrits. "Look", they would say, "these people hate vandalism in articles and even block vandals but actively encourage it their own user space but never block themselves." OK, it is unlikely that everyone would create such pages or even that 10% of active editors would do so; however, the perception is still going to be that we allow vandalism when it suits us but delete and block when it doesn't. Pure hypocracy, according the rest of the world. Should we care what they think? Of course we should if we are to retain any sense of dignity and encourage intelligent and thoughtful editors to join us. If all we want are hacks who couldn't care less about the stuff they write about, then what does it matter what the rest of the world think? Vandalism pages represent a dumming dowm of Wikipedia's standards that needs to be checked here and now. The fact that they often contain offensive or libellous material (that still turns up in cached results) is almost secondary to that --Jubilee♫clipman 23:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

That was a joke... but we do indeed have a disclaimer. No one actually searches on Google for "vandal space", correct? We do not encourage all vandalism by having these pages--we discourage it in the mainspace. It's a preventive or alternate method, not a hypocritical one. Anyone who thinks "that we allow vandalism when it suits us but delete and block when it doesn't" needs a cluebat, you can't make everything clear enough for a very stubborn person. As I said, I see no real way that these contribute to our "bad reputation" of sorts. There is simply no evidence either way--no "evidencial consensus", if I can say. So, deal with these on a case-by-case basis, but keep those which still serve their purpose. —fetch·comms 23:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

In any case, I am advocating that any user with a vandalpage needs to keep an eye on it. Not trying to blame anyone, but the fact that BLPvios were let in and not immediately removed brings only disrepute to that user. —fetch·comms 23:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

In reply to Fetchcomms:

I confess that I did a purely-bad job at conveying what I wanted to say regarding what's allowed and what's not. You're completely correct about the BLP-violations and all the jazz not being allowed anywhere on Wikipedia, and I worded what I said to sound just like the opposite; however, what I basically wanted to say was that on vandalspaces, based on all of the ones that I've seen, none of those policies were actually enforced, which is why I say that they are "allowed". In technical terms, yes, they're not allowed, but in reality, it wasn't actually enforced, as was seen on NerdyScienceDude's vandalism page; as a result, in essence, it's "allowed". Now, if the pages were to actually be enforced, I would think that that would be a large waste of time: to patrol a page that is simply used to place random junk on. That's my view, at least.

However, I like what you said about it being a user's responsibility to upkeep their own vandalpage. If a user wants to make sure that their vandalpage is clear of any out-of-line content, that's fantastic, and I wouldn't have as much as a problem with such pages. It's just that I haven't seen it happen yet, and I doubt that many users who say that they will patrol their page will actually live up to that standard for an extended period of time, and I do believe that it will end up being more problematic in the end. From what I've seen, many vandalpages are also created by new users; these users are not aware of Wikipedia policy, and as a result, don't actually clean out their vandalpages. This leads to problems, like this whole discussion for starters. I know that I keep rambling on about you calling this discussion being a waste of time; however, I doubt that all those individual discussions to delete individual vandalpages, which may very well stretch on with arguments as we see here and have seen in past MfDs, would constitute as being a useful use of users' time either. Vandalpages may be helpful and could possibly be held up by several users, but when so many haven't been and aren't being done so, I think it would be wise to simply ban them altogether to avoid foreseeable problems in the future. If users want to direct new users who want to make curious edits elsewhere, there's always the Sandbox that they can link to.

When I say "good" MySpacing, I mean things such as guestbooks. They certainly constitute as a form of communication that is often not directly related to Wikipedia; however, it is a mode of collaboration, which is what Wikipedia thrives on, and they are generally problem-less and help promote both a good atmosphere and potential collaboration. I myself have met a user through my guestbook that sparked up my involvement in different areas of Wikipedia, and another user met me through signing mine, in which they promptly invited me to a WikiProject afterwards. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 00:22, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The issue is, many vandals (though not all) find every page something to put their crap on. Yes, I agree that upkeep of the vandalpages is not evident currently, and I certainly agree on the guestbook issue. Perhaps, as I mentioned earlier (I think) that we simply redirect all these vandalpages to the general sandbox, and any user who commits to maintaining his or her own vandalspace can change the redirect back. —fetch·comms 00:35, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

You did mention that earlier. I like the idea, but there are some things wrong with it that I don't like, as I think that it would end up a bit more problematic than necessary. In the long run, we'd have to inform new users who create a vandalpage about upkeeping it and we'd have to make sure that vandalpages are actually being monitored by the user, all while it's a page that doesn't have that much of a great product as a result of its existence. It's completely up to anyone's guess, but I also believe that over time, there is a chance that interest in maintaining vandalpages (on the behalf of both the users who own the page and others who are checking them) would decline back to where it is now, unless we have some sort of a "foundation". Since users didn't do a great job of monitoring them in the past (because as you said, the presence of those attacks and BLP-violations is a no-no anywhere, but their presence was still in the vandalspace for long periods of time), I believe that if we do go with what you suggest, it may be a nice idea to make a new page that acts as a policy regarding vandalpages that basically tells users that they have to upkeep their vandalspace from out-of-the-line edits, or it'll be redirected. Anyone else who's reading this want to add their input? It would be appreciated, since I guess we're pretty much at a standoff right now (though I'm pretty much neutral with Fetchcomms' idea; it it's implemented, great; if not, that's also great). ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 03:12, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Basically, a vandalpage is only acceptable if it lives up to its own standards. Does this mean that since most vandalpages don't live up to that certain standard that they can be deleted? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 03:40, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree with making some sort of guideline about it, and I would say redirected first, but deleted is fine in most cases as well, I suppose. —fetch·comms 13:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. This is not a proposal to eliminate "vandalspaces", it's a proposal to eliminate sandboxes. Policies such as BLP already apply to user space and can be enforced there. A user subpage containing silly, irrelevant edits may appear to be useless, but is actually a tool for community development and community relationships which later aid in the coordination of editing. It may also allow editors to provide feedback on the editing skills of other editors. Dcoetzee 15:02, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Dcoetzee, please take a look at the links at the very top of this section before going off about sandboxes rather than vandalspaces. These are clearly degrading, insulting use of userspace. I also provided an example with the picture above. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 18:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Others seem to think that my stance is "eliminate sandboxes," which is incorrect. I use sandboxes heavily, and approve of them, as long as they remain appropriate for the encyclopedia, based upon policies/guidelines such as WP:BLP and WP:CIVIL. I fully understand that Wikipedia is not censored. —mono 18:57, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I am undecided on the issue of vandalboxes. I do not feel that inappropriate content or images should be allowed in them, but I also feel that, if a user is going to make inappropriate edits, it is much better for those edits to be madfe in a vandalbox than on a userpage. Immunize _{Contact me} Contributions 20:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

If sandbox pages contain offensive content then it should be removed. There's no such thing as a "vandalspace" - to my knowledge no user has ever created a page designated for use by vandals, and the very idea of creating one is silly. The so-called "vandalspace" page deleted in that MFD discussion is just a sandbox page with a facetious name, and contains very similar content to Wikipedia:Sandbox. I'd like to think we can also distinguish harmless frivolity from actual attacks. Dcoetzee 21:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

If you looked at the page that NerdyScienceDude had before it was deleted, it clearly had a tag on the very top of the page designating "For vandals, only". You could also say that the tag contained, "Please do not place offensive material here", but whether the user was checking for that is in dispute. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 21:20, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The tag did not say "For vandals only." As far as the offensive material goes, I only considered personal attacks, such as things like "Suck my dick" or "Fuck off", as well as swearing to be "offensive". None of the vandalism were attacks pointed directly at another editor. I'm now neutral about this since I really don't care anymore. ~NerdyScienceDude (✉ • ✐) 21:24, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have misunderstood the tag then. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 00:31, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Just a note (and a page break)

Note: It is interesting that most of the people who comment in the Vandalspaces section appear to be Mono's tps. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

We do not appear to have consensus on what to do with Vandalspaces. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

What I think we could possibly do is to have a list of the different options, similar to what is being done with the RfC for unsourcd BLPs. Users then provide either their support or oppose for each one and provide a bit of reasoning. If enough users participate, it would *hopefully* end up being a consensus. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 14:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposal:

• Rename "vandalspaces" to "sandboxes", changing the "idea" to present a more constructive use of pages.
• Remove "vandalspaces" from user page design materials, such as WP:UPD, instead encouraging sandboxes.
• Delete all "vandalspaces" with content violating policies/guidelines.
• Delete vandalspaces on a case-by-case basis, similar to the "secret pages" MfD.
• Clarify that content violating WP:BLP, WP:CIVIL, etc. will be deleted in userspace.
• Encourage renaming of "vandal spaces" to sandboxes. —mono 23:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Regards, —mono 19:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Good idea, I only thought of simply deleting and then recreating those vandalpages as sandboxes (like the Great Flood). :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 19:12, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose This is nothing but instruction-creep. Defamatory statements and the like are prohibited by existing policy. There's no need to ban vandalspaces. Wikipedia isn't a gated community with a restrictive covenent. As long as users aren't allowing toxic waste to spill out over their yards, let them put whatever lawn ornaments they like in their space. Violations can be dealt with individually; there's no evidence that this is a widespread problem that can't be dealt with under existing policies. --Danger (talk) 20:38, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

But this is exactly the problem; "let[ting] them put whatever lawn ornaments they like in their space"; especially when such lawn ornaments become insulting and degrading, as I've pointed out by providing the picture above: "Your mom dad, ooohhh!" Is that acceptable? Also, it violates this. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 21:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, lawn ornaments that violate civility or anti-defamation policies are part of the toxic waste category. There is no need for my town to pass an ordinance prohibiting the creation of outdoor galleries of nude statues made of human feces; it's already covered under the health code. As to your example, I really can't be bothered to get worked up over it; this is the internet and we don't have to look at bare buttocks if they offend us.

And regarding the existing rules about user space use, I'm agnostic about whether vandal spaces are or are not prohibited. My point still stands though. If they are already prohibited, then this proposal is redundant. If they are not prohibited, it has yet to be shown that they are a problem great enough that they cannot be dealt with under existing policy. --Danger (talk) 21:53, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The problem I see is that, while policies certainly exist that disallow the appearance of BLP-violations, attacks, etc., they are (or were) a common sight to see on vandalpages for very long periods of time. The reason I say "were" is that the worst vandalpages have already been deleted as a result of several MfDs that occurred a short while before this RfC was initiated. Moving on, there are policies, it's just that they aren't being applied like they should be. The current vandalpages that we see linked at the very top of this section contain only a very limited amount of insultive content as compared to what's been seen in the short past; however, the reason I support the deletion of vandalspaces overall is that based on what I've seen before, these pages have what I describe as the easy potential to become what's been seen before, that being highly offensive pages that are against policy. Now, perhaps not every single one may turn out badly given exposure to vandals; some users actually patrol their own vandalpage, such as this one. However, the large bulk of them are far more "exposed" to inappropriate content that will likely not be removed for a long period of time once it's been placed. As stated, not every vandalpage is a bad one, but I believe the solution to delete them is far simply and much more hassel-free than if we are to individually check each one on a timely basis to see if it actually falls in-line policy. The only other alternative I see to deleting them is to make sure that they are all actively patrolled, which isn't the current state-of-mind that the community has towards them, as evident by current and past vandalpages. However, once again, I believe that that would turn out to be too much of a hassel for something that is not very detrimental, of even helpful, to Wikipedia.

But either way, I guess what Jubilee said below is what will unavoidably happen; this discussion will never actually reach a solid consensus. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 22:28, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose all per Gimme danger. We cannot simply mass eradicate these, because some are still, and eliminating all of them is basically eliminating the idea of a sandbox, regardless of what you claim. Can you explain what the difference is between vandalism at WP:SAND or on a vandalpage? None, the same rules still apply. —fetch·comms 21:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Per above. I feel that the vandalspaces containing defamation or other very inappropriate content should be dealt with on a case by case basis. Immunize _{Contact me} Contributions 21:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - I suspect that banning, restricting or otherwise limiting vandal-spaces is going to become one of those Perennial Proposals that some agree with and some don't but with no consensus either way. Personally, I think we should ban them for the reasons I stated above; clearly, others disagree with my reasoning and think we should tolerate them but not necessarily encourage them. We all agree that unacceptable edits on vandal-space pages should be dealt with in exactly the same manner as unacceptable edits on any other page. Perhaps that latter should be our priority for now --Jubilee♫clipman 21:22, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Yep. —fetch·comms 23:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
    • You mean, like this? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 17:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

We should simply revert back to the last revision that does not contain offensive content. Immunize _{Contact me} Contributions 13:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I would support an outcome like the secret pages MfD. These are simply too wide to deal with accurately on a mass scale. —fetch·comms 21:00, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Another Proposal

Okay, let's say we decide to review them on a "case-by-case" basis.
Then we can, for the users who are long gone, no longer contributing, and that they're vandalpages are no longer functioning:

1. Delete Chancellor Alt's, Charlie Huggard's, SlightlyMad's, Dark Ermac's, Crisspy's, Crodo's, and MJfan9's vandalpages.

or

2. Redirect them to the Wikipedia sandbox.

Remember, the rationale for this is that the users are no longer active (aka "retired"). :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 17:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

• Obviously I am inclined to say "yes, delete the lot". OTOH, those pages haven't been touched for years and contain very little of real offence. The picture of someone's backside is actually a photo of a replica of Donatello's David and is in fact used in the article on Buttocks. I would personally kill new vandalpages... Some one else will reject that idea though! --Jubilee♫clipman 19:10, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
• I would just say redirect. That way, anyone who happens to stumble upon it somehow will get to the sandbox and vandalize there rather than see a "oh this page is gone guess I have to mess up a real page now"-inducing message. —fetch·comms 21:00, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
• With respect to no longer active users, review on a case-by-case basis with redirection to the sandbox for non-functioning vandalpages seems appropriate. Shanata (talk) 14:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
• The problem with vandalspaces is that they don't work. At least not as advertised: An RC patroller active in anti-vandalism puts up a vandalspace page politely asking vandals to "please vandalize this page instead" so that those nasty vandals won't vandalize his userpage. A vandal comes along, sees the vandalpage, laughs and does whatever the hell he wants anyway. Does noone see how absurd this is? If a malicious vandal really was intent on vandalizing someone's userpage I doubt they would be swayed by any polite notice or directions to a subpage. They're very much aware that it's meant to distract them away from the person's userpage. Plus having a target accessible for the mischief makers is no different from feeding the trolls and just validates their actions. -- œ^™ 09:27, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
• Of course OlEnglish is correct: no vandal would want to vandalize a page saying "vandalize here". What such pages will tell vandals is that there is a certain acceptance of vandalism, even a form of respect because some Wikipedia editors feel that vandalism is sufficiently funny to dedicate pages in its honor. Johnuniq (talk) 11:18, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't see any proof for that conclusion, nor did I think that there is a form of respect for vandals to dedicate funny pages (they aren't even funny) when I first saw one of those pages, before I was an active user. —fetch·comms 16:17, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't see any proof for the opposite conclusion either (that a vandal would want to vandalize a page saying "vandalize here"). So we're at a deadlock. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 21:47, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Another proposal (2)

Without question test pages and sandboxes are useful, Wikipedia humor has a valid place, and a page for witty or off-topic comments can add a smile or a lighter side to Wikipedia. There is a difference between those and permanent, invited, "homage to vandalism" pages or "vandalism shrines". It's hard to draw a line, but I would say users should not have pages that invite actual vandalism or appear to endorse or support vandalism. Even if the vandalism were in one namespace or a subpage it would contribute to a perception that vandalism has a place somewhere - a view which I do not follow and would not wish to see gain any legitimacy.

In other words, sandboxes are obviously not a problem, but inviting or condoning vandalism is. There is usually no good reason why a sandbox must use or invite vandalism for its test edits. Even "If you want to vandalize my page do it here" pages are poor ideas - WP:DENY and WP:RBI are better.

Proposed addition to "#What may I not have in my user pages?:

Pages that encourage or condone vandalism, disruption, copyright violation, privacy breach, or defamation. Vandalism in userspace may be removed by other users (see Handling inappropriate content).

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 14:44, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

But the issue is, vandalism will always exist, so we are "encouraging" it in a less disruptive setting. I don't feel that this is actually encouraging anything (none of the vandalspaces are heavily used), and none of them encourage personal attacks or copyright violations. To use a blunt example, this is like advocating safe sex--you can't eliminate people having careless sex altogether, but you can certainly tell them to do it in a safer, healthier manner, if that makes sense at all. —fetch·comms 16:21, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I am doubtful that edits made to a vandalpage signify that those edits were diverted out of the mainspace. I believe that vandalpages only add to the vandalism already on Wikipedia, not divert it. Looking at your safe-sex example, it sort of follows this line. Condoms, while they help with safe sex, also increase the amount of sex that takes place that otherwise wouldn't have occured. In comparison, vandalpages, while they place vandalism in a less-important area, also increase the amount of unconstructive edits that take place that otherwise wouldn't have occured. Of course, there's no evidence of this, but that's what I believe happens. Thankfully moving on from the safe-sex analogy, as OE states, someone who wants to vandalize an article wouldn't go, "Oh! Look! A vandalpage! Instead of hurting Wikipedia and vandalizing an article, I can just do it in a less-harmful way and vandalize a vandalpage." Yes, vandalism occurs in the mainspace, but now similar edits are also happening on additional pages where it need not be (once again, no evidence, but that's what I believe is happening). As for whether or not it encourages vandalism: it may unclear how vandalpages contribute to the perception of Wikipedia, but I think it puts it in a light similar to what FT2 said. I know that I've said this before (and you proceeded to call it ridiculous [=), but as JamesBWatson said in a previous MfD, he has "actually known vandals to object to reverting and warning, giving reasons which amount to 'Wikipedia is just supposed to be somewhere where you can have fun editing." Of course Wikipedia is supposed to be a place to have fun (which is why I edit), but it should also be to build an encyclopedia; that user's perception, however, is not that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but something more of it being a giant party. Vandalpages, which are places for users to randomly blabber (which may be considered "fun") and not focus on building an encyclopedia at all, in my view, contribute to that perception. I think it is clear, at least to me, that they do encourage personal attacks or copyvios to occur on vandalpages by simply being titled "vandalpages", especially to new users. Let's take a look at User:Blood reaper/Vandalism page. In the rules, it states that offensive language and stolen content is not allowed. However, both appear, as there is both mildly offensive content and the lyrics to a song at the bottom. The rules themselves encourage the opposite of attacks and copyvios, yet they still occur, simply because the page being a vandalpage basically makes it seem like anything goes to new users. In the end, I support FT2's proposal. Thanks, ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 17:54, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support There is no reason to imagine that a vandal would even see a vandalspace page, let alone use it in lieu of damaging an article, so the suggestion that vandalspace pages have a purpose is incorrect. Vandalism will always be with us, and experience has shown that the best results come from WP:RBI and WP:DENY. Pages suggesting that some forms of vandalism are fun are misguided. Johnuniq (talk) 01:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support Vandalspaces do little to avert vandalism from the mainspace. Those who enjoy vandalizing Wikipedia will not be deterred by a vandalspace that condones vandalism. The potential for BLP violations and other harmful content in these unpatrolled pages significantly outweighs the benefits they may have in averting vandalism in the mainspace. Cunard (talk) 05:49, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support Placing this in the context of pages that condone or encourage copyright violations and defamation brings this home. All such pages should be discouraged. Vandalpages do encourage BLP violations, copyright violations, and racist, sexist, homophobic language: the recently deleted pages prove that beyond doubt. It also makes no sense to claim that vandals will edit on these page rather than in mainspace: why on earth would they bother? These pages are created purely for "fun" and are not usually really that funny, at all --Jubilee♫clipman 21:24, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Probably-way-too-simplistic proposal

My understanding of the rules surrounding userpages is essentially: If a given edit would be quickly reverted in articlespace(for reasons of personal attacks, profanity, BLP, etc) then it's probably not something that should be included ANYWHERE--not on a userpage or in a user "sandbox". Even granting that our policies for userspace are more lenient than those for articlespace, our policies exist for a reason, and these policies should still have at least SOME teeth no matter what kind of "space" the violation is in.

These "vandal pages" sound as though their content, in whole or in part, is prohibited in most of WP; if that's the case, if these edits wouldn't survive any policy-based scrutiny, then they DO NOT belong in userspace--whether it's a subpage, a userbox, or a sandbox. Does this make sense to anyone else? GJC 03:15, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense to me, and I think it would be safe of me to say that everyone else here agrees that BLP violations, attacks, and copyrighted content should not be allowed anywhere. That's been something used in both sides of the discussion; on one hand, all pages are subject to violating policy when they are vandalized, so does that mean that all pages should be deleted since their content, at one point, has in the past or may in the future be prohibited by WP? On the other hand, many vandalpages, as evident by looking in the past and in the present, are often not as heavily patrolled, if at all, as compared to articles and the such and are often subject to holding inappropriate content for extended periods of time. Even then, there are two sides: do "many" vandalpages constitute as all? Should all vandalpages be deleted just because only some of them hold inappropriate content for longer periods of time? Or should they all be banned for the sake of simplicity and less hassling on an otherwise non-detrimental page, where they could all end up with the same faith as their counterparts? IMO they're all valid reasoning. I side with the latter, others side with the forerunner, but everyone agrees that content prohibited by WP is not allowed anywhere.~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 04:08, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, as stated by SuperHamster, such edits are disallowed everywhere onwiki. As I said earlier, I'm willing to compromise with redirecting or deleting all existing found vandalpages and anyone who is willing to patrol their own may have one; if they do not keep that up it may be deleted. It's not too hard (I think) to run a DBR based on a regex to find all these pages, and any new ones. —fetch·comms 21:11, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Removal of block notices

As this page is currently worded, it is ok for users to remove block notices but not declined unblock requests. It seems to me like the block notice should stay up for the duration of the block. At the very least it will let any user stopping by know that the person they are talking to is currently blocked, and it can help admins reviewing an unblock request see why the user was blocked in the fist place as there is often a specific reason included that goes beyond what one can glean from the block log. It seems nonsensical to make users keep declined unblock requests but allow them to remove the initial block notice. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:26, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

• This is discussed above at #WP:REMOVED - should current blocks be in the list? The reason to not allow users to remove declined unblock notices is to prevent gaming the system. When editing a user talk page of a blocked user, a log of the block is shown - so one knows to look in the history if no block notice is found. If a user is removing the block notice while simultaneously posting unblock requests, surely that will be looked upon unfavourably. –xeno^talk 17:29, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Oops, didn't see the recent conversation on this rather long page, I'll just move up there. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:34, 28 June 2010 (UTC)