Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates/Archived

This area of discussion is frequently a locus of heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when responding to comments on this talk page.

-

Userboxes are sometimes deleted by administrators if there are thought to be valid reasons for their removal from Wikipedia. However, some userboxes may be inappropriately deleted. Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates considers appeals to restore userboxes that have been deleted. It also considers disputed decisions made in deletion-related fora. Before using the Review, please read Wikipedia:Deletion policy and Wikipedia:Undeletion policy.

Category:User undeletion lists a number of administrators who are prepared to honour good faith requests for the restoration of deleted content to your user space, for example if you want to work up a more encyclopaedic article. This does not require deletion review, you can ask one of them directly (or post a request at the administrators' noticeboard).

Purpose

Userbox debates Deletion Review is the process to be used by all editors, including administrators, who wish to challenge the outcome of any deletion debate or a speedy deletion unless: They are able to resolve the issue in discussion with the administrator (or other editor) in question (this should be attempted first - courteously invite the deleting admin to take a second look); In the most exceptional cases, posting a message to WP:AN/I may be more appropriate instead. Rapid correctional action can then be taken if the ensuing discussion makes clear it should be. An administrator (or other editor) is correcting a mistake of their own, or has agreed to amend their decision after the kind of discussion mentioned above. Deletion Review is also to be used if significant new information has come to light since a deletion and the information in the deleted article would be useful to write a new article. This process should not be used simply because you disagree with a deletion debate's reasoning — but instead if you think the debate was interpreted incorrectly by the closer or have some information pertaining to the debate that did not receive an airing during the AfD debate (perhaps because the information was not available at that time). This page is about process, not about content, although in some cases it may involve reviewing content.

--Ssbohio 01:29, 20 May 2006 (UTC) This process is about userboxes, not about people. If you feel that an administrator is routinely deleting userboxes prematurely, or otherwise abusing their powers, please discuss the matter on the user's talk page, or at Wikipedia talk:Administrators.

If you nominate a page here, be sure to make a note on the administrator's user talk page regarding your nomination. A template is available to make this easier:

{{subst:DRVU note|section heading}} ~~~~

Similarly, if you are a administrator and a page you deleted is subsequently undeleted, please don't take it as an attack.

Please take general discussion to the talk page.

Speedy deletions of templates can be done by administrators under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion if the template falls into this category (often referred to as T1): Templates that are divisive and inflammatory. The following is a proposed T2, but has not become stable: Templates designed for user pages that express personal beliefs, ideologies, ethical convictions, or viewpoints on controversial issues. (as of 15:37, 13 May 2006 (UTC))

Mackensen's Proposal

NB: This was originally from a DRV discussion, but needs its own heading

• Comment. Let's be clear about this: administrators have always been given leeway in interpreting *fD, based on policy concerns. My principal motive here is to end the Userbox Wars for good. They could be over tomorrow. I think this would be a beneficial result; we could all go back to the article space where we belong. There are, to my mind, two principal factions: there are users, largely long-time sysops, who abhor userboxes in the template namespace. Part of this is a legitimate concern about vote-stacking. They also feel it sends the wrong message. I think I'm safe in saying that, at this point, keeping most userboxes in the template namespace is a non-starter for this group. Now, the other "faction" is numerous on Wikipedia, but counts few administrators. This has contributed, in my view, to a culture of misunderstanding, which is unfortunate. They view userboxes as a legitimate tool of self-expression; while I do not agree, I must respect this view. Attempts to remove the userboxes from the template namespace have been treated as censorship; I think most admins would disavow any such inclinations, but that's what it looks like, and we have not been as communicative as we could have. So. Where to compromise? I think the answer obvious. We subst all userboxes onto userpages and then delete them from the template namespace. This way, everyone has their boxes. Lists of template code can be maintained so long as there is no transclusion going on. This will satisfy the sysops, of that I am sure. I would call this a Burkean peace–Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord fomented...It is simple peace; sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. Boxes for all, but not in the template namespace. On your userpages they are safe forever, and sysops will quake no more. How about it? Is there anyone else out there who could agree to such an idea? Mackensen (talk) 21:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Per request, I've moved all this to Wikipedia:Mackensen's Proposal. Mackensen (talk) 22:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I applaud any effort to end the Userbox Wars. Septentrionalis 02:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Alternative userbox proposals Rfrisbie^talk 02:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Userbox policy
  • Wikipedia:Mackensen's Proposal
  • User:Misza13/Userbox Gallery Poll
  • Wikipedia:Userbox policy poll (Failed to achieve consensus)

• Just a note. I think WP:MACK better addresses where we are NOW than the others do. One of them, the last, is effectively dead. Misza13's is still in development and is very simliar to Mackensen's Proposal. - Nhprman 04:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• And Wikipedia:Userbox policy? I would recommend this one to any userbox fan for this portion: "[Userboxes] may not contain images or language deliberately inflammatory, destructive, or obscene." I find this a much better compromise than either T2 or Mack's proposal. But I definitely think people should be focusing on the proposals, rather than on deleting the userboxes right now. TheJabberwʘck 17:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

May 15, 2006

Template:User scientology

Original deleted template:

S	This user is a Scientologist.

Proposed template for undeletion:

S	This user is interested in Scientology.

Tony Sidaway deleted this page based on the new in-discussion T2 deletion criterion. I propose that, regardless of whether T2 is or becomes established policy or not, this template be undeleted so that its original, belief-based contents ("This user is a scientologist.") can be replaced with new, specialty/interest-based contents ("This user is interested in Scientology."), so that, rather than dividing users based on ideology, it brings together users with a shared involvement or interest in an article topic. The reason I can't simply create a new userbox under the old name is because the page is protected, and I would greatly prefer that the template be undeleted so that the edit history is accessible (I can see no value in hiding it from non-admins) and the old style and layout of the userbox can be continued even while the text is changed. (Note that if T2 is not accepted policy, I would propose that a new userbox, {{user scientologist}}, be created for the old contents of this box.) -Silence 23:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete and rewrite to express an interest/expertise rather than a belief. (This will also make the template much more widely-used than it was: it only had one or two users before, but I expect it'll end up with dozens once it's opened up to include non-Scientologists who are interested or involved in this encyclopedic topic.) -Silence 23:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - I actually like Silence's idea. Unfortunately, not everyone who expresses a religious POV is neccessarily interested in editing such articles. So I think it would be better to delete all existing religious userboxes, and then create new templates for editing interest in religion - I certainly would find any such templates unobjectionable. --Doc ^ask? 23:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree that not everyone who expresses a religious POV is interested or willing to edit the articles in question, but I think that the vast majority are at least "interested in X", and those who aren't can easily remove the userbox in question after it's been moved and rewritten. However, although I don't think it applies to this specific template (only about one user was using it in its old form, and its actual name is suggestive of an "interest" template, not a "practitioner" one, so rewriting it would be very easy to do), your point is a valid one for at least some belief-based templates: the racism userboxes, for example, probably couldn't be rewritten to "This user is interested in racism." without getting complaints, so it may be necessary to simply delete those under T2. For most of the religion-based ones, though, I think that relatively few users would object to simply renaming them: anyone who uses {{user alchemist}}, for example, probably won't care much if "This user is an alchemist." is changed to "This user is interested in alchemy." However, if you think that it's better to be safe than sorry in terms of changing the text of userboxes, I propose that we do the following: subst all userboxes in their old text, then move and reword them. Anyone who doesn't like the substed version can then freely switch to the new, interest-based box, and as a bonus we don't lose edit histories, layouts, or talk pages in the transition, and cause a minimum of disruption or controversy. Plus it's simply faster to subst and then move a template than to start a whole new template from scratch, and one of the biggest concerns about userboxes is that they draw too much time away from working on the encyclopedia, so a simple and quick solution is a very good thing. What do you think about that possibility? -Silence 23:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Another advantage of the subst-and-move/rewrite version of my proposal, incidentally, is that it will at no point involve a template-deletion, meaning that users will be unable to bring the transferred box up at this DRV page (they'll have to discuss it on the relevant Talk pages instead) and flood us with more debates if we do decide to mass-subst-and-move most of the boxes on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion. :) That's surely an appealing bonus, Doc, since you, Cyde, and many others have been complaining so much about the time and effort wasted by having to deal with so many userbox deletion reviews. Accordingly, the most efficient way to solve this mess is surely to eliminate the POVed templates without involving deletion in the process at all! A further benefit of the subst-and-move/rewrite (as opposed to "subst-and-delete") is that this renders the process transparent and viewable to non-admins, so there will be less ill-will or hostile accusations of "admin abuse" involved, and the change overall will seem much less dramatic and excessive than a mass-deletion of userboxes would, even while it still successfully neutralizes the expression of POVs from transcluded user-templates. Win-win, don't you think? -Silence 00:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per above. There is nothing wrong with expressing an interest. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 23:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - T1&T2. --Cyde Weys 23:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2. If you want to say you're interested in Scientology, why would you want to transclude this template, even if it was changed as Silence suggests? What if someone changed it back? Suddenly you're no longer interested in Scientology but a Scientologist yourself. We know quite well there are enough people to start a revert war. Just write it down, or if you find it so hard to put it in context, create your own userbox. Know what - since it takes an entire, wearisome 2 minutes to create a custom userbox with the special generic template supplied at WP:BOX, here you go: User:Samuel Blanning/User scientologist. Subst that and you're done. I'll delete it the second I see someone transclude it. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:38, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  This is an unrealistic and trivial concern. Such a change would be reverted within minutes; you might as well argue that Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology is a bad idea because a Scientologist could try to edit the text to make it a pro-Scientology WikiProject rather than just one that's about Scientology. I very much doubt that such a thing would ever happen (Scientologists have shown very little interest in userboxes, as shown by how very few have ever used it in the past: they tend to find it easier to further their agenda when they aren't so explicit about their beliefs), and even if it did once or twice, it'd be an incredibly minor issue and would cause no lasting damage to anything. I think you're imagining a problem where one doesn't exist here. A template for users interested in Scientology is no better or worse than the templates we already have for users interested in politics, users interested in assorted musical instruments, users interested in history, etc., and no one has seriously proposed deleting those. Although I'm sure your complaint is in perfectly good faith, and I very much appreciate you taking the time to create a userspace page for users to subst: the code from, I think your zeal to destroy these boxes is causing you to dismiss an effective and simple compromise before it's been given a chance to work or not work. -Silence 23:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  I don't consider the possibility that a page on a wiki might be edited to be unrealistic and trivial. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 10:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  Two fallacies: strawman, and appeal to ridicule ("if evolution is true, that means my grandmother's a monkey!"). Rewording and mangling someone's argument to make it seem like something it's not is not counterarguing against it, it's just rhetoric. By your logic, we wouldn't have any templates, because it's possible for every template to be edited (unless it is protected, which is just as easy to do for this template as for any other, if your notion ever really does become a problem in the future, which any reasonable user can see it almost certainly won't). The hole in your conception is that you don't seem capable of acknowledging what a trivial and transient nuisance such vandalism is, how absurdly easy it is to remedy, and how incredibly unlikely it is ever to occur, much less to occur in significant enough quantities to become a meaningful annoyance (in fact, if a Scientologist ever does try to change the template back to "This user is a Scientologist.", it's almost certain to be a direct result of your suggestion that they can do so; an examplary WP:BEANS demonstration). "We shouldn't have a useful template for X topic because someone could edit it someday to say something it shouldn't" is amazingly flawed and unconvincing reasoning. -Silence 14:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  Two fallacies in a single sentence that most would consider uncontroversial. I feel like I should get a prize, or at least a booming Unreal Tournament "DOUBLE FALLACY!" voiceover. Anyway, your argument rests on the claim that changing this template to say 'This user is a Scientologist' would be vandalism of the same scale as changing it to say "This user is a tool" and thus reverted without question. It's quite obviously not. It could legitimately say either "This user is a Scientologist" or "This user is interested in Scientology" - we know that's true because it used to be the former and you're suggesting the latter. And yet they're two completely different things, and anyone who used it could suddenly find their userpages changed to something completely different from what they wanted to say. And if it's not meant to ever be changed, why does it need to be a template? P.S. I also like your claim that I'm WP:BEANSing: "This will never happen, but if it does, it's your fault, Blanning". --Sam Blanning^(talk) 14:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  "Two fallacies in a single sentence that most would consider uncontroversial." - Please read logical fallacy, since you're clearly unfamiliar with what a fallacy is. A fallacy is not necessarily untrue: you could use an ad hominem fallacy to dismiss my arguments, for example, and even if the ad hominem was accurate, it would be irrelevant, because propositions are not judged based on the merits of the proposer. The core of a fallacious argument is not that it's necessarily untrue, but that it's a distraction from the issue that was actually being discussed: by distorting beyond recognition the argument I'd actually made, rather than simply responding to my statements, you changed the debate to an entirely unrelated subject, and I had the option either of letting you do so or of pointing out the fallacy and thus asking you to respond directly to what I'd said; I chose the latter. I apologize if I was unclear in this in my previous post.

  "Anyway, your argument rests on the claim that changing this template to say 'This user is a Scientologist' would be vandalism of the same scale as changing it to say "This user is a tool" and thus reverted without question." - Actually, my argument does not rest on that at all. It merely rests on the notion that any interested users will have it on their watchlist; vandalism does not necessarily have to be dramatic to be reverted quickly, as anyone familiar with Wikipedia is surely aware. And I, certainly, will be keeping an eye on the template once it's undeleted, to revert any malicious edits to it immediately (though I doubt any significant ones will ever occur, as I noted above already; none have ever occurred in the past, so why should they in the future?). Your fears are thus misplaced, and even were they , would be a reason not to forbid users from expressing this specific interest on this specific userbox, but rather reason to protect the page once it's recreated to avoid such an eventuality (were your fears justified, that is). Either way, the problem is (A) a very slim possibility, and (B) a ridiculously trivial problem even if that possibility ever is fulfilled. It is therefore unreasonable to ban a userbox such as this from existing based on such speculative grounds. Though I appreciate your concerns, they are clearly exaggerated a thousand times out of proportion here, and this argument doesn't really have any special relevance to this template, as there is no more chance of it being targeted than of any other box (including babelboxes), and certainly less chance of such vandalism being troublesome to revert than for many other, less-mainstream userboxes.

  "we know that's true because it used to be the former and you're suggesting the latter." - It used to be the former solely because of how disorganized many userboxes' names are. The correct formating for the old version of the userbox would have been {{user scientologist}}, in keeping with the other religious boxes. The fact that this one was in use at all is just a historical quirk, not a meaningful distinction between this and any other box.

  "And yet they're two completely different things, and anyone who used it could suddenly find their userpages changed to something completely different from what they wanted to say." - Get your facts straight. Next to nobody uses this, and next to nobody ever has. This is one of the most obscure and underused religious userboxes on all of Wikipedia (especially remarkable considering how old it is). Undeleting it so it can be reworded to an appropriate, non-T2 version (which will also inevitably be dozens of times more popular than the old, less-useful POV-expressing version) poses no significant risk whatsoever. You are so devoted to your bizarre hypothetical future scenario that you're completely ignoring the actual circumstances of the page in question.

  ""This will never happen, but if it does, it's your fault, Blanning"." - This is something of a misrepresentation. I correctly pointed out that the most likely reason such a thing would ever happen in the future, if it were to happen at all, would be because of your suggestion (since it's such an unusual and unlikely thing to ever happen at all for any reason, considering how incredibly underused this template was in its "This user is a Scientologist." form, which you don't seem to grasp: most users won't even realize it ever had such a form, once it's reworded!) This is not meant to put any present or future blame on you for anything, merely to point out, correctly, that, as with the "beans" analogy, it's near-certain that noone would have done what you're describing if we hadn't wasted this time discussing it; now it's still extremely unlikely, but if it does occur, it'll be pretty obvious that it was inspired by this inane discussion. However, my real argument, in full, was more "this is extremely unlikely to ever happen, and if it does, it'll be so trivial and easy to fix that it won't even be a blip on the radar". Which is true. Your worry really is unsubstantiated by any evidence that such a thing would actually happen, much less by evidence that it would pose the grave, life-ruining threat you seem to be imagining. This is such a silly, quibbling, and unlikely eventuality that I'm amazed we're even discussing it. April Fool's Day is long gone, right? Baffling. -Silence 22:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted per T2 and per above Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2 and use it as a Userbox in User space, however you choose to word it. - Nhprman 23:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2. Enjoy the power of creating wiki markup on your very own user page, which no one will interfere with. There's no good reason for these to stay as templates. Nandesuka 00:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  It clutters and disorganizes the page's code horribly, wastes much more time and effort copy-pasting than a template (thus taking away editors' valuable time from editing the encyclopedia), and has no benefits over the simple and convenient mechanism of userspace templates. If you personally prefer not to use templates on your user page, you are free to do so; forbidding everyone else to do so, however, is unjustifiable by policy or by common sense. Plus it's actually beneficial to let different users who are interested in Scientology contact one another: the problem is with Scientologists gathering, not users interested in Scientology gathering, and this is a very convenient, simple, layed-back way to facilitate such interest-based communication without requiring the more formal, obligation-implying measure of joining a WikiProject. -Silence 05:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  If your userpage is cluttered by markup, either you should consider organising your userpage in subpages, or you've got too much markup and not enough content. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 10:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  More judgmental, do-exactly-what-I-say-and-lay-your-page-out-exactly-as-I-wish userpage-mandating. Usertemplates have a long, long history and cause no server issues, have no inherent problems with letting users contact one another, and are valuable tools for efficiently adding significant, compacted information (like web browser, editing interests, and languages spoken) in a specific style and format, for users who prefer to use them than to use the raw code. It should be left up to the users' choice, not forced on them my unnecessary stylistic omniconformity. Ultimately, forcing people to deal with the code will cause many of them to waste more time with userboxes, and thus spending less time on the encyclopedia; it is in everyone's best interests to keep things simple, or at least to give people the option of doing so. Moreover, userboxes are not currently against policy, so even if it is your opinion that they should all be scourged from the face of the planet, it is inappropriate to entirely disregard current policy and process on a DRV by voting based on what you wish the state of affairs was. -Silence 14:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted divisive.--MONGO 02:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  "This user is interested in Scientology." is divisive? In the way a Babelbox is divisive, I suppose... -Silence 05:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted and spend the time you would have used debating this and write a fuller, well rounded description of your interest in Scientology on your userpage. Wouldn't that be more useful? Rx StrangeLove 05:02, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  My proposal above is specifically designed to help us avoid wasting time on userboxes. By simply altering most userboxes (like this one) to express an interest rather than a POV, we can satisfy the wishes of both sides effectively, while avoiding endless DRV nonsense and factionalizing. This is the userbox DRV to end (almost) all userbox DRVs, if it can only get some support so we can get the "move templates from beliefs to interests" idea rolling and avoid another war over this crap. Are we so in love with this silly conflict that we instinctively reject any attempt to resolve things peacefully? -Silence 05:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  As long as there's transclusion going on you'll get objections. Mackensen has the right idea, I don't think you're going far enough. I think we should all get behind that and be done with it. I also think you should stop questioning every entry here. Rx StrangeLove 15:10, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted how would this help the encyclopedia? --Tbeatty 05:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  By helping users who are interested in the many Scientology-related articles on Wikipedia state their interest in a simple, easy way. -Silence 06:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  Join Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology. If you feel the desperate need, see if the other people there would like to have a user box like {{WikiProject member/Scientology}}… HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 08:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  I already pointed out above that there is a major difference between joining a WikiProject, which entails responsibility towards that project's specific goals and aims, and adding an interest-related userbox to your userpage, which only denotes interest or involvement in an encyclopedic topic: much more casual, and thus much more appealing to users who don't want to get tied down by individual WikiProjects, but do want to express their interest or expertise in certain areas of Wikipedia. Plus, obviously, many WikiProjects find userboxes extremely valuable tools for identifying members at a glance, so this could just as easily become a userbox used by that project (and, in fact, surely will, as soon as it's undeleted). I don't see a "desperate need", but there's also no desperate need for Babelboxes: they're just a valuable utility for Wikipedia, like interest-based userboxes (such as {{user politics}}, {{user baroque}}, and {{user architecture}}). I don't see the benefit of forbidding users from having a template specifying an interest in a specific major religion with dozens and dozens of important Wikipedia articles devoted to it. There's obviously nothing wrong with {{user religion interest}}, so why is there something wrong with corresponding userboxes for individual religions? Arbitrarily forbidding them expressing a certain major and significant interest in userbox form, and essentially forcing people to use a specific method if they want to contact other users with an interest, seems rather absurd, and certainly counterproductive with respect to Wikipedia's interests. Giving users more options is a Good Thing. -Silence 08:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  I was unaware that joining a WikiProject entails "responsibility towards that project's specific goals and aims"!!! The project I have the most experience with, WP:Beatles, has a core of dedicated users and a larger number of people who just seem interested in the topic and edit as the spirit moves them and there's nothing at all wrong with that. So I'm not following that argument too well. ++Lar: t/c 17:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  And I'm sure not all of those users have signed up at the project, much less all of the users who commonly edit articles related to The Beatles! I was not trying to imply that any one WikiProject or other is at all restrictive in its goals, merely pointing out that some users prefer to sign up at WikiProjects, and others prefer to express relevant interests using userboxes. Forbidding one or the other, and especially arbitrarily forbidding a specific interest-related userbox for a randomly-selected religion, is clearly not remotely helpful to anyone (and is, in fact, harmful). There is no policy justification for banning the use of messages along the lines of "This user is interested in the encyclopedic topic Scientology." or anything of the sort, especially when the template hasn't gone through TfD (or even been given a chance to exist at all, even is a test run!). I'm not arguing against WikiProjects, I'm arguing for letting the users decide how they prefer to help Wikipedia! More options means more activity and interest from users with different tendencies and preferences, which ultimately, in the long run, means much more valuable editing. Why is that simple idea apparently so repulsive to so many users here?

  The complete unwillingness to compromise, discuss the relevant propositions (chiefly "subst + move/reword" as an alternative to "subst + delete" for certain templates), or try new solutions out to at least find out if there's a better way, being expressed here is horrifying. Are we so stuck in the mud at this point that we shoot at any hand that tries to pull us out of it? Replacing belief-expressing userboxes with interest/expertise-expressing ones is an extremely reasonable proposal that could have immense value for Wikipedia, both in converting userboxes of mediocre relevance to ones of high relevant for Wikipedia, and in diffusing a huge number of potential conflicts and disputes that will arise over merely deleting such templates without weighing the other options. The only explanation I can see for such unwillingness even to discuss that proposal is that too many users are wrapped up in battling the "enemy" to evem remember that peace is more important than absolute victory, as that's what will let us, all of us, return to editing the encyclopedia as quickly as possible with as little hostility and resentment as possible. That's all I'm arguing for. -Silence 22:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy delete as patent nonsense. JUST KIDDING ... undelete as an improper speedy. Admins should enforce policy, not invent what they would like for it to be. BigDT 05:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'm fairly disappointed that you, and several other users above, seem not to be paying any attention at all to the specific argument above for how to handle all these userboxes, but just voting as a knee-jerk reaction the same way you vote for all religion-related userboxes. No wonder we're having such a communication breakdown on these debates, if people are just autovoting for everything based on their hot-button issues, not on the specific situation or possibilities.... Oy. -Silence 08:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  My vote has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't utter. I meant exactly what I said (all joking aside) in this vote. If I were basing my vote on religion, I certainly wouldn't be voting to keep scientology, atheist, or varies sex. As I said in my vote on this and on ever other DRV, my vote is because it was an improper speedy. This deletion, Template:User Church of Christ, Template:User sumofpi, Template:User atheist, Template:User Christian, and Template:User varied sex - every single one of them - were improper speedies. The ONLY question that matters is whether or not the speedy was proper. It is not a knee-jerk vote on a hot button issue. It is a vote against out-of-process deletes that by all rights SHOULD have been speedy undeletes. This is hardly even debatable. If something doesn't fit the WP:CSD, how can it be speedied? If the speedy was improper, the only recourse I see under the rules is to undelete. "We don't like the policy" is not a reason for ignoring it. BigDT 12:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  "My vote has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't utter." - And nowhere did I say that your vote was based on religion. Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't utter. The thing is, sumofpi and varied sex were improper speedies because they don't fall under T1 or T2, but atheist and CoC and Christian and scientology (and Zoroastrian and sikh, which haven't been nominated here yet) were improper speedies for non-policy-related-matters: because they should have been resolved through renaming and rewording, rather than immediately going to the last resort of speedy-deletion. And they still should: {{user atheist}} should be moved to {{user atheism}}, "This user is interested in atheism." If T2 is here for keeps, then we should vote in the appropriate manner to enforce it, but we also shouldn't get so trigger-happy that we don't consider any viable options except speedy-deleting! -Silence 14:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  "voting as a knee-jerk reaction the same way you vote for all religion-related userboxes" - I interpreted this to mean, "you are voting this way because it is about religion." If you say that this was not the message you were trying to convey, I will WP:AGF. If T2 becomes the law of the land, then obviously, everything having to do with religion gets speedied. As for changing the content of Christian, atheist, etc, I don't like that one bit. Make a new one that says, "this user is interested in Christianity" - that's fine. I can't speak for everyone who has the former {{user Christian}} on their page, but I would think that many/most would have little interest in one that just expresses an interest, rather than a membership. Take it out of the context of religion for a moment. "This user is a Senator". "This user is interested in the Senate". They express totally different messages. It may be that both are true ... but you can't just assume that they are both true and put words in everyone's mouth. I put the userbox on my page as an expression of belief, not as an expression of editing interest. It happens to be an editing interest, but that doesn't make the two equivalent. If T2 becomes law, I'd rather subst/speedy all religion boxes than turn them into something they don't necessarilly mean. BigDT 03:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  I apologize for being unclear in my initial comment, I didn't mean to imply that the religious nature was playing a role in people's votes, merely pointing out that the same people who always vote "delete" on this type of userbox are voting delete here, and the same people who always vote "keep" on this type of userbox are voting keep here, which suggested to me that users were ignoring the actual suggestion I made for this box. The comments confirmed it: only one or two users seemed at all aware of what I was suggesting, and even those misunderstood certain aspects of it. For example, you've missed the aspect of my suggestion where we subst all these templates before moving and rewriting them (in other words, "subst-move-and-rewrite" rather than the laborious "subst-delete-and-DRV"), thus ensuring that the original users keep their version, while we simultaneously fix the problem with that version for future users, all without any messy deletions and the fights they inevitably generate. Simple, subtle, effective. The pro-userboxers get their substed T2 versions and their templateified non-T2 versions, and the anti-userboxers get to eliminate all POV-expressing user-templates in a non-offensive and easy way that will ensure the quickest and smoothest transition period, thus allowing us all to get back to working on the encyclopedia. So, to state yet again the sequence of events (example template: {{user muslim}}): (1) subst {{user muslim}} to all the users' pages; (2) move {{user muslim}} to {{user islam}}; {3) change text from "This user is a Muslim." to "This user is interested in Islam."; (4) profit! -Silence 20:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted. —Phil | Talk 08:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - although I've no objection to a 'this user edits Scientology-related articles' neing created as an alternative. --Doc ^ask? 12:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  That's exactly what I created this vote for: to make such a template, something impossible to do at the most consistent and intuitive name available ({{user scientology}}) unless the template's undelete-protected. And if we're going to do that, we might as well just undelete the template itself and then make the change, since it hardly makes a difference one way or the other if the POV-expressing version isn't the current one, and salvaging the edit history is a very worthy thing to do in the long run. Though if for some reason that's completely unacceptable, at least unprotecting it would be sufficient for making the new template, and would be satisfactory in the broader sense. The main reason I brought this to vote wasn't to see how many people like or don't like T2 (such a banal and irrelevant matter is already demonstrated by other DRVs): it was to get an idea of whether people would be interested in getting rid of many of the POVed userboxes through subtler and more diplomatic means than deletion where possible, like rewrites and page-moves, since I've suggested this in several places so far but gotten little response. So far, that attempt at opinion-gauging has been unsuccessful, as most peole don't seem willing or able to judge the specific situation at hand and say what they think about the "opinion -> interest" move option. :/ Thanks for voicing your mind on the matter, at least, doc, even though I don't fully understand your vote. -Silence 14:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete Scientology seems to me often more like a business than a religion. Homestarmy 12:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  That isn't really a relevant issue here. -Silence 14:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  Well it is to me in terms of me deciding what my vote is :/.

• Keep deleted for obvious reasons. - Mailer Diablo 17:05, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted in parallel with all the other religion/belief userboxes that also need to go or stay gone. ++Lar: t/c 17:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• SUPER Strong keep deleted as discussed - Glen ^T_C (Stollery) 17:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted Although it would be nice to know why the hell this whackjob is messing with the Psychiatry page, just no. --mboverload@ 18:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC) Long history of deceptio
• Undelete, by standards of Wikipedia:Userbox_policy. I am rather disgusted that the votes focus entirely on the subject matter. This should not be the case. It doesn't really matter whether the subject matter is scientology or the scientific method. What should matter to us are the standards that we universally use to judge the appropriateness of userboxes..... oh, wait a minute. There's the big problem. We don't have accepted standards on this yet. That, of course, leaves people to vote with their gut. Hence the guy who voted undelete because he or she did not like the Church of Scientology. Thank you much for the vote, I think it's the right decision, but I disagree with your reason behind it.

  And, unlike some people (let's not be coy, I'm talking about Cyde), I don't think the ends justify the means, no matter how correct the ends may be. This entire userbox mess is a prime example of the necessity of playing on an even foundation, an even playing field. What we really need is order. That is why I strongly suggest that you take your decisions on votes for deletion or undeletion of userbox templates based not upon individual feelings (e.g., "I'm afraid templates are going to take us over! TOO DIVISIVE. DELETE." or "I smoke weed, so I should support the FREEDOM OF SPEECH of this pro-drug template! UNDELETE.") but upon a standard policy. Imagine if we had the same situation, where everyone is coming from a different direction, with NPOV. Or notability. Every single AfD vote, people would be coming from different ideas as to what is notable. (Come to think of it, sometimes people do, at that, but they get sorted out...)

  Now, one important thing. Yes, I know there isn't OFFICIALLY a policy on this but this doesn't prevent you from using it. When the userbox policy went to the polls it got 61%, so it's not just some random idea out of nowhere. Most support it. It's not official policy at this time because it didn't achieve a supermajority, and we really need to get something that is official. But, as long as you are going to vote by some criteria, for Wikipedia's sake, please, do it by an orderly criteria such as the candidate official policy. You can see it at Wikipedia:Userbox_policy. I hope we can make it actual official policy soon (or, some other policy, after discussion). This is very important, as it is causing a total lack of order that is very harmful to us. Follow Wikipedia:Userbox policy! D. G. 07:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete even though this is an almost useless userbox forced by T2, it doesn't meet T2 (or T1) standards, and thus should be send to TfD. TheJabberwʘck 18:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Why does it seem like close to 100% of the "delete" and "undelete" voters alike didn't bother reading the initial reasoning for the undelete? Nowhere have I contested that "This user is a Scientologist." falls under T2: the reason this should be undeleted is so that a new, much more valuable (as shown by the fact that almost no users ever put the original form of this template on their userpages) template can be created in place of the original, while preserving the original name and edit history. Both sides of this debate seem to be too much on autopilot to really consider the circumstances here.
• The reason this, {{user atheist}}, {{user Christian}}, {{user sikh}}, {{user Zoroastrian}}, etc. should be undeleted isn't because they're OK in their current formats (they aren't, if T2 is policy): it's because they can extremely easily be converted to acceptable versions, thus diffusing the problem and slicing smoothly through the tangled Gordian's knot of this dispute. Rather than wasting more time on DRV debates like this, why not simply remove the unacceptable elements from templates like these and convert a troublesome problem into a useful tool, all while avoiding deletion-generated hostilities? That is what I'm arguing for, and why I proposed this DRV: so we can stop wasting time on this userbox hatin' and return to editing the encyclopedia, transitioning into a T2-adherent set of userboxes as smoothly and easily as possible. Are the pro- and anti-userboxers too consumed by this debate to care anymore about striving for peace and compromise? -Silence 18:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - if someone wants to create the above "This user is interested in scientology", there is nothing whatsoever stopping them from doing that. The focus of this DRV should be soley whether the deletion of the template that actually existed was appropriate, purely because the two templates are not mutually exclusive. You can create "This user is interested in scientology" right now, today, so there doesn't need to be a vote/consensus/expression of opinion/whatever you want to call what we are doing here on it. BigDT 18:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  You are incorrect, it's impossible to create a new template with the same name at Template:User_scientology: the page is protected. The same applies to {{user christian}}, {{user sikh}}, {{user atheist}}, {{user Zoroastrian}}, {{user Church of Christ}}, and, come to think of it, {{user creationist}} and {{user evolution}}, which could also be converted into very valuable interest/specialty-expressing templates. (And, as is the case with the scientology template, I'd expect that most users who are interested in creationism on Wikipedia, and work regularly on that topic, aren't actually creationists.) Furthermore, as I mentioned previously, it would be very helpful to be able to keep the old edit histories around (i.e. accessible to non-admins), hence the benefit of an undelete here, and an undelete-and-move for the other templates I just mentioned (in addition to the benefit that it will make it impossible for us to waste more time with DRVs of these in the future, will keep the Talk pages cohesive, and will consume less time than a simple subst-and-delete). -Silence 19:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  Compromise Suggestion I apologize - I misread your point and purpose then ... how about this as a solution, (1) request that this DRV be ended as WP:SNOW. It isn't really going to ever accomplish anything because the only question answered in a DRVU is whether the template that used to exist should be undeleted. (2) Create a new template somewhere else containing the text that you would like. (3) Use {{Editprotected}} on the talk page of Template:User scientology and request that an administrator unprotect it and redirect it to your new template.

  I very much appreciate the helpful suggestions, but I don't like this specific suggestion at all. It sounds like a monstrous waste of time, incredibly unnecessary, and honestly just plain silly in the level of bureaucratic wrangling and redirecting required. What's so intolerable about the 20 seconds required to undelete the template, alter the text slightly, and move on with our lives? That suggestion itself was a major compromise. Yours just seems bizarre: I see no reason to believe WP:SNOW applies here, this template is meant to answer the question of whether the template that used to exist should be undeleted (the only difference is the reason it should be undeleted: so it can be edited into a more useful template, not so it can be kept in its unacceptable form), creating a new template elsewhere is wasteful of Wikipedia resources (and making brand-new userboxes at this point is discouraged anyway), and {{editprotected}} won't restore the edit history, though if this DRV fails (though I see no reason why it should; no good rationale's been proposed yet for not undeleting this so it can be converted into an acceptable and valiable userbox), I'll certainly use {{editprotected}} so the new template can at least be created, even if the history's lost. C'mon, I thought the main rationale anti-userboxers were using for all their "creative" DRV and TfD interpretations was that result, not process, is importnat? If that's the case, then why are those exact same people suddenly refusing to consider the result (and the quickest way to reach that result) when the circumstances change slightly? -Silence 19:51, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted, T1. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Consensus seems to be emerging to disallow such religion templates in template space now, but let's allow people to place this on their userpages in raw code only. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, T2 isn't even a solid policy yet. How can it be enforced? JohnnyBGood t c 00:53, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

  It's become policy because it reflects a pre-existing practice that fulfils a need. That need was previously being met by a contrived reading of T1. Having a clear T2, as we do now, is a much better solution than stretching the words of T1 beyond their natural meaning. You'll find that a lot of admins will enforce T2, even people like me who were uncomfortable about the way the words of T1 were previously being stretched. Metamagician3000 09:22, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted policy is decriptive, not proscriptive. -- Drini 21:04, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. The only reason this was brought here it's because Tony Sidaway deleted it. It's a bad faith nomination with no real arguments and thus should be closed. -- Drini 21:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

  This claim is grossly inaccurate, and rather bizarre (why would I care who deleted it? I have no issue with Tony Sidaway). You clearly have not read any of the discussion involved in this template's nomination at all (much like most of the other voters here). Please review Wikipedia:Assume good faith and remember to treat your fellow editors in a respectful and polite manner, and also remember that a healthy debate requires that all participants respond to one anothers' points, and do not merely dismiss arguments based on ad hominem claims. (In reality, the reason this template was nominated for undeletion is because a template for "This user is interested in Scientology." would clearly be very useful and appropriate for Wikipedia, and having such a template at this specific name makes by far the most sense, and is by far the most consistent with the dozens of other userboxes which have now been changed per my above proposal at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion. The fact that this vote has failed to generate any real discussion of the issue it was nominated for is indicative of an unwillingness by the editors here to discuss or reason about the relevant issues; it will now be necessary to wait until the environment has changed to a healthier and more open-minded one before this template can be renominated for undeletion, unfortunately.) Thank you for your vote, and have a nice day. -Silence 21:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

  Huh? Why do you think that? Yet another lame sig I came up with ^{T | @ | C} 23:15, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:User Church of Christ

Tony Sidaway deleted this page. Undelete! Mr Bisciut 22:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• 19:40, 12 May 2006 Tony Sidaway deleted "Template:User Church of Christ" (WP:CSD#Templates)

• Undelete just like all of the others. Until a community consensus is reached and the policy changed, it is not up to administrators to enforce a non-existent policy. BigDT 22:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• My vote: undelete this along with the two listed on this page ({{user christian}} and {{user atheist}}) and the other religion templates recently deleted ({{user sikh}}, {{user Zoroastrian}} and {{user scientology}}), before we get (falsely) accused of bigotry: there's no need to stir up ill-will by deleting arbitrary specific religions' userboxes. It should either be all or nothing, regardless of the solution. It seems to me that the ideal way to implement T2 (assuming it's accepted policy) while wasting as little time and effort as possible and causing as few wars and conflicts over it as possible, is to simply move most belief-based templates to interest-based ones. In other words, if T2 is established policy (obviously T1 doesn't apply here), rather than stirring up trouble with mass-deletions (Improv's strategy from a while back, which failed) or random deletions (the current strategy, which is also failing), change the text to express an interest, involvement or specialty in the topic the userbox deals with. For example, change {{user muslim}} ("This user is a Muslim") to {{user islam}} ("This user is interested in Islam"), as what articles you're willing or able to edit is much more relevant to Wikipedia than what religion you follow; there's no need to subdivide Muslim editors of Islam-related articles from non-Muslim editors of Islam-related articles. Likewise, undelete this so it can be changed to an interest-based one that doesn't exclude people who don't belong to that specific Church but are knowledgeable or otherwise involved in the topic, and undelete and move {{user sikh}} to {{user sikhism}}, {{user Zoroastrian}} to {{user zoroastrianism}}, and simply change the text in {{user scientology}} to "This user is interested in Scientology." (Surely someone Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology would appreciate!) A simple move is much faster than having to create brand-new templates, and preserves many templates' edit histories, talk pages, and layouts efficiently. And, most appealingly, it's a quick and easy solution that will resolve people's worries about POV-expressing templates without generating undue hostility or censorship-paranoia. -Silence 22:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, T1&T2. And it is going to be all or nothing, just give us a little more time. It would be all or nothing a lot sooner if every little thing wasn't being brought to DRVU, actually. --Cyde Weys 22:43, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Maybe if the discussion on the CSD talk page was completed with reasonable arguments that separate vote-stacking and userboxes for instance this may be easier. Perhaps putting more work into WP:MACK would be a solution. Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Do whatever happens to {{User christian}} and {{User atheist}} and would it kill anyone to table/put a moriatorium on new T2 deletions until the first one is off DRVU? Kotepho 22:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Admins seem to be more afraid of being told not to wheel war than being bold in reacting to this controversy. Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted and Userfy - along with ALL other Religion templates, so they can be used on User pages, just not stored in Template space. Nhprman 23:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Why is Template space so special that it can't be used for Religion templates? Are they really harming Wikipedia? Or are they just annoying admins? Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted This can be hardcoded if anyone needs it --Doc ^ask? 23:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  You mean someone needs to have HTML knowledge to make it up. And how is it suddenly going to be reasonable to have this statement on their page just because the mechanism of putting it there changes? Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete per BigDT. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 23:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2, see the Scientology userbox discussion for my concerns about Silence's idea. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:38, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2 and the above Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted divisive.--MONGO 02:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  What about inflammatory? Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete T2 is pretty new, come on now. Besides, this time it's not even about a religion, but merely a denomination. Homestarmy 12:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted and write something on your userpage describing your interest in this topic instead of arguing here about it. Rx StrangeLove 18:25, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - T1/2. Metamagician3000 07:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  T2 is still proposed criteria that is basically being held on the page while a consensus is created. T1 defines that it must be divisive and inflammatory, how is it both? Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

  I respect your opinion but I disagree. T2 is good policy because it gives effect to an existing practice for which there was a need. The practice was previously given a basis in policy by a contrived reading of T1. The reason that a few of us pushed for the new T2 was to put the practice on a proper basis - have somewhere in the policies where it could find a proper home for all to see. But please understand that Wikipedia policies are not law. The various policies and so on give practical guidance, but they don't enshrine rights. If a practice goes beyond the written policy for justifiable reasons, that causes some discomfort and inconsistency, but they may best be addressed on some occasions by modifying the wording of the policy to reflect the practice. I've come to the view that this has been one such occasion. After all these months, it was time to make some concerted effort to get controversial userboxes out of template space. That need justifies the practice, and that justifies formalising it as T2, or an addition to T1, or whatever. I'm not the only one who will enforce T2 even while having been uncomfortable in the past about stretching the words of T1. Metamagician3000 09:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted per T2. Can always be restored when a better policy is implemented. TheJabberwʘck 18:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  T2 is not policy just because it is on the CSD page. It has been rushed into use by a few admins, and its constant referencing here wont help in settling the difficulties with it. Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted divisive. - Mailer Diablo 00:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

  What about inflammatory, where is the statement in it intended to inflame anything? Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. Classic T1. (would probably be called a T2 now) --Tony Sidaway 03:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. How is a statement of belief divisive and inflammatory. Seems like people think that T1 only needs one criteria, in which case any categorisation comes under divisive and hence all templates based on categories can be chosen. I am not trying to set up a straw man, I am just stating that to be fair, having a bunch of admins going gun-ho to delete using a newly created criteria before it settles down will not help at all. The worst that could happen is that wikipedia gets a permanent name as being controlled by rogue admins, and the overall quality of the encyclopedia will decrease. Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, no reason to delete. Stifle (talk) 18:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, meets WP:UBX, Wikipedia:Userbox policy and T1. T2 is not valid at this time.JohnnyBGood t c 21:25, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:User iamafish-en, Template:User iamalemming-en, Template:User iamamonarch-en and Template:User iamanaeroplane-en

File:CohoSalmon.jpeg

This user is a fish, or at least thinks so.

This user is a lemming, or at least thinks so.

File:British Royal Family.jpg

This user is a monarch, or a megalomaniac.

File:FA-22 Raptor.jpg

This user is an aeroplane, and can be annoying. No offence to pilots.

All were deleted just 2 days and 4 hours after the nom by the nominator. I suggest relisting. --Rory096 21:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Utter crap - keep deleting - and if anyone really want the code we can put it on their page. --Doc ^ask? 21:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Even if it should be deleted, we should be going through process to do it (and it probably would have been deleted if it had). --Rory096 21:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Take some time to read WP:SNOW and WP:POINT. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 21:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per compromise above. Let me remind everyone that the templates themselves were only deleted after they were substituted onto all userpages that had included them. These templates are now a non-issue, as even if they are undeleted, they will just simply be orphaned unencyclopedic templates. --Cyde Weys 21:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • So if templates are substed before being deleted out of process it's fine? That seems silly to me. --Rory096 21:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Like I suggested, take some time to read WP:SNOW and WP:POINT. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 21:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
      • WP:POINT? Like TfDing dozens of userboxen with the same nom and then closing the debates yourself? --Rory096 22:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
        • Please read WP:POINT again. What you are describing is NOT WP:POINT. --Cyde Weys 22:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
          • Well, then I'm not sure what he's referring to. --Rory096 22:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Subst and delete worked well for MarkSweep. Kotepho 22:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Keep Deleted and Subst'd so users can continue to use them in User space. Nhprman 23:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment -- can we see what the templates being discused are? --T-rex 14:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• I thought a policy had been put in place to prevent new user templates from being created (in which case keep deleted), if however I am mistaken and that is not policy then undelete and relist --T-rex 19:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete -- utterly stupid, but not meriting a speedy. And certainly NOT meriting a deletion by the nominator--absolutely unacceptable. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 00:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and list at TfD Do not merit criteria for speedy deletion. JoshuaZ 00:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, return to TFD - they are stupid, but stupid isn't a speedyable offense. BigDT 03:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, clearly patent nonsense and meaningless. Doesn't pass Wikipedia:Userbox policy. D. G. 07:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
  • The userbox policy is only proposed, and isn't a CSD either. --Rory096 21:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Patent nonsense is a general site-wide Wikipedia deletion policy. --Cyde↔Weys 15:46, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• undelete improper deletion. these never met T1 or the T2 under discussion. Mike McGregor (Can) 15:32, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per Matt. TheJabberwʘck 17:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete Seems that they don't meet speedy criteria :/. Homestarmy 19:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I have replaced this discussion per Wikipedia:Undeletion policy, which clearly says "A page listed for undeletion should remain on DRV for at least five days." As this was listed on the 15th, and today is the 18th, that period has not yet expired. --Rory096 22:38, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and let the TFD run its course. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:24, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per the others - deletion by nominator is not appropriate IMHO, although the nominator seems to think everyone does it. Which, as of late might have some truth to it... *sigh* Yet another lame sig I came up with ^{T | @ | C} 08:37, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete тəzєті 13:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• No harm either way - userboxen seem a little pointless but not an insult or an attack on anything -- Tawker 14:00, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:User sumofpi and Template:User Sumofpi2

I apologize if I did not do this correctly - this is my first time raising a deletion review.

I refer to Wp:tfd#Template:User_sumofpi and [[1]].

For reference, here is the closing administrator's summary:

The result of the debate was speedy keep the content. As comments overwhelmingly addressed the content of the box rather the status which it occupies, I'm closing this as a subst the content and delete the actual template. No actual content is lost in the process, and the removal of said code to a user's page places it beyond the bailiwick of TfD and CSD.

In the case of the former, there were 24 keep votes and a whopping FOUR delete votes. Most people who expressed any other meaningful sentiments at all clearly understood that they were voting to keep the template itself, not just the content. In the case of the latter, 21 people voted to keep it. Six voted to userfy or delete it. Again, those who expressed an opinion from which an understanding can be derived seemed to understand that they were voting to keep the template itself, not just the content.

I would ask that the anti-Userbox administrators respect the TFD process and delete or keep according to consensus, not according to their personal views on userboxes BigDT 20:15, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• And the template is being kept on the user's pages where they wanted it. No content is being deleted. I observed the avalanche of keeps and acted appropriately. Process has been followed throughout. Mackensen (talk) 20:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - This isn't a vote. If those 24 people saying keep didn't address any actual issues of why this needs to remain a userbox, and they didn't, then the template is substituted and deleted. --Cyde Weys 20:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Excellent job. endorse close. --Tony Sidaway 20:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• People get to keep their decorations - but we get them out of the template space - excellent compromise endorse --Doc ^ask? 20:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• If you guys consider that to be a "compromise", why are we wasting our time on TFD discussing them? Whether the consensus is delete or keep, you will do the same thing. BigDT 20:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  It's hardly a waste. We went to TfD to see what people wanted. It's clear they want these boxes on their pages. So they have boxes on their pages, and we've followed process to the letter. No more quiet deletions. No more boxes strangled in the dark. Now everyone's userpages can look just as they did before, with no objection from any administrator because the boxes are no longer in the template namespace. Mackensen (talk) 20:32, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete I have to say that since the decision was to keep the template, it should have been kept. If people wanted it to be subst'ed and deleted, they would have voted that way. —MiraLuka 20:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Isn't the net result the same? Mackensen (talk) 20:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  No, it is not the same. In one scenario, the one chosen by the people at TfD, the template stays. What actually happened was that the template was deleted. —MiraLuka 20:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Please step outside this narrowness for a second. The template is on people's pages. It has stayed there. The instance in the Template space is gone. What's wrong with this outcome? Mackensen (talk) 20:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• I offer as evidence of the actual consensus, the vote counts themselves:
  • • Subst and Delete (2) - Doc, Nhprman
    • Delete (3) - Steinbach, ShiningEyes, Cyde (inferred as nominator)
    • Keep, unambiguously meaning keep the template itself (12) - BigDT, Kris18, Wandering Star, Anonymous_Anonymous, Oni Ookami Alfador, Harvestdancer, Grafikim, Hezzy, NetStormer, Ibaranoff24, The Giant Puffin
    • Keep, not spelling out what they mean (11) - Homestarmy, Thistheman, Paragon12321, getcrunkjuice, Korean alpha for knowledge, Friendly Neighbor, ILovePlankton, T-rex, Edgi, Will, MrFizyx
    • Keep, unambiguously meaning keep the content, but NOT the template (1) - Septentrionalis

  Adding up those who clearly wanted to wipe out the template, that's 6. 12 people unambiguously wanted to keep the template itself. That's 12-6 in favor of keeping the template. Even if you assume that every single one of the people who didn't explicitly state what they meant by keep really meant delete (which would be a horrible assumption to make, but I mention it only for completeness), that's 12-17, which falls short of a 60% consensus. In short, I can see no justification whatsoever based on that TFD for substituting and deleting the template. BigDT 20:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  And my voice is miscounted here; see below. Septentrionalis 02:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• TFD is not a Vote. Now, stop counting and think a second at the current situation. Everyone has their box. No one's expression has been hindered. The box is not in template space anymore, which means I and all the other evil sysops no longer care whatsoever about it, and will fight to the death to keep that code on that user's page. We've got user pages too, after all. This is a clearly a good result. Mackensen (talk) 20:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Good result or not, this is not the result chosen at TfD. —MiraLuka 20:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  If a good result occurs then we should keep it. I interpreted the TfD this way. Now, stepping outside process-boundness for a moment, is this in any way a bad result? Mackensen (talk) 21:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  I subst'ed my userboxes a long time ago. So, no, in my personal opinion, this is not a bad result. However, and I don't know how many ways I can say this, this is not the result chosen at TfD, and the opinions expressed there are the ones that matter in this instance. What's the point of putting template up at TfD if the decisions made there are going to be ignored anyway? —MiraLuka 21:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  I could ask why bother bringing it to TfD when the users ignore the voting criteria and policy, but that would be impolite. Mackensen (talk) 21:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Mackensen, there is one big difference once all userboxes are substed - they are no longer on the list of userboxes for those of us who enjoy having userboxes on our pages to look through. There are possible compromises. For example, I have taken all of the non-controversial religion userboxes and placed them along with their {{userbox}} code on a subpage in my userspace - User:BigDT/Religious_User_Boxes. I would have no problem whatsoever with doing this with every single userbox (not on my own userpage, obviously, but the current userbox menu at wp:userboxes could be changed). We could completely do away with individual userbox templates and instead of offering templates like {{user methodist}}, we'd offer a big userbox codeblock that you could copy and paste on your page. I don't have a real problem with that at all. I also wouldn't have a problem with making substing mandatory. Just like some of the user warning templates include a message forcing you to subst them, that could be done with userboxes. There are only two concerns I have: (1) that a global menu of userboxes continue to be available somewhere and (2) that administrators enforce, not impose policy - if the consensus is against your personal views, push for the policy to be changed, but don't ignore the consensus. BigDT 21:11, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • My view on the matter is that it needs to be settled in a way that both "factions" can accept. My own personal views don't enter into this. I believe the code was subst'd into the lists as well; if it wasn't, please show me where and I'll address that. Mackensen (talk) 21:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Please see Wikipedia:Userboxes/Humor and scroll down to the "Mathematics and Science" area. The sums of pi boxes were the fourth and fifth in that section. The code section could have something like I have in User:BigDT/Religious_User_Boxes. This would probably be a compromise that everyone could live with. The code is still there for anyone who wants it and there are no templates, except for the generic userbox template itself. BigDT 21:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
        • Done. Mackensen (talk) 21:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
          • Mackensen, I have added the code for those userboxes to the page in code boxes. It doesn't look spectacular, but something for users to easily copy/paste needs to be there, otherwise, they would have to edit the page and sort through table code to figure out what exactly they need to copy/paste. If there are other ways to do it (like a textarea or something), I'm open to that - I'm simply doing this as a suggested method ... there just needs to be some equivalent of the old template code there. BigDT 21:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and Slap Mackensen with a trout, regarding my undelete vote, whoever closed those was obviously ignoring both the Majority (correction Supermajority) vote, and the consensus of the community, sometimes its OK to ignore one or thye other, but never both. As for slapping Mackensen with a trout well, I just think he needs to be slapped with a trout. -- Dragoonmac - ^{If there was a problem y}_{o I'll solve it} 21:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse Deletion. These were not "votes". Wikipedia is not a Democracy, nor an experiment in anarchy. The comments for these discussions went about like this (actual comments): "Strong Keep per above "keep" votes. Strong Keep Oh but it's funny. Keep since it's an absolutely neutral userbox. Strong Keep and change to Pi to being equal to exactlly 3. Keep. Stop deleting userboxes." Sorry, but these comments did not address deletion criteria. Mackensen is right about the discretion of admins. Deleting these out of Template space and Subst'ing them does NOT destroy them or eliminate them from User pages where they are currently. I don't see a problem with what was done. Deleting these from Template space and preserving them in User space means they will never be up for deletion again. It's too bad people don't realize the positives here. I see no reason why a list of Subst'd Userboxes can't be listed somewhere. But it should not be used as a back door to social networking.- Nhprman 22:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I listed 12 votes above that were unambiguously some form of "don't delete the template itself". Picking out a few silly ones doesn't invalidate the serious ones. The "compromise" (above) may wind up being a reasonable one, but that's beside the point. Pages/templates/whatever should not be deleted when they are not somewhere in the CSD and their deletion goes against a clear consensus on *fd. For this "compromise" to be implemented, there should be a consensus. It is not up to a small group of administrators to enforce their views against established policy and the consensus. BigDT 22:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete because the consensus was obviously keep the template. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 23:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. If people want the templates substed and deleted, they can say that, but there seems to be a consensus to keep here. Should not have been deleted, definitely should not have been speedy deleted. Clarinetplayer 23:49, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse closure. Mackensen's point about the general thrust of the keep side's comments (being towards keeping the content, but not apparently caring about whether it remains in the Template: namespace) is a good one, and borne out by my own reading of the TfD. Remember, people, TfD is not a vote. A whole bunch of people showed up and decided they didn't need to provide any sort of reasoning for their "votes", because all they need to do is cast a ballot, right? Mackensen, if anything, showed excellent judgment in deciding to go with a compromise that he thought would satisfy all participants, rather than the other alternative open to him — which was discounting the views of everyone who showed up only to say "you can't tell us what to do, Cyde, you dick!". Everyone complaining about the tally needs to learn what the *fD pages are for. And then to go away, and not approach those pages again until they can prove they've been subject to several intensive sessions with a cluebat. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 01:00, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn: My voice on this was not to "keep the content and delete the template"; if I had meant that, I would have said subst as I did elsewhere. There is an unusually strong case to keep the template; and I voted accordingly. The argument that this could be used for socialization is unusually weak (the history of Pi and Talk:Pi should provide the same social group); the argument that it adds no value to the encyclopedia is false. Septentrionalis 02:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Fair enough. This is what I'm talking about: if you believe Mackensen misread the TfD discussion, that's one thing, and completely separate to how many "votes" were cast (as a frequent xfD closer, I make a point of never knowing how the tally stacks up). I'm a bit confused about this bit, though: you think this template adds value to the encyclopaedia? Do you mind elaborating, at all? Cheers, fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 03:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Not much value; but one of the purposes of userpages is to hold odd facts, like multiple digits of pi. Septentrionalis 03:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Indeed? I suspect we can delete at least a couple of paragraphs from Pi then. I can see it now ... Main article: {{User Pi}}. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 04:14, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
        • No, at most half a line, and I do not propose that :-> Septentrionalis 21:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete A supermajority vote to keep and it STILL gets deleted. Is that what Wikipedia is really about. A few people get there way and those who wanted to keep the template have there voices ingored. Sorry but I feel that is just wrong Aeon 03:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • TfD is not a vote. If you think a "supermajority" matters a damn on xfD, you are not qualified to express an opinion on DRV. You can "feel" whatever you like on this issue, but your recommendations are ill-informed at best. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 03:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Do you contend that there was a consensus to delete, then? Septentrionalis 04:02, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Go read what I wrote. You probably won't have to scroll very far, it's only a few lines up; I read your view before commenting, after all. It begins "Mackensen's point about the general thrust ...", and continues on for a short but rather wordy paragraph. You're free to draw your own conclusions from reading the discussion (evidently, you already have), but the raw tally is irrelevant. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 04:14, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
        • I won't join in criticizing your prose style; but I did read your comment, and none of those words answer "Was there a consensus to delete?" The raw tally should be adjusted in various ways (and more such adjustment is probably the real solution to votestacking); but the job of the closer is to justify such adjustments. Septentrionalis 21:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Ok explain then why there was a vote in the first place? Why then have a Vote for Deletion if it is not a vote? Aeon 06:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Uhh, we don't. There was no vote. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 09:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete it is a pity. Based off of some of the admin explanations above I was expecting a really sharp admin descision based upon some flaky votes where people wanted to keep the content instead of the template itself. Sadly, this is not the case and nearly everyone in the debate expressed a strong desire to keep the content in the template namespace and it winds up appearing to be wikipedia politics. sigh. Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 04:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn While it is true that TfD is not a vote, there is no reason to discount opinions because "comments...addressed the content...rather the (Template namespace) status which it occupies", especially since such comments seem to imply that those people do not distinguish between Template-space text meant for userspace and text on userspace itself. In other words, such opinons don't agree with with the sentiment that similar userboxes don't belong in Template space, as they obviously don't make the distinction. --AySz88^-^ 04:32, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn. I had hoped that I had found consensus. It seems not. No reason for others to suffer from my judgement on this one. Mackensen (talk) 12:14, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • It is a useful and interesting idea; but it is a policy suggestion, or a contribution to the TfD discussion, not a closure. Septentrionalis 21:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse closure. Sorry, Mackensen, I have to disagree...you did the right thing the first time around. :) --InkSplotch^(talk) 12:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete the templates were fine the first time :/. Homestarmy 12:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete -- to support the TFD decision --T-rex 14:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted Closure made perfect sense given that we had two groups talking past each other and this was a reasonable way of making both groups happy. Please remember that TfD, AfD, etc. are not votes. JoshuaZ 00:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn - Deletion review discussions are supposed to focus on whether the action taken was consistent with deletion policy. Deleting a template following a supermajority consensus to keep is obviously not consistent with deletion policy. When someone nominates 'Infobox platypuses' for deletion and there is a clear consensus to keep we don't subst all uses of the template and then delete it anyway. To do so here is improper. Further, we haven't instituted a policy of restoring complicated wiki-markup to all pages... because that would be ugly and confusing - yet here it is suggested that 'ugly and confusing' is 'good'. Why? Because it annoys and confuses people? Obviously that'd be a bad reason. Because it 'removes the content from Template space'? An equally bad reason... the content belongs in Template space. Relocating complicated markup off the page was the primary reason the Template: namespace was created. If you wish to redefine the template namespace such that it is meant for 'material to be displayed on multiple pages except in the User: namespace' then I'd suggest working on such a proposal. However, that is currently not the case and making copies of the wiki-markup on each page by substitution is not the same as keeping the template. TFD discussions have always been held over whether to keep the templates. Not the contents of the templates. Try applying this 'Delete the template as a foregone conclusion but maybe subst the content' principle to other templates which achieve a 'keep' consensus to see just how utterly unjustified it is. --CBDunkerson 12:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• keep<s\> err... Undelete: Consensus was to keep the template, (as the keep consensus came at "templates for deletion")Mike McGregor (Can) 15:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per process and consensus. TheJabberwʘck 18:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

May 12, 2006

Template:User atheist

AtheistThis user is an Atheist.

Mackensen deleted this page. And while I have read Jimbo's statements on the userbox situation, I feel not only is he wrong, but deleting the template is harming Wikipedia. In the words of Grue: "... banning expressing people's opinions would actively harm building a neutral and objective encyclopedia."

Here's my personal reasoning: pages under the Wikipedia namespace (such as Wikipedia:Deletion_review, etc.) don't need to be NPOV, according to what I've read around the site. Why, then, do pages within the User namespace need to be NPOV? Deleting userboxes on the sole reasoning of political correctness harms the individuality of Wikipedians. Therefore I believe it should be undeleted. ^The True _Sora 18:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• User namespaces don't need to be NPOV. The template is in the Template namespace. The two are not the same. And while Grue may be right, getting this stuff out the template namespace is in no way "banning...opinions". Keep deleted, of course. I can make the code available if someone wants to subst the raw code onto their page. Mackensen (talk) 18:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support deletion per CSD:T1. Keep Deleted. For the record I have had this one subst'd on my page for some time. ++Lar: t/c 18:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Everyking 18:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Why? Mackensen (talk) 18:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. T1. --Tony Sidaway 18:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Is it suddenly not polite to be able to state your religious beliefs. Is the template that infuriating to you that you think it is divisive and inflammatory? It seems to me that this template is a simple statement of ones belief without any statement which would agravate any situation, unless you come to the wiki with a sense that neutral means leaving your whole life experience behind. The text is even NPOV in the way it states its point. Ansell Review my progress! 04:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment — It would be very helpful and diminish conflict, if this template remains deleted, if someone would use a bot or whatever to subst' it onto the user pages in which it was previously transcluded. That way users who haven't been following the userbox debates as closely as the people on this page won't feel that the template removal is an attack on their beliefs (or lack thereof). In fact, I strongly feel that this should be standard operating procedure for deleted userboxes. (I'd do it myself, but I don't know how to make a bot or whatever you'd use for a repetitive task like this.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Actually, I believe Cyde had proposed doing this last week, but the idea was rejected. I think it's a lovely idea myself. Mackensen (talk) 19:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'll do it if the template is kept deleted or if I get around to it before then. Kotepho 19:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete. We should not continue going down the road which leads towards censorship of userspace. Friendly Neighbour 19:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Absolutely right. How is Template:User atheist in the user space? Mackensen (talk) 19:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Most of the debate is now about the userspace. Therefore, I expect a Step Two: forbidding "POV" in userespace. And that would be plain political censorship to me. Friendly Neighbour 06:14, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  This template is only being transcluded into userspace; other transclusions (except perhaps a Wikispace list) would be improper. In that sense, it is only in user space. (I do not make this argument, I explain it; but I wish both sides in this would try to recognize that the other has legitimate concerns.) Septentrionalis 15:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete I don't think the userbox is particularly devisive or contravertisal. The wording is fine, "X is an Atheist" is neutral enough phrasing, even for article space. However, this may be moot, as you may or may not be aware, someone just nominataed *all* the religious templates for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 May 12#Userboxes in Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion. Regards, MartinRe 19:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Please note that T1 was recently revised. Although I had no input in this revision, I support it. The revised wording is this: "User templates that express personal beliefs, ideologies, ethical convictions, or viewpoints on controversial issues, or any other templates which are otherwise divisive or inflammatory." -- Mackensen (talk) 19:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I am aware of T1's revision, which is why I said I though the template wasn't particularly devisive or controversial, and hence does not fall under the T1, even revised. I think you're intrepreting T1 far too broadly, with a broad intrepretion you could equally justify delete the babel boxes, as they "divide" users into speaker and non speakers of a language, and so are devisive (as well as language being a controversial topic to some). I think the speedy deletion of neutrally worded boxes such as this, to be more devisive than the original template ever could be. Regards, MartinRe 20:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete per above.  Grue  19:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete Obviously. --MediaMangler 19:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  What's obvious about undeleting it? Mackensen (talk) 19:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete naturally. Larix 19:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, inappropriate speedy, meets no portion of criterion T1. Angr (t • c) 19:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Actually, it does. Please read the speedy criteria. Mackensen (talk) 19:37, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted per CSD T1. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete -lethe ^{talk +} 19:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete until Template:User Buddhist, Template:User Muslim, Template:User Jewish, and every other religion-based user template is deleted. Let's be consistent in our crusading at the very least. — BrianSmithson 20:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'd be happy to speedy them all. Do you actually have an opinion on this one? Mackensen (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  My opinion is that all or none of the religion-based templates should be deleted. I'm pretty anti-userbox, though I have a couple of Babel ones on my userpage, but it's highly annoying to selectively enforce a new "policy". — BrianSmithson 20:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Rather than speedying them all, why not create a class action TfD? Be better than having 20 different deletion reviews, right? -lethe ^{talk +} 20:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete, no more reason for speedying this template than for approximately 2538 others (give or take 1000). Deleting all of them is one thing, going at it one by one is arbitrary, not to say POV. IronChris | (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'd be happy to speedy them all. Do you actually have an opinion on this one? Mackensen (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. There appear to be many people voting here who want all the religious boxes deleted. Such a course would be inline with T1, with Jimbo's utterings on the matter, and would be fair to boot. Mackensen (talk) 20:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, nothing decisive or controversial about this. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 20:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete - The conversation on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion makes me feel that T1 lacks consensus and should not even be a criteria for deletion, much less for speedy deletion. This particular user box is not divisive or inflamatory. GRBerry 20:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Subst and keep Deleted - look Jimbo discourages the use of such things - having in the template space does the opposite. If folk feel they must have this on their pages, they can copy the code from another. Otherwise, they can just type 'I am an atheist'. Actually, whilst humbly declaring your POV, so others can point out if your bias slips into you editing, may be a helpful thing - proudly sporting uniform bumperstickers is not. --Doc ^ask? 20:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, even though T1 is applicable here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a battleground for social, moral, or religious issues. Userbox templates and user templates group Wikipedians into competing factions. This infrastructure has been used in the past to abuse our decision-making policies by vote-stacking. If you really feel it is necessary to proclaim your religion on your userpage, you can do it, but you don't need a template to do so. --Cyde Weys 21:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. I'm this close to writing an automated KD voting program. Misza13 ^{T C} 21:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• undelete What is the problem with users stating their opinions on the matter of belief? In years to come, academics analysing WP will want to know about the make-up of the beliefs of the contributors. Knowing the numbers of people who were athiest, agnostic, Christian, Islamic, etc will be vital, to allow academics to analyse how beliefs impacted on editing. As an academic I have to say removing templates like this is the equivalent of destroying an archive. It is crazy, ill thought-out and misses the bigger picture. The issue is not the beliefs of users but their ability to be NPOV. Some of the best NPOVcontributors on religious papers happen to hold clear personal definitions on religious matters. Why shouldn't that be openly stated? Do we want people to hide their views but still be influenced by them anyway? Surely being open about beliefs would be more healthy. FearÉIREANN \^(caint) 21:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Stressing beliefs and opinions of users undermines the ability to be NPOV, and distracts many users into thinking this site is primarily for social networking. Recent history has shown that introducing strongly-held beliefs into WP (especially in the form of templated Userboxes) has not been healthy at all. Nhprman 22:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  No it doesn't. Everybody's edits are impacted upon by their beliefs. You can go into denial and pretend that doesn't happen or you can be honest and let people admit what their beliefs are. The most dangerous POV-warriors are those in denial about their viewpoints. Those who can categorise and define their beliefs, as psychiatrists repeat over and over again, are more likely to be able to be neutral because, having had to define their beliefs they are the ones most likely to think, in this case for example, "I am an athiest. Is that colouring my editing of Mother Teresa of Calcutta?" The main POV warriors are those who delude themselves into thinking they are neutral and end up blinded to their own beliefs and the impact they have on their editing. Your comments above show the problem that causes. You hold a view. You belief it is NPOV. But your edits suggest a distinct POV, one that repeats your view as a mantra you believe is neutral but on the evidence of your comments isn't. Psychiatrists and psychologists stress the fact that the best way to achieve neutrality is to analyse and define your views and then compensate for the bias you realise you have. Userboxes achieve that. Pretending you don't have a view, which is what the policy of deleting templates is all about, produces self-dillusion, not neutrality or objectivity. FearÉIREANN \^(caint) 00:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Let's keep the self-analysis of people's biases in editors' own heads. We don't need to be starting fights here that have existed outside of Wikipedia. No one should care about whether an editor is Catholic or Protestant or athiest or Buddhist here. An editor's edits should be enough to know whether they are biased, and each edit should speak for itself, without the announced bias sowing suspicion in other's heads. The "expose your biases" argument is a recipe for conflict, as we've seen already on WP. - Nhprman 03:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Nhprman, I agree, and I'd add that the more users are encouraged to engage Wikipedia at the level of their political and religious beliefs, the further we move from the ideal of what it is to write an encyclopedia - a neutral, authoritative resource that is utterly above partisanship. If we're not above politics, we're crap, and we suck like the rest of the internet. Since Wikipedia wants to be an authoritative source of information, every special interest group would kill to control what we say. The job of an encyclopedist is to defend against those forces, not represent for them. I'm proud to check my personal beliefs at the door here, and if we aren't teaching new users that ideal, then we need to figure out how to. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Well said. Nhprman 03:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Delete along with all other religion-related Userboxes. Divisive, inflammatory and has nothing whatsoever to do with editing a NPOV encyclopedia. Nhprman 22:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy keep deleted due to reasoning not being based on any grounds for overturning deletion. "While I have read Jimbo's statements on the userbox situation, I feel not only is he wrong" - sorry, Jimbo happens to own this site. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, T1, unencyclopedic, not what public transclusion is here for. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete Why was T1 revised to kill off all religious or whatever userboxes? Homestarmy 00:22, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, under CSD T1. These sort of userboxes do not belong in the Template namespace. -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 01:08, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment T1 has now been divided: T1 is the old T1, T2 is the expanded version. Let's keep it that way.Septentrionalis 01:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and list on TfD. Uning the new distinction, this is not (the old) T1. T2 is not supported by consensus (or by Jimbo) and should not be used until it is. Septentrionalis 01:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  The first is debatable; the second assertion surprises me. Go back and read what Jimbo has said on the matter. Mackensen (talk) 03:41, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  The first is debateable, and I agree that this is a close call; but that's why we're debating this. What Jimbo has said is at WP:JOU. I see no evidence that Jimbo cares what mechanism we use. Septentrionalis 13:32, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted Unencyclopedic. --Tbeatty 02:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per new TX. Metamagician3000 03:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, meets the speedy deletion criterion for templates. Christopher Parham (talk) 08:34, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Full and frank disclosure is a key element to help work toward balance in editing articles. Repressing acknowledgement of POVs is systematic bias. Rfrisbie^talk 16:36, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Then, if "Templates designed for user pages that express personal beliefs, ideologies, ethical convictions, or viewpoints on controversial issues." becomes policy, move this template to {{user atheism}} (the template currently there is an obscure and poorly-designed one that we don't need and can be moved to atheism2 or similar if necessary) and change the contents to "This user is interested in atheism.", since atheism is a valid philosophical position and cultural movement and a major subject of religious and theological study, and thus a valid interest-expressing userbox (and significant interests are clearly highly relevant to Wikipedia even if beliefs aren't) just as much as "This user is interested in theism." (or simply "This user is interested in God.") would be. And there's no need to scrap perfectly good edit histories and userbox layouts (thus wasting everyone's time even more on this crap, which is surely something noone wants) for such a move, so deletion is clearly unnecessary even if the new T1 designation becomes accepted. If the new T1 designation isn't accepted, then undelete and, if someone thinks this userbox is unacceptable, nominate it at TfD for discussing deletion, because it clearly isn't "inflammatory", which is a requirement for current T1 speedy-deletion. -Silence 16:55, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Do with this one whatever is done with Template:User Christian - If you vote for or against one, you ought to have the same position on the other, as well as on one administrator's war against religious userboxes BigDT 17:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted If the boss says so, do it. I'm afraid this is too controversial. subst. --Pilot|guy 21:27, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Could someone explain to me how calling yourself an atheist, Christian, or a member of any other religious persuasion falls into the category of "Templates that are divisive and inflammatory"? This deletion, and that of the Christian userbox below, are both being defended as in line with CSD:T1. A userbox that says, "this user isn't going to hell, like the rest of you pathetic heathen are" is inflammatory. A userbox that says, "this user is a [insert denomination here]" is not. If these two userboxes were not "divisive and inflammatory", they should not have been speedied and thus, anyone who is unbiased would have to agree that they should be restored and given their day on TfD. BigDT 00:30, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Deleted As Alan Partridge once said...."Classic T1" In any case, they do us no good and can be harmful. As said above, we're supposed to be a neutral, authoritative resource for people to use. Our customers are people who are not involved in policy debates and have no backround on issues ongoing between editors. Folks reading an article about Christians or religion or whatever are 2 clicks away from some editor with a silly "I am a atheist" bumpersticker on their userpage. What are they going to think? How many of them are going to wonder exactly how neutral and authoritative we are when they see editors proclaiming a POV loudly and proudly on their userpage? Userboxes do nothing to help us build Wikipedia and they can be harmful. They aren't going to spend time reading these debates reading that somehow displaying a POV somehow guards against writing a POV...they'd think that's crazy and they'd be right. Rx StrangeLove 02:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment -- I have queried the developers, and there is no such thing as userspace categories or userspace templates. All categories and templates are "omni-space", they are used in all namespaces defined in a *pedia. Please do not confuse syntax (Category followed by colon and Template followed by colon) with policy. Bits are bits are bits. --William Allen Simpson 06:43, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete -- experts in religious beliefs and ethnicities help build the *pedia. --William Allen Simpson 06:43, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete What reason do we have to censor people based on their religious beliefs. Using CSD T1 as a reason is not the best option as it is currently being discussed on the CSD talk page. Also, the article namespace IMO is the only space which requires NPOV. Templates, although used in the article space, are in no way restricted to it. Ansell 06:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete You all seem to be complete hypocrits. We can have user wiccan and user satanist and we can't have user atheist? We can have user Catholic and not atheist? What the fuck is going on here? --mboverload@ 08:14, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  All those others need to be removed as well - removed from template space only. You'll still be able to use them in userspace. Metamagician3000 12:32, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Templates are part of "omni-space". Templates are merely transclusions. If there are objections to substance contained in templates, then the same substance should be removed from User:space. If there is no objection to substance, then there is no reason to remove the transclusion of that substance. Bits are bits are bits. --William Allen Simpson 15:15, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Missing the point. The discussion is over where the Userboxes are housed on the server. Frankly, the issue of their substance is an important one, but secondary to their past misuse as Templates - an issue which can't be ignored or covered up. Nhprman 20:32, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Maybe I don't understand, but being so picky about Template space seems unreasonable to me; it's not like Template space is meant for public viewing. --AySz88^-^ 22:35, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  You're right, it's not meant for public viewing, and that's the point. It's meant for tools that are used within articles. This and other boxes don't fit that criteria, and can be (and has been) misused by a few users. This Deletion from template space simply changes where these things are housed. Nhprman 23:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete -- this template is only used in user space --T-rex 15:19, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted --pgk^(talk) 16:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per WP:CSD and current practice. Nandesuka 17:09, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per above. - Mailer Diablo 17:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Userboxes detailing biases can only benefit Wikipedia. Sarge Baldy 20:02, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn to TfD, definately not T1. --AySz88^-^ 22:35, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• undelete per Mailer Diablo. Bastique▼^parlervoir 23:58, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong undelete. I can't see how this is any more divisive or controversial than a userbox stating, for instance, that the user can speak Spanish at an advanced level. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 02:39, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Methinks you live in a parallel universe where John Lennon sang a song called The Way It Is. --Cyde Weys 03:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. What is so completely illogical about keeping userboxes? User pages are not part of the encyclopedia, they're personal expression. By this logic user pages should be barred from having any offensive text too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darobsta (talk • contribs)
• Strong undelete what's wrong with expressing this particular opinion? Atheist template is no more divisive than User:Male, no more inflammatory than User:Muslim. --Constanz - Talk 11:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  What's wrong with expressing an opinion with EXACTLY the same box with EXACTLY the same wording, only NOT as a Templated Userbox, but as a Userfied/Subst'd box in User space? Deleting the template means that subjective opinions about the divisiveness of a box DISAPPEAR, and if they are Substituted, they remain on the User pages they are currently on, and can be put on new users' pages at their discretion, with NO threat of deletion ever again. What is wrong with THAT? - Nhprman 23:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete. Attempted T1 scope creep. Hasn't this happened on this template before? How many times do we have to repeat the same process? --StuffOfInterest 11:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Wait for the TfD discussion on religion userboxes to end Will (^E_@) T 19:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong undelete. Per all above. Ian13/talk 20:12, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted divisive--MONGO 02:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per the above. Gyre 07:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong undelete this debate is far more "divisive" than the atheist userbox! frymaster 16:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• An ubvious undelete - there is over 40 different userboxes for Christianity alone, a single one for atheism is not much to ask for (altough with {{user atheism}} it makes two). It's also hard to say it's "inflamatory" since there are userboxes like "This user believes in God." (two of them actually, three if you count {{user theist2}}) // Liftarn 13:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2. Can always be restored when a better policy is implemented. TheJabberwʘck 18:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, meets Wikipedia:Userbox policy and doesn't meet T1. T2 is not valid at this time. JohnnyBGood t c 18:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Regarding Grue's words: "... banning expressing people's opinions would actively harm building a neutral and objective encyclopedia." that could be fulfilled by the user writing "I'm an atheist" on his/her page. What's on discussion this is the existence of a template. -- Drini 21:09, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

May 11, 2006

Template:User Christian

This user is a Christian.

Gmaxwell and Cyde began replacing the simple statement "this user is a Christian" with longer and longer formulations of what it might or might not mean to call oneself a Christian. By the end, the template was more than one screen long (on my screen, at least), complete with footnotes, references, and a spinning crucifix. Their stated justification for doing this was to make the template NPOV, since different people mean different things when they self-identify as Christian. However, they went to such ridiculous extremes that (in my view, at least) they violated WP:POINT.

Anyway, when people noticed that their user pages now had a massive essay with a spinning crucifix instead of a little userbox with an ΙΧΘΥΣ symbol, they understandably got upset. This caused some edit warring and flaming (some of which you can see at Template talk:User Christian). And then Mackensen deleted the template, saying that it was "clearly divisive".

However, the template wasn't divisive before Gmaxwell and Cyde's antics. It (along with all the other religious userboxes) survived a previous deletion debate, and sat harmlessly on hundreds of users' pages. Gmaxwell and Cyde provoked an argument, and Mackensen deleted the template because they had started a fight over it. As I've said elsewhere, this is analagous to seeing someone who's been pushed into the mud and condemning them for being dirty. If the template is not restored, this sets a precedent that anyone can start an edit war over a template and get it deleted under T1. Do we really want to endorse that tactic? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Josiah, I'm afraid you have completely failed to understand WP:POINT. I found the alterations I made personally to the userbox to be a clear improvement. It is a shameful violation of NPOV for our templates to claim to declare what a Christian is with a single line and attachment to a single person, and the hurtful attacks made by those against me here and elsewhere are a clear demonstration that this template can be divisive. Although, I think we'd be better off demanding users discuss rather than pull out the pitchforks instead of deleting it... But that might be too tall a request. The hostility of the response I've had is a perfect framework for demonstrating the POV flaws of this template: If we believe this templates claim (that the users are Christian, rather than merely claiming to be Christian, or rather than that they associate with a vast indefinable collection of beliefs) then we must conclude that that Christians are the kind of people who assume bad faith, speak with maximum hostility, and send threatening emails. On that basis, I'd advise the we prohibit Christians from all participation in Wikipedia. ... But I suspect that the template is just flawed, and that the people behaving so reprehensibly towards me claim to be Christians but are currently failing in that endeavor. --Gmaxwell 21:48, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Responded (at length) at User talk:Gmaxwell. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. While I'm not happy with the circumstances leading to its deletion, I have no doubt that religious templates are divisive and can be provocative and inflammatory. --Tony Sidaway 02:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• keep deleted Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That's the core and ultimate principle. Users can write "I'm a christian" and put any picture they consider suit on their pages. Having this on template namespace is unneded and not improving the encyclopedia. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 02:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  also if people don't want their userpages to be modified by 3rd parties, they shouldn't be using unsubsted shared templates. since that's precisely the point of templates. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 02:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  But should this tactic (starting a fight with the intention of causing division, and thus justifying the removal of a template under T1) be endorsed? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:28, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Certainly not. Septentrionalis 02:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  However DRVU is not about the tactic itself. It's about wether restore it or not. Admins behaviour is discussed at other places, don't mix things. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 02:46, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I trust it will be discussed in other places; but one way to discourage misbehavior is to make clear that it will not get the desired results. Septentrionalis 03:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'd appreciate a pointer to any of the places where the users' behaviour is being discussed. Cyde at least has apologized for the disruption he caused, and even blocked himself, showing that he's willing to direct his humour at himself as well as those he disagrees with. Gmaxwell, on the other hand, hasn't apologized or even responded to a polite note I left on his user page; it seems he hasn't been back on the 'pedia since yesterday. I hope he hasn't left the project, but if and when he does come back I'd like to see some recognition that this wasn't the way to go about making a point. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I didn't respond to your note[2] because I didn't realize it was new when I finally saw it. It wasn't in the two most recent diffs, it was posted as part of an older thread (from my perspective), and it was just a reiteration of an accusation you made of me above (violating WP:POINT) which I'd already produced a detailed response to [3] by the time I saw your post. I'd actually thought you just repeated your accusation because you didn't like my reply. Sorry that I didn't notice it for so long, but I was away creating new content. I took several hundred new photographs, some of which will be good enough to submit. --Gmaxwell 14:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• List on TfD This is not inflammatory; it's even pastel. Not properly speedied, and I cannot consider the antics involved evidence of real divisiveness. If it is divisive, the users it divides will vote to delete. Septentrionalis 02:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Alternatively: rewording is perfectly acceptable, probably desirable, encouraged by Jimbo, and infinitely better than the sort of conduct which led here. Septentrionalis 02:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• This is a clear undelete. I'll never have this userbox on my page, but what went on today pretty much amounted to WP:POINT. I understand their frustration at not making much progress on the polemic userboxes, but we're not Uncyclopedia and can't use their methods. Incidentally, I think Mackensen made the right call deleting the box when he did. The situation was starting to get out of hand and at the time I think the deletion was the only way to nip it in the bud and force everyone to take a step back. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 02:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - T1 now clearly provides for the deletion of such userboxes. However, that does not excuse the disruptive behaviour from people who should know better and, as admins, are supposed to set an example of civility. If this deletion sticks it should reflect acceptance of the expansion and clarification of T1, not of disruptive tactics to make a WP:POINT. Metamagician3000 02:32, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm sure you don't mean to encourage the circular reasoning: "This box should be deleted because the new T1 says so; and the new T1 is approved because this box has been deleted." Septentrionalis 05:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted or Strong unprotect/undelete and Reword to "This user is interested in Christianity." That would not necessarily define the user as a Christian, but it could be helpful for someone using what links here / user cats to find resourceful individuals to help out with articles on Christianity. In its current form, however, it could easily be used for ballot stuffing purposes, which should be discouraged. AmiDaniel (talk) 02:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • That's not a bad idea (the rewording). We don't need a template to advertise our religious beliefs, but one that says "I can help you understand/edit articles on Christianity" (or Islam, etc., even Scientology for that matter) would be clearly useful, and not at all as problematic as the current crop of "Wikipedia as webhost" templates. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 03:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
    • That always seemed like an obvious solution to the problem to me, but I didn't know if it would fly with everyone else. I might post a note on the Village Pump suggesting this and see what the reaction would be--who knows, maybe we can stop this ridiculous war and get back to editing yet. AmiDaniel (talk) 05:33, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Changed to undelete and reword. I had no idea how horrible this WP:POINT was. After looking through edit after edit after edit of crap like this, I am going to support undeleting the template and allowing the involved users to reword it as I above proposed, simply on the principal of the thing (though I suppose that could be deemed making a WP:POINT as well). If Cyde and Gmaxwell think this horrible abuse of Wikipedia is going to fly, they're simply mistaken. If they continue in such fashion, I would propose that they both be desysopped and/or prohibited from editing userboxes. Luckily, Freakofnurture and Tony Sidaway were there and acted in the manner expected of administrators, or else who knows what could have happened here. If Cyde and Gmaxwell were not administrators they would likely have been indefinitely blocked for trolling and vandalism; instead, they got, what, 24hrs?! I expect to see a lengthy apology from both of them, and I pray that they never attempt anything like this again. AmiDaniel (talk) 04:53, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Changed back to keep deleted or reword. After a long internal struggle, I've concluded that a WP:POINT to counter a WP:POINT is nonetheless still a WP:POINT. AmiDaniel (talk) 05:33, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted Not useful to the encyclopedia. It's probably time precident was set that these things be transcluded, anyway. --InShaneee 02:32, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I don't give a fig one way or the other about userboxes but I am concerned that keeping this one deleted will ratify Cyde and Gmaxwell's antics and set a precedent whereby previously noncontroversial userboxes can be turned into controversial ones through a fake edit war that unnecessarily stirs up bystanders who aren't in on the joke. Thatcher131 02:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: That's my primary concern as well. I support the subst'ing of userboxes, but I find this a very unpleasant precedent to set. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
    • As stated above, this discussion is only about the userbox, based on its own merits. This is not the place to decry the actions of an administrator. --InShaneee 02:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • That's paranoid fantasy. The edit war was incredibly immature, but it wasn't started as a pretext to delete the box, and the very fact that some of you are silly enough to suggest such a thing reflects badly on your sanity. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 03:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment:One argument for deletion, however, was to end the revert war. This is, while understandable, fallacious. It should have been protected. The argument that the revert war proves divisiveness does not convince me either. Septentrionalis 03:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete Not a valid speedy T1. Nothing wrong with the template, nothing particularly decisive about it and useful in context. However I find it very disturbing, both that admins edit war over the wording, when none of them even use it, and others suggest it should be transclued, when they don't transclue any of theirs. MartinRe 02:51, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, then yell at Cyde a lot. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 03:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Although Cyde characterised me as being on a "high horse" and "holier than thou" (as if!) about his antics I totally endorse a stern talking to for him and Gmaxwell, both of whom should know better. That should be elsewhere though, not here. Keep Deleted under the newly clarified CSD:T1. Users should start userifying any of these that they're keep to keep around. If the changes to CSD:T1 stick there will be many of us supporting deletion of a lot of political, religious and philosophical userboxes. NB: Keeping this deleted does NOT in any way endorse what these two did. ++Lar: t/c 03:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn and Discuss first. Discussion and research really needs to happen first before silly situations like this; one doesn't speedy an article that's been vandalized, for example. I think users also need to have a shot at improving the template to address concerns - speedy deletion of an article while it's been vandalized is the extreme case of people not having such a chance, and this situation, while less consequencial to the project as a whole, feels dangerously close to that extreme to me. I think the speedy deleters should try to slow down before deleting under T1. --AySz88^-^ 03:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. I'm tired of incessant whining about tiny boxes. Go out and write an article. Ral315 (talk) 03:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Novel idea. Hopefully I'll get User:Sean_Black/New Kamen Rider finished :).--Sean Black ^(talk) 06:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted - WP is not the place for religious debates. Religious bumperstickers are divisive and don't help accomplish WP's mission. - Nhprman 03:51, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Cyde and Gmaxwell, you guys made Wikipedia a less pleasant place for me today. I'm kind of disgusted. Everyone subst your userboxes already, and you'll have no more reason to look at the train wreck this is becoming. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per the new T1. In case anyone hasn't seen this ridiculous version, a few minutes before revision the template read: "This user claims to be Christian." TheJabberwʘck 05:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I'd also like to throw in that I feel the userbox should not be deleted, but rather it should be preserved in its current {{deletedpage}} form and protected. Given the highly controversial edits to this template, I feel the history is quite relevant and should not be deleted in case similar situations arise (as those of us non-sysops are unable to peer into the vast recycle bin). Thoughts? AmiDaniel (talk) 05:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. If this userbox is divisive, so is half of the rest. Unless we intend to ban userboxes in general, there is no reason not to allow people to say they are Christian, which is less divisive than saying they are Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, etc. And the procedure used to delete it is dangerous to Wikipedia's future. It seems now that a small group of users can disrupt any template or article and then claim it's divisive and should be deleted. We have witnessed a cynical misuse of WP rules. Friendly Neighbour 06:04, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Couldn't agree more. Seeing as userboxes are probably on the way out, but you've always been able to discuss your beliefs on your user page in your own words...I guess I don't see the problem. Granted, you will have to spend a little more time describing yourself. Mackensen (talk) 17:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  See the reply by Blanning to my worries about userspace freedom of speach (below). If he has his way, the hands-off policy to userspace will soon end. Friendly Neighbour 06:22, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted, per everyone else. However, the silliness prior to deletion was, well, silly. Don't do that, it doesn't help.--Sean Black ^(talk) 06:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and block Cyde and Gmaxwell for disruption of Wikipedia.  Grue  07:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per Jimbo's desires and emerging community consensus. All of these things are unencyclopedic and divisive. We did keep the Communist one deleted, so fair's fair. --Doc ^ask? 08:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete so long as there's not a category attached to it. No one would have complained or cared if the ridiculous edit antics on that template had never taken place. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 08:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per everyone. Apparently some editors have not only forgotten that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, but, judging by the massively uncivil and ABFing respones to Cyde's revisions to the template, they have also forgotten that anyone can edit it. Why are they here? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 08:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• undelete religion is an important characteristic of editors. -lethe ^{talk +} 08:28, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  So is the size of one's penis, but you don't see many people waving that around their userpages. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 08:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Somehow I doubt the size of one's penis effects how one edits. On the other hand, one's religious affiliation most certainly would. In any case, I voted undelete because in the form above its a relatively harmless template and the way in which it was eventually deleted was ridiclous. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 08:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  We are required to write from a neutral point of view. If your religious affiliation is affecting how you edit, you're not doing it right. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 09:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Few can ever claim neutrality. There will always be a hint of POV no matter how one may try to cover it. At the very least, this template gives an idea of where a user is coming from. Also, I seriously doubt that having or not having this template will affect whether or not someone writes with a bias. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 09:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  This utterly bogus argument needs to be countered every time it comes up. We don't need to know where editors are "coming from" through the use of little boxes on their user pages. We know this easily enough through their edits. But a box on their page DOES create a very strong impression that they are biased in one way or another, leading to suspicion and an erosion of assuming good faith. The use of Templated Userboxes is also a sly way to turn this into a purely social networking site, and frankly, through your efforts of relentlessly creating categories of users, you've contributed to tribalism and factionalism on Wikipedia, and I think you personally have a lot to answer for. Nhprman 13:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  This discussion dangerously drifts towards suggesting political censorship of userspace. Friendly Neighbour 14:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is not an experiment in free speech, anarchy, democracy, or seeing how many times we can reinforce the commonly-held outside image of a Wikipedia editor as an opinionated extremist drama queen in a single day. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 16:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Things like your nationality, sex, religion, native tongue, and profession are useful for you interactions with the community. Stuff like your penis size isn't. I don't think people should put their penis size on their userpages. I do think they should at least be allowed to put broad characterizations of themselves. It doesn't mean "these are my attributes that keep me from NPOV editing". Rather, it means "these are the basic attributes which define what kind of human being I am". No one begrudges people who identify their sex or profession, so why disallow religion? -lethe ^{talk +} 19:02, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete and apply some penalty to these pranksters. There's no excuse for this kind of behavior. Everyking 08:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  What, like a hit on the head with a comedy foam mallet? Userboxes are not one but two steps removed from the encyclopaedia, do you honestly think anything done to them justifies action? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 09:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Yes—they disrupted the user pages of many editors, and did so in a particularly insensitive way. Everyking 09:46, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. One's religious beliefs are not that important for the Project that they'd warrant a precious space in Template: and the servers' resources needed for transclusion. You have the code above. Just put it on your page directly - it'll have the additional benefit that your page won't ever get vandalised by a few people having a good time while violating WP:POINT. Misza13 ^{T C} 09:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  What precious resources? Are you living in a separate Universe? The template has 649 bytes (plus 740 bytes for the graphics but no one claims so far that WP should be graphics free) and as long as it was a template, there was only one copy of it. Substing the template on every userpage takes resources, not making them a template. To make it even more ridiculous the template was only four times the length of your signature (158 bytes) you leave with every comment you make. BTW, this discussion was 20,194 bytes long (enough for 31 such templates) even before this comment of mine. Friendly Neighbour 10:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  What resources? Those whose lack cause Wikipedia to "have a problem" every now and then. Also, I think you err here limiting the notion of resources to just the bytes occupied (disk space is cheap compared to processing power). Let's assume that a userbox takes up 1000 bytes. My understanding is that it is easier on the servers to fetch a 100'000-byte user page containing 100 substed boxes than query the DB 100 times for each individual box and applying parameters to them (they're templates after all!). But, as you suggest, I might as well be living in a parallel universe, so let's leave the judgement of my l4m3ne$$ to someone compenent. Misza13 ^{T C} 12:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• List at TfD Will (^E_@) T 10:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Let's be clear about something. User Darwinist and User Communist were recently kept deleted. There is precedent, therefore, for this kind of template to be kept deleted. I would argue that conceptually the template was divisive before anyone started altering it. Mackensen (talk) 10:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. The underhanded, disrespectful way in which this userbox was vandalized should not be rewarded. If there really is an "emerging consensus" to delete all userboxes, then why not actually go through the established process to accomplish that goal? --MediaMangler 11:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per the revised T1 criteria. Nandesuka 11:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete posthaste and file an RfC or whatever is necessary on all religious templates. We still have Template:User Protestant, Template:User Catholic, Template:User Muslim, Template:User Jewish, Template:User Buddhist, and probably many others that I don't know about. It's a gross WP:POINT violation that the Christian template was chosen for deletion while the others were left alone. I cannot see any other logic behind Cyde and Gmaxwell's actions. — BrianSmithson 12:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• I'm willing to tag all of those for speedy... they all fit the revised T1. However when I went to edit one, it was icky because the "deletebecause" is way too big. Does someone have an example of a userbox that was marked for deletion that isn't huge and intrusive on pages where it is transcluded? Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 12:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  You can use {{tfd-inline}} and run them through normal deletion. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete and make sure its the normal, simple version. If people wish to self-identify as a Christian, there's no reason why Wikipedia has to write them an essay trying to put their beliefs in a box for them, let people do that themselves by maybe using a different Christianity-related box (I.E. Protestant, Catholic, whatever), or just let it alone. Besides, if the text they want isn't in the box, all they have to do is subst the box code onto their userpage and write their own text, I did. Homestarmy 12:50, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  If people want to self-identify as Christian - they can write an accurate description in their own words on their userpage. Why should wikipedia supply words for them at all? --Doc ^ask? 12:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  As far as I know Wikipedia supplies words up to however many userboxes their are, but not all the words at once, which is what all that hubbub over the template sounded like. For anyone who considers themself a Christian, "This user is a Christian" is excellent, whether they be Mormon, Jehovah's witness, Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Oneness Pentecostal, it doesn't matter. If people don't wish to write an essay about their beliefs, then this userbox seems like just the thing. Homestarmy 13:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  What legitimate service does this template provide to the user that he cannot achieve for himself by typing "I am a Christian"? It's even shorter and easier to type than {{user christian}}. --Tony Sidaway 13:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Well, this can be put in neat looking box form and it has a picture. What legitimate service do Babel boxes provide that someone cannot achieve by typing "I can sort of speak spanish"? :) Homestarmy 13:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  They enable editors to locate other editors with relevant language skills. For instance I have a Latin languages babel box, and I have sometimes been contacted by someone who knows no Latin, to provide English translations of obscure Latin quotes. This is legitimate because possession of language skills is non-controversial and non-divisive. --Tony Sidaway 13:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Even language can be controversial to some people, witness Chirac's reaction when someone spoke in English.[4], a latin babel box divides people into latin speaking and non-latin speaking groups. I'm not saying that babel box's are T1's, just pointing that "controversial or divisive" can be interpretted broadly, depending on who's doing the interpretation, and very broad rules can lead to chaos. Regards, MartinRe 17:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I left a comment earlier today on the {{User wikipedia/Administrator}} stating a similar sentiment. The template is divisive by definition by dividing users into admins and non-admins and therefore should be deleted under the recently changed T1. Not that I think it should be deleted, rather that the change was not fully successful (to use an euphemism). Friendly Neighbour 13:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy Undelete, then reprimand, block, desysop, or any combination of the above to Cyde and GMaxwell. These actions are setting a VERY POOR example to new users. Since nobody has come forward with any evidence saying that userboxes are divisive, that comment should be considered invalid. SPEEDY DELETION IS NOT A TOY! — Preceding unsigned comment added by D-Day (talk • contribs) 14:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Two questions: do you ever get tired of calling for de-sysopping, and do you ever get tired of being warned about your behavior on this page? Mackensen (talk) 17:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete Larix 15:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per Mackensen above and revised T1 - expresses 'personnal beliefs' on a 'controversial issue'. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Gmaxwell and Cyde proved beyond reasonable doubt that you can make anything a 'controversial issue' using a small determined group of pranksters. Friendly Neighbour 16:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Religion, like politics, is by its nature a controversial issue. The template fit the new criteria for T1 before even before it was changed. Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted - all userboxes to do with religious (or otherwise) beliefs are inherently divisive. James F. (talk) 18:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep current version, violations of WP:POINT should not be rewarded. (Note: "current version" means the version with the Ichthys picture and the text "This user is a Christian".) Angr (t • c) 19:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete - The conversation on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion makes me feel that T1 lacks consensus and should not even be a criteria for deletion, much less for speedy deletion. This particular user box is not divisive or inflamatory in the version refered to by the Angr. GRBerry 20:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, even though T1 is applicable here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a battleground for social, moral, or religious issues. Userbox templates and user templates group Wikipedians into competing factions. This infrastructure has been used in the past to abuse our decision-making policies by vote-stacking. If you really feel it is necessary to proclaim your religion on your userpage, you can do it, but you don't need a template to do so. --User:Cyde 21:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted but block the WP:POINT violators. Cynical 21:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• undelete What is the problem with users stating their opinions on the matter of belief? In years to come, academics analysing WP will want to know about the make-up of the beliefs of the contributors. Knowing the numbers of people who were athiest, agnostic, Christian, Islamic, etc will be vital, to allow academics to analyse how beliefs impacted on editing. As an academic I have to say removing templates like this is the equivalent of destroying an archive. It is crazy, ill thought-out and misses the bigger picture. The issue is not the beliefs of users but their ability to be NPOV. Some of the best NPOVcontributors on religious papers happen to hold clear personal definitions on religious matters. Why shouldn't that be openly stated? Do we want people to hide their views but still be influenced by them anyway? Surely being open about beliefs would be more healthy. User:Jtdirl|(caint) 21:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Stressing beliefs and opinions of users undermines the ability to be NPOV, and distracts many users into thinking this site is primarily for social networking. Recent history has shown that introducing strongly-held beliefs into WP has not been healthy at all. However, your comments about academic studies in the future are intriguing. I wonder if the same goal might be accomplished by having all users sign up and adopt a user name (a good idea on its own merits, I think) and have them fill out a demographic form as they do it. It would be anonymous and used simply for the purposes you suggest - academic curiosity as to the social/religious/political make-up of WP. Would that satisfy this particular need? Nhprman 22:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  No it doesn't. Everybody's edits are impacted upon by their beliefs. You can go into denial and pretend that doesn't happen or you can be honest and let people admit what their beliefs are. The most dangerous POV-warriors are those in denial about their viewpoints. Those who can categorise and define their beliefs, as psychiatrists repeat over and over again, are more likely to be able to be neutral because, having had to define their beliefs they are the ones most likely to think, in this case for example, "I am an athiest. Is that colouring my editing of Mother Teresa of Calcutta?" The main POV warriors are those who delude themselves into thinking they are neutral and end up blinded to their own beliefs and the impact they have on their editing. Your comments above show the problem that causes. You hold a view. You belief it is NPOV. But your edits suggest a distinct POV, one that repeats your view as a mantra you believe is neutral but on the evidence of your comments isn't. Psychiatrists and psychologists stress the fact that the best way to achieve neutrality is to analyse and define your views and then compensate for the bias you realise you have. Userboxes achieve that. Pretending you don't have a view, which is what the policy of deleting templates is all about, produces self-dillusion, not neutrality or objectivity. User:Jtdirl|(caint) 00:13, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Sure beliefs impact edits, and no one truly holds a NPOV. But I don't need to see a Userbox to know that an article edit was biased. I will know them by their works, so to speak. Announcing beliefs creates tribes (by using Templated Userboxes) and sows suspicion of bias among those who jump to conclusions about what affiliations like "User is Christian" means. We don't need any of that here. And all of the self-analysis about a user's bias can occur in our own heads before we start editing. - Nhprman 03:35, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted - non-encyclopedic.--Tbeatty 02:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Obvious speedy undelete - (1) the only argument brought forward for deletion was "unencyclopedic" or "POV", both of which have been refuted as being irrelevant to userboxes; (2) there is no difference between this userbox and any other such as "This user is X years old" or "This user is from country X" or "This user's hair colour is X". — Timwi 10:33, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy undelete and discuss - (1) I agree with Timwi, no difference between this userbox and other userboxes; (2) The user is a Christian is a simple and clear sentance. After those joke editings I think it should be reverted to what it originally is, not speedy delete. (3) I remember we should have a vote for deletion if someone think it's something disputed. To speedy delete this userbox without any votes is not necessary and should be reverted. (4) To have this userbox it can help to category Christian wikipedians to work on Christianity articles. I still cannot understand why you guys think it should be deleted. --H.T. Chien / 眼鏡虎 (Discuss|Contributions) 15:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Your last statement is precisely the problem. Using a category 'Christian wikipedians' to identify editors to work on a Christianity article is gaming the system. There may well be atheists, agnosticcs, muslims etc who are very knowledgeable about Christianity-related subjects and would help to ensure a balanced article. (Equally, there will be some Christians who are clueless about the subject) It would me much better if categories and userboxes identified people by editing interests 'Users interested in Christianity related articles' and left POV to one side. --Doc ^ask? 16:00, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, now I got your point. I agree some Christians might be POV on some articles or categories, but not all Christians will (at least I will try not to do that). If people want to make the userbox to be NPOV, just discuss in the talk page and modify it base on the discussion, not speedy delete. --H.T. Chien / 眼鏡虎 (Discuss|Contributions) 16:27, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete. Full and frank disclosure is a key element to help work toward balance in editing articles. Repressing acknowledgement of POVs is systematic bias. Rfrisbie^talk 16:37, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Then, if "Templates designed for user pages that express personal beliefs, ideologies, ethical convictions, or viewpoints on controversial issues." is policy, move this template to {{user christianity}} and change the contents to "This user is interested in Christianity.", since Christianity is a major world religion and a hugely important topic for Wikipedia to cover, making a similar template to this a valid interest-expressing userbox (and significant interests are clearly highly relevant to Wikipedia even if beliefs aren't). There's no need to scrap perfectly good edit histories and userbox layouts (thus wasting everyone's time even more on this crap when we have to start from scratch, which is surely something noone wants) for such a redesignation, so deletion is clearly unnecessary even if the new "T2" CSD becomes accepted. If the new T2 designation isn't accepted, then undelete and, if someone thinks this userbox is unacceptable, nominate it at TfD for discussing deletion, because it clearly isn't "inflammatory", which is a requirement for T1 speedy-deletion. -Silence 17:00, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Undelete and raise a user conduct RFC on the administrators who were involved in vandalism. I am shocked at the bad faith with which this whole affair occurred. The fact that administrators were involved in blatant vandalism of a widely used template says to me that there needs to be some easier method of removing administrators. The fact that they spent two days playing with the language says to me that they were just trying to make a WP:POINT. The fact that it was removed without any kind of effort to notify people using it says that it was in bad faith. Shame on all of you who were involved in this process. BigDT 17:05, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and sigh The bottom line is it was played around like a toy without explanation. Let's just bring it back and put this particular box behind us. Rest assured, we will never, ever satisfy everyone in the case. Let's make that clear. --Pilot|guy 21:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't agree. I was trying to work with users to discuss improvements. Rexmorgan and I made some progress, but that progress was obstructed by POV impassioned users who responded with maximum hostility. The whole point of NPOV is that there usually is some representation that everyone can agree is acceptable. --Gmaxwell 21:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted I guess. The template is highly POV, more so than many POV userboxes, as it stood because it implies that the user speaks for all Christians through the use of the word "is". When I applied an improvement suggested by User:Rexmorgan which came out of discussion and compromise, to change the template to 'claims to be' which dramatically improves the neutrality of the template, I was viciously attacked by another user with claims of 'vandalism'. By preserving this template we'd only be rewarding users who attempt to assert ownership of the template namespace. The response from many was outrageously passionate and emotional, but with all that energy behind it I've yet to see any of them make a single objective criticisms of the text I wrote. It appears to me that these folks seem to be able to comment only about the somewhat over-the-top-with-sillyness animation which cyde added and which I never restored, which they use to justify their calling for my blood. The violence and hostility of the users attacking me is shameful, and clear proof that this userbox is incredibly divisive. If this is restored I will continue to argue for the use of NPOV language. I refuse to be frightened away by the attacks of the religious POV pushers. --Gmaxwell 21:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  If I may make a comment on your situation, it would seem to me that "This user claims to be a Christian" may take an overtly skeptical tone to people who are trying to use this userbox as self-identification. It almost makes it sound as if everyone who uses it could be lying, and although I am of the personal opinion this is indeed the case for some people, my personal opinions don't dictate who wants to use this userbox by whatever standards of "Christian" they please. Therefore, "claims to be" may very well seem rather negative in a way. Besides, if users wanted it to say "I claim to be a Christian", then well, they can just subst the code and write that themselves. Homestarmy 22:04, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  The claims to be text was proposed as a less verbose alternative by Rexmorgan, I don't claim that it is ideal. I too see the risk of the claims to be text potentially seeming too cynical when placed in this context. Instead I prefer the verbose route which makes it clear that any such assertion is necessassarly vague.

  In any case, users are currently permitted to make assertions, even incorrect ones, on their userpages. We should not, however, have templates which violate NPOV. So if we are to have both POV and NPOV representations of this used in the Wikipedia userspace, it is the 'user is foo' (POV) form which should only be used directly (not a template), and that should ideally take the form of a signed comment rather than something that looks like a system provided label speaking in third person. The form 'X claims Y is Z' as a replacement for 'Y is Z' is a very common method used to achieve NPOV on Wikipedia, which weakens the argument against that form. --Gmaxwell 23:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Gmaxwell, I agree that the box as is needs to go, but you and Cyde really undermined the case for reasoned discourse, regardless of how much POV pushing might be going from others, when you pulled that stunt. I had expected better of you, at least. ++Lar: t/c 22:28, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Pulled what stunt? I believe you are attributing actions to me which were not mine. Lets start at the beginning. What, exactly, is offensive or inflammatory about this edit? and what aspect of this undermines the case for reasoned discourse? Please be specific.--Gmaxwell 22:58, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  It's the combination of all those edits which is largely unacceptable. You turned a simple userbox into a page-long list of varied denominations and then deleted it which lead to its eventual deletion. It would have been far more simple (and appropriate) to include a variable option that would allow a user to input their specific version or no variable and remain as a simple Christian. Instead, you dragged it out to a ridiculous extreme and then deleted it because that extreme led it to and easily speediable template. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 23:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  By failing to be specific you have given me cause to doubt that you've actually examined my actions with any care what so ever. How am I view your response as anything but yet another baseless attack when you can't even get the most simple facts correct (and then deleted it)? If you'd taken the time to comment on what actually I actually performed, rather than on what you imagine I performed, you might have observed that I was making every possible effort to discuss the changes with the user who had the (at the time it was just Cyde, Rexmorgan, and myself in the active discusison) minority view that the changes should not be made. --Gmaxwell 23:15, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Fine, I'll be more specific. That first edit you mention, though adding to the overall detail, turns the userbox into a small essay rather than a simple description. It's wholly unnecessary to go into such detail for such a simple template. I don't know why you added that talk page link. There's nothing inherently wrong with a comment. However, let's move on from there. From your initial edit, you and Cyde (mostly Cyde, it would seem) go on to extend the template with multiple see also links, references, and even longer description, and even a spinning cross for some reason. Like I said, it's the fact that you continued on that path that makes what you did largely unacceptable. Common sense should have kicked in at some point. What user template could possibly need to be a page long? "This user is a Christian" is fine for what it is meant for. Adding a denomination option would make it slightly clearer. It certainly doesn't need to be an essay. I also fixed my earlier comment with different wording. "And then deleted it" doesn't accurately describe what happened. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 23:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Taking a userbox that is five words and turning it into a monstrosity that contains a dissertation on what you think the word "Christian" might be considered a stunt. Then, you threatened User:Rexmorgan [5], whose only crime was reverting the blatant vandalism of the template. That any of those involved in the vandalism defend it as somehow "improving" the template is patently silly. "Improving" a template that you yourself don't use and presumably have no desire to use by making it gigantic is hardly something that could be done in good faith. It is reprehensible conduct. BigDT 00:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Please do not misrepresent my actions. I didn't make a threat. I did not vandalize anything. Please do not be uncivil, it disrupts polite conversation. Rexmorgan is a good user whom I found to be quite friendly once we started discussing, I wish more of the people here had his qualities. --Gmaxwell 01:02, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'm really sorry to say this but I did go through the diffs to the box. It was a box. Not an essay. Edits like this: [6] and this [7] (both yours if I am not mistaken) and others, strike me (at least, and I think others as well) as making a point disruptively. The edits may have been done in a civil manner, and may have been discussed in a civil manner at the time, but they were nevertheless disruptive, because userboxes are not essays. You could have linked to an essay text, but changing the box itself to make it not fit neatly with all the rest of the pithy little POV statements was being disruptive, in my view. It truly pains me to say this, as I have a great deal of respect for your long and wise service to the 'pedia, and some considerable respect for Cyde's potential value add as well, but I am deeply disappointed that you guys chose to make a point this way. What bothers me the worst is that you're right about the goal. These boxes have to go. But your methods interfere with the ends, you've made it harder to achieve this needful goal, in my view. Again, I am sorry. The ends do not justify the means. But that's how I feel, you've made it harder for others to try to accomplish this needful work. ++Lar: t/c 01:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  One of the things I hate most in conversations is when someone picks one or two little points out of my post and responds only to that, so please accept my apology for doing that to you right now. :) In particular I wanted to question your selection of this difflink. In the prior two edits Cyde had added a reference section, so I was merely adding refs to the statements of facts in the text. How on earth can you find anything specifically wrong with that edit? Did you just include that diff to add force to your comments with the expectation that no one would read it? I don't wish to be rude, but I'm completely baffled by your selection. As for the other diff you included, Rexmorgan had simply reverted to the prior version of the template with the only provided justification being that it was in use by users. I allowed hours to pass but Rex made no attempt to discuss his changes. Since the mere use of a template doesn't confer control of a page I believed his action was misguided. I invited people to participate on the talk page, and took a guess at improving it. I didn't just robotically revert to my preferred version. I'm sorry that my actions hurt your goal of deleting the boxes, as I didn't have any intentions along those lines. --Gmaxwell 01:40, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Well, you asked for specific edits, so I gave you some. But it's the bigger picture here that matters, regardless of what specific edits did what.. start scrolling through the diffs from the begnning and what is apparent is that you and Cyde were taking a userbox and turning it into something else. Something that wasn't a userbox and that wasn't appropriate to be in with a collection of userboxes, because it was a long essay. I won't ascribe motive to your actions then, but I will ascribe appearance. It gave the appearance of POINT. I'm just a newb here and you're much more experienced, so I'm surprised that you're not seeing that, or not admitting it, as it seems aw'fly clear cut to me. Further I'm surprised that you're surprised that people on the other side are upset about it, and people on your/our side are dismayed at how you carried out making your point (or whatever it was you were doing... what WERE you guys thinking? And why did Sam Blanning say this ??? Read that barnstar text and then think about why people on the other side might have been annoyed.) Sure it's a wiki. But really, I expected better of Cyde and especially of you, and I'm quite disappointed. I won't belabour the point further, I've made it enough times I think and you either get it, or you don't. ++Lar: t/c 03:16, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• LOL. Wow. I suppose you could always say something like "this user affiliates with christianity". Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 23:37, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Exactly my point. How is such an elaborate template necessary for the simple purpose of a user saying that they are Christian? This would likely have been a far more successful debate had all that never taken place, no matter how well-intentioned it may have been. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 23:46, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Could someone explain to me how calling yourself a Christian, atheist, or a member of any other religious persuasion falls into the category of "Templates that are divisive and inflammatory"? This deletion, and that of the atheist userbox above, are both being defended as in line with CSD:T1. A userbox that says, "this user isn't going to hell, like the rest of you pathetic heathen are" is inflammatory. A userbox that says, "this user is a [insert denomination here]" is not. If these two userboxes were not "divisive and inflammatory", they should not have been speedied and thus, anyone who is unbiased would have to agree that they should be restored and given their day on TfD. BigDT 00:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Comment - I'll bite. Reason 1) Because Templates are put into categories, and then are often used to "rally" troops to support this or that edit or this or that box through vote stacking. 2) Because Userboxes spawn other boxes ("User hates Christians" "User against Fundamentalist", etc.) that are far more inflammatory and they become distractions from the mission of Wikipedia (editing an encyclopedia.) 3) Wikipedia is not a place for social networking. It should not matter what religion you are here. 4) Advertising your biases makes it likely your edits will be challenged for bias. Even if you disagree with 3 and 4, you should consider using this box (and others like it) as TEXT ("Subst'ed") on your own home page, and not as a template. That would help end vote-stacking and tribalism here on WP, and these debates will go on (and on and on) as long as Templated Userboxes exist. Hope that clears things up. - Nhprman 01:33, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Comment You make four valid points. They would be very good points on a TFD, but they fail to answer the question about a speedy delete as they have nothing to do with being "divisive and inflammatory". (1) If people are using userboxes to rally the troops, that's the problem, not the userbox itself. (2) If people are making inflammatory userboxes after viewing someone's non-inflammatory userbox, that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the first one. (3) The social networking issue is not one of divisiveness or ... umm ... inflammation. (4) Nor is a user being challenged because of his or her biases. BigDT 02:15, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Comment I think Templated Userboxes are inherently divisive, and even inflammatory, and fit under T1 (and definitely T2, which is being discussed and decided here, too.) Templated userboxes have been used as a social networking tool to unify and organize various political and social groups. And I have to say it would only serve to verify suspicions if I saw a questionable POV edit, say, on a Christian-related page, then went to the Userpage of the editor and saw "Opposes (insert subject of article he was editing)" as a Userbox. Even without the "negative" comment in the box, they are still divisive. In an article on the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, I wouldn't want to know who is Catholic and who is Protestant among the editors. That breeds distrust and tribalism here. Also, groups have used the Templated Userboxes to rally each other to support or defeat a Userbox in this review process, and elsewhere. Yes, these are inherently divisive, and they breed discontent. That's not the mission here at WP. Am I saying the problem will go away if they are Subst'ed and made into text? No. But the social networking angle will virtually disappear overnight. That would be good for the project. (RxStrangelove said it just as good, if not better and shorter, just below me here!) Nhprman 06:01, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted. Sometimes we forget why we're here....we're producing an encyclopedia that our readers can use...and trust...as a neutral and unbiased source of information. It does us no good for our readers to see that a contributor to a topic they are interested in proclaims allegiance to a POV related to that topic. It turns what should be a critical reader into a suspicious reader. Rx StrangeLove 04:12, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment -- I have queried the developers, and there is no such thing as userspace categories or userspace templates. All categories and templates are "omnispace", they are used in all namespaces defined in a *pedia. Please do not confuse syntax (Category followed by colon and Template followed by colon) with policy. Bits are bits are bits. --William Allen Simpson 06:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete -- experts in religious beliefs and ethnicities help build the *pedia. The bad faith admins that edit-warred should be desysop'd. --William Allen Simpson 06:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete What reason do we have to censor people based on their religious beliefs. Using CSD T1 as a reason is not the best option as it is currently being discussed on the CSD talk page. Also, the article namespace IMO is the only space which requires NPOV. Templates, although used in the article space, are in no way restricted to it. Does this template directly inflame, or is it just another reason trolls use to start edit wars? The latter does not mean that religious divisions are inflammatory, the user who uses them as a justification for being inflammatory is in the wrong. Ansell 07:01, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  No one is being "censored" here. (On the other hand, please see WP:FREE.) I think it's common sense that religious divisions have always been inflammatory, on and off the Internet. Wikipedia is not about religious divisions, or creating communities of religious (or anti-religious) people. That will end when Templated Userboxes are moved to Userspace. - Nhprman 20:04, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  It is people assuming "common-sense" to be the same as consensus that has created so much discussion on this issue. It is obviously not a consensus that religious divisions are inflammatory by nature, or this discussion would not include nearly as many comments to the contrary. WP:REDUCE QED. Ansell Review my progress! 00:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete -- this is fine for user pages, and ban Cyde and Gmaxwell --T-rex 15:17, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Do you ever get tired of making a fool out of yourself? --Cyde Weys 22:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Do you ever get tiered of seeing how many people you can piss off? FYI wikipedia does not allow vandalism --T-rex 00:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted quite why anyone feels the need to stuff themselves into ready made boxes is beyond me, certainly doesn't belong in mainspace. --pgk^(talk) 16:59, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Er, it's not in mainspace, it's in Template space. --AySz88^-^ 22:36, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted per above. - Mailer Diablo 17:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Sarge Baldy 19:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete: I'm sick of this crap, block Gmaxwell and Cyde Brian | (Talk) 22:41, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Actually, I deleted it. Do you want me blocked too? Mackensen (talk) 00:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  In its most recent state, deleting it was a favor. I think the block complaints mostly stem from the circumstances that lead to its deletion, which those two were largely responsible for. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 00:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Yes, but we're supposed to be reviewing my action as an administrator, not theirs as editors. It's vital to keep the two separate. Mackensen (talk) 01:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  In that case, reverting followed by protecting would probably have been the best bet. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 01:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  No, not really. I was already convinced on quite separate grounds that this and all other such templates needed to be subst'd onto user's pages and then deleted. Mackensen (talk) 01:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  To each their own. Personally, I doubt it would have ever been a problem if no one had modified it in the first place. The categorization in those boxes does need to go though. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 01:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  It had already been reverted for some time when it was deleted. Also keep in mind the article suffered a history merge, so the diffs don't accurately reflect people's changes. :( --Gmaxwell 14:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete: Because I said the same about user athiest Bastique▼^parlervoir 23:59, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong undelete'. I can't see how this is any more divisive or controversial than a userbox stating, for instance, that the user can speak Spanish at an advanced level. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 02:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Attempted T1 scope creep. Did Jimbo expand the scope or just a few admins trying to enforce their will on the community? If not Jimbo, then where was the concensus established for the change? --StuffOfInterest 11:31, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  T1 is so so subjective that at this point we're left with "administrative activism". Except that the only administrators who can act out their POVs are the ones against userboxes, because it's "wheel warring" to disagree with them. Deleting things citing T1 is hardly a janitorial duty, it's a POV crusade. And it's way out of line. Yet somehow, it's policy. Sarge Baldy 17:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  I have to agree somewhat with what you say here. T1 can be kind of subjective, and deletions are permenant and sometimes unfair. A perfect solution to this, therefore, would be to take these Templated Userboxes OUT of Template space altogether and move them into User space, beyond the jursidiction of admins and where a vastly broader guidelines of "acceptability" can exist (basically, everything except boxes that threaten others or advocate heinous acts.) It's a simple and elegant solution. Or, people can stubbornly and short-sightedly support undeleting this and other boxes, and then come back again when they're deleted the next five times. Your choice. - Nhprman 02:05, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  There was a proposed policy along these lines a couple of months ago. Despite having strong support in favor it wasn't considered enough of a "concensus" to enforce. After this it appears most of the advocates of a compromise gave up and left it to the warriors to fight out. --StuffOfInterest 11:25, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted divisive.--MONGO 02:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete as long as it remains simple. Gyre 07:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. There is nothing inherently POV or divisive about identifying oneself with a particular religious group. Believers (and unbelievers) have a variety of opinions on almost every conceivable encyclopedia topic (often even extending to doctrinal differences within their own group). -- DS1953 ^talk 16:14, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Merge into one of the over 40 other userboxes for various flavours of Christianity. // Liftarn 13:41, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete This template does not qualify T1. Hunter 17:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, This doesn't qualify for T1 and T2 is not valid at this time. In addition Wikipedia:Userbox policy supports keeping this. JohnnyBGood t c 18:38, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:User Hell, Template:User Ideal Dictator, and Template:User Elitist

This user is probably going to Hell.

This user is the Ideal Dictator.

This user is an elitist.

I deleted these three userboxes under criteria T1. "User Hell" seemed to me to be the definition of "inflammatory", and the others are almost by definition polemical or divisive. I don't actually want these undeleted, but these are the first userboxes I've deleted under T1, and I figured this was the appropriate place to put them up for review so if people think that I'm off the rails on these they can educate me. Nandesuka 11:29, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Err, what was in them? :/ Homestarmy 12:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

• Note I've temporarily restored User Hell as it just surrived a TFD here Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 April 30. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:16, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
  • It's my opinion that "this survived a TfD" is not a reason to undelete a speedy delete -- I view the criteria as somewhat disjoint. Inflammatory and divisive userboxes should be speedied, but it makes sense to send userboxes to TfD if there is not consensus that they are inflammatory and/or divisive. All that being said, I'm happy to let the debate continue here, and if the consensus is that it should have been kept deleted, I'll ask another admin to re-speedy it. Nandesuka 14:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Please note the "temporary" line in my statement above. If consensus is for deleting this here then deleted it should be. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I think that the claim that Template:User Hell is inflammatory and/or divisive was thoroughly debunked in that TfD discussion. I encourage you to read it.  Grue  15:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Hell was very recently (May 6) kept on TfD by overwhelming majority. It should be undeleted ASAP. Don't know about the others though.  Grue  12:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Apparently someone restored it.  Grue  12:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Also undelete the other two: they look completely harmless.  Grue  12:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• I took a look at these and I think User Hell is a bit different than the other two. Totally support CSD1 on that one, it's divisive all right. The other two I think maybe ought to go through TfD as they seem more like jokes than seriously divisive and therefore do not, in my view anyway, qualify under CSD T1. I'd end up supporting deletion, I see no reason for them to be in templatespace, but I think process is appropriate and should be used, in the interests of fairness. Perhaps we need T2-Tn to cover some of these sorts of things because really, they have little value as templates. Until then, though, I'm opposed to speedying them... PS, full marks for bringing this here on your own without prompting, Nandesuka! (PPS I did not know it went through TfD already when I wrote the above. Still think it qualifies under CSD T1 though) ++Lar: t/c 12:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• These aren't T1's, but they're rubbish, bilge, nonsense, crap. Delete/keep deleted/whatever. All three --Tony Sidaway 12:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and send to TfD. I will then vote for deletion, because they are a frivolous use of template space. However, they are not T1's (even the Hell one looks more like a joke than an attack on religion) and I am not going to apply WP:SNOW with these; they might well survive the proper process. Metamagician3000 13:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all deleted. Not useful in writing an encyclopedia. Misza13 ^{T C} 13:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

  Agreed, but that is a reason to vote against them in a TfD, not for speedy deleting them under T1. Metamagician3000 13:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete All then send the last 2 to TfD, (The hell one looks like it already ran that gauntlet) -- Dragoonmac - ^{If there was a problem y}_{o I'll solve it} 15:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted abuse of resources, restoring useless things to list on TfD would also be a waste of everyone's time. --Doc ^ask? 15:29, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
  • You could save yourself some time by not visiting this page anymore.  Grue  15:35, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
    • You misunderstand, I'm happy to visit it. But if people agree with these being deleted - voting to relist them for reasons of procedural nicety are wasting my (and your) time, --Doc ^ask? 15:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
      • If they weren't deleted in the first place, that would've saved everyone's time. As it is, people who used these templates should wait 5 or so days until they are undeleted, and vote in different places to get their templates back. That's what I call waste of time.  Grue  15:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
        • If they weren't created in the first place, that would've saved everyone's time. If people didn't insist in reviews of every deletion of such unencyclopedic crap (we don't do that for articles) that would save everyone's time. To have to go through xfD is just more paperwork - those processes are designed to protect against the hasty deletion of encyclopedic content not to protect myspace nonsense. --Doc ^ask? 16:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
          • • Listing something on TfD takes two edits, which should take two minutes. What's the problem? Septentrionalis 16:32, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
              • Actually, a TfD debate will involve much more than two edits, and by many different users. We delete most unencyclopedic stuff by speedy - why should userboxes enjoy any special status? --Doc ^ask? 13:18, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
                • This is still a straw man. No one proposes to exempt userboxes from the general speedy conditions; merely from T2, which is not consensus. Septentrionalis 04:08, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and list the last two on TfD, where a case can be made that they are divisive: if editors actually do object to something, like the late Nagorno-Karabakh box, TfD will delete it. Septentrionalis 16:32, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted more junk --pgk^(talk) 18:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, don't belong as templates, and could be divisive. --Cyde Weys 20:26, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, irrelevant to building an encyclopaedia. Just zis Guy you know? 20:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete User:Hell, Delete the 2 others. Comments:
  • How can we vote for 3 userboxes at a time? Completely unrelated userboxes should be discussed one at a time.
  • User:Hell just survived TfD at 29 keeps to 4 deletes (!!). I know that Wikipedia is not a democracy and all, but speedying a template that was kept at over 7 votes to 1 is ridiculous. Particularly since (let's be honest) if a userbox makes it onto this page it has a 99% chance of being deleted simply because it is always the same anti-userbox people voting. NOTE that I am not an absolute userbox enthusiast, and I am in favour of deleting all religious, political and non-encyclopedic userboxes, but going at it one by one and disregarding previous TfDs etc. is bound to hurt or at least annoy some people, and it certainly doesn't show Wikipedia under its best light. Please consider the TfD and restore User:Hell.
    • Comment: Three of those delete votes were the original nominator voting several times. The ratio was actually 29 to 1. -- Rocketgoat 21:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
  • A lot of energy and time is spent (wasted?) by many users here. Why isn't this effort put into creating a sustainable policy regarding userboxes? Something like User:Misza13's proposal (User:Misza13/Userbox Gallery Poll) seems like a much more worthwhile effort, and it also has the potential of hurting much less sensitivities than this tiresome one-at-a-time deletion process. --IronChris | (talk) 21:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

    We are putting this energy into creating a sustainable policy regarding userboxes, right here. The way we find out what that sustainable policy will be is by deleting a bunch of userboxes, one by one, seeing what sticks, what doesn't, and why, and applying what we learn here to an eventual rewording of the policy to match the best practices we discover through experience. It's an organic process, and this is how it's supposed to work. We don't just guess what a good policy will probably be and then vote on our guess. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

    • comment what if what sticks is the desire by editors to keep these userboxes? Mike McGregor (Can) 19:44, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and list the last two on TfD. The first one was kept after a TfD vote and can be used to show a user's legitimate views. Just because someone might use it as a joke doesn't mean it's not legitimate sometimes. Would you delete the gay userbox just because someone could use it as a joke? -- Rocketgoat 21:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and list the last two on TfD per everyone else. The first one seems quite divisive and iflammatory to me, but if it recently survived a TfD then there can be no justification for speedily deleting. The other two appear completely harmless. AmiDaniel (talk) 21:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

  Something surviving a TfD does not mean that there's no justification for deleting it. If a group at TfD decide to keep something in violation of policy, then they're wrong, and they get overruled. That's built into the system. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

  The approved way to overturn consensus is to produce overriding consensus the other way, either by persuading the members of the first consensus to change their minds or bringing it to the attention of more eyes, as Wikipedia:consensus recommends. Ignoring consensus is divisive and inflammatory, as this page should have made clear by now. Septentrionalis 22:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

  I disagree. I'm a firm believer that community consensus trumps all, and saying that any admin can unilaterally act against the decisions of the community because of his own interpretation of how T1 applies is, IMO, dead wrong and just an invitation to begin wheel-warring. Wheel-warring, especially over something as insignificant as userboxes, is among the most counterproductive behaviors and should be avoided at all costs. I'll look over the TfD, and if there's anything fishy about it, I may change my opinion. AmiDaniel (talk) 22:42, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'm sorry, that's not correct. What if consensus says, "let's go ahead and violate copyright"? What if consensus says, "let's forget about writing an encyclopedia and use Wikipedia as a free webhost"? Then consensus is wrong. Not even WP:Consensus supports your idea that "consensus trumps all". -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:45, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

  Consensus established and supports those policies in the first place. If there is ever consensus to forget about the encyclopedia, WP has failed; and in that counterfactual case, we might as well make it a free webhost, and if necessary go looking for computers to replace Jimbo's. The queston of fact (is this a copyvio?) is also settled by consensus when debateable; the TfD seems to quite clearly show that deleting the Hell template is divisive. Septentrionalis 22:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

  In your hypothetical argument that the community would vote to violate a copyright, that's when WP:OFFICE comes into play. By "trumps all," I only meant that it trumps the whim of one admin. AmiDaniel (talk) 22:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted and bury them deep as per GTBacchus, Cyde and Doc. Consensus cannot be allowed to overrule common sense, and it's clear that consensus is going against templated userboxes at this time anyway. We need a new definition of "template" if "I'm an elitist" and "I'm going to hell" are considered proper template messages. - Nhprman 23:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete all, they are humorous and not inflammatory. Crumbsucker 23:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Undelete there is no T1 criteria that applies to humorous, harmless, and non-divisive, non-inflammatory, non-polemical boxes such as these. Speedy deletion particularly troubling in light of the recent TFD on User Hell. --Dschor 01:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • There is now. Nandesuka 11:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• strong delete and seal with concrete. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That's the core and ultimate principle. Wikipedia is not an entertainment place. Any process, policy, rule etc that doesn't take part on that principle should be ignored. Anything that it's implied by that core principle is not wrong. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 02:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, and get to the "pedia" part of Wikipedia. Ral315 (talk) 03:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete all Most of all the "Hell" template... With a 29-1 vote in favor of keeping just days ago - why are we here again? Why aren't all religious userboxes deleted? Just absurd. SKELETOR666 04:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Because Wikipedia is not a democracy.. Nandesuka 11:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Yet here we all are, voting.... SKELETOR666 05:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete all to encourage following of process. TheJabberwʘck 05:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Deleted for all as a complete waste of space, as well as political and divisive. move to user space if you want them. -User:AKMask|User_talk:AKMask 05:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete User Hell, keep deleted the other two. User Hell seems like more of a joke than anything inflammatory. I agree with the assessment of the other two. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 05:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete all of them. Everyking 08:46, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted for the last two. - Mailer Diablo 10:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all three deleted. Particularly note that under the new T1, all three qualify as speedies. Nandesuka 11:04, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh, I see, unbeknownst to most people, some individuals stealthily changed the policy to promote their own viewpoint. Good show, folks. Very smart. User:Grue''' Grue ''' 11:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
    • It was especially tricky the way they invisibly discussed the issue on Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion and how they silently and quietly announced the changes on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), thus guaranteeing that no one would discover it. Those perfidious sneak-thiefs! Nandesuka 11:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Yes, those nefarous, sneaky Rouge Admins must be stopped! Er wait... I'm the one that first tried to get the change to stick this time. And so far it is sticking. As others say, the change documents what the emerging consensus here seems to be... all of these sorts of things need to not be in template space. The old T1 admitted of too much wiggle room. ++Lar: t/c 12:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
        • Actually I'm not sure that these do qualify as speedies under the new T1, but we'll find out. The new, lovable, praiseworthy T1, bless its drafters, isn't necessarily going to deal with every dumb userbox. It's just going to solve the pressing problem of what to do about political, religious, etc., userboxes - if its sponsors can make it stick. Er, I'm one of those of sponsors. I've gone rouge already. Metamagician3000 13:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete the first one, and sure undelete the other two aswell. Does nobody have a sense of humour? --Falcon9x5 14:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per above Larix 14:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete "It's a joke Joyce." Avalon 15:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted (all) - none of them serve an encyclopædic purpose, all are (to an extent) divisive, and yet further process-wonkery (a "proper" deletion "debate") doesn't, either. James F. (talk) 18:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Hey, watch it buddy. Process==goodness and Policy==goodness, when used appropriately. That's why getting T1 changed is the correct action... "Out of process deletion"=="loads of annoyed editors" ++Lar: t/c 21:20, 12 May 2006 (UTC) (a process wonk)
• Keep the first two deleted - they have no value for the preparation of an encyclopedia. GRBerry 20:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per CSD T1. Cynical 21:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted T1 (2/3 at least - the other one's just useless), unencyclopedic, certainly unsuitable for Template namespace. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Deleted unencyclopedic.--Tbeatty 02:31, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete All These are intended to be humorous and as far as the unencylopedic claims the Userboxes are for use in your User Page and not in an article.--Lzygenius 20:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete the first one, and the last two, Open a moderated discussion reviewing their contributions to humour. I just recently dealt with a Bad Faith Nom of User Hell, which resulted in a week long debate that passed without questioning that it was not due to be deleted. Now I return to Wikipedia and I find that another user has deleted the box without discussion again, citing similar reasoning as the first bad faith nom. I'm saddened. The debate [seen here] clearly states that the template in question was NOT offensive to the majority of wikipedians that took the time to vote. I'm serious, this is really silly sometimes. I don't use userboxes as a way to judge a person, and no one else seriously should either. Some aren't even meant to be serious. I was considering the "Living in a Cave" box for my page, until I saw this. Now I guess it'll be deleted as "Dividing those who live above ground from those who live in caves". Analogies only, my friends. I'm only tired of dealing with a lack of proper research and debate. Logical2u 21:27, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete All and list the last 2 on TFD, the first one was already there. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete all. Rampant deletion of userboxes is wasting everyone's time and worse for the encyclopedia than the boxes themselves, which are harmless. Sarge Baldy 19:55, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• The User Hell template must be kept as it doesn't harm anyone, who wants to include it in its page includes it, who dosen't want doesn't include it. Where's the problem? For the other two, do what you wish. --Hard Rock Thunder 09:25, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Supporting deletion and Subst'ing does not harm these boxes. It simply moves them from Template space to User space. People can still include them on thier user pages if they wish. Supporting "keep" simply means they will be in Tfd over and over again because these are not appropriate as Templates (tools for building an encyclopedia.) - Nhprman 20:11, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  The only time User Hell was in TfD was when one user decided that it was "blasphemous" and nominated it (out of process, I might add). No one else cared. In fact, until recently, there were maybe one or two a day. Saying it'll go there over and over is flawed unless one or two people decide to nom them over and over. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 20:19, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Whether that particular box goes back through the process again wan't really my point. These issues of delete/undelete/unfair speedy, etc. will go on FOREVER if we don't come up with a solution. Having folks rally around a popular box or rally against an unpopular one is NOT something to look forward to, either. Moving them all to User space allows all Userboxes, including these three, to exist unmolested, except the most vile and offensive ones created to make a point. Throwing chaff in the air about process or (as some have done) muddy the water about how "good" or "funny" a box is misses the main focus of the discussion. - Nhprman 23:01, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• undelete none of these ever met T1 or the new t2 thats being rammed through...Mike McGregor (Can) 19:40, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• undelete of course - this is just common sense. All are funny and can't harm anyone who doesn't have an extremely bloated ego. Mrmaroon25 19:42 PM, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete the first two; however, no vote on "Elitist". That last one might be a bit inflammatory, I don't know. But the first two? Nah. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 02:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted for all, per GTBacchus. These are not appropriate for the template space. -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 05:50, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete "Going to Hell." I don't fully understand the process of deletion/preserving that's being discussed above, but I support this userbox as a tongue-in-cheek remark. This is exactly the kind of statement I stand behind, because it acknowledges mainstream religion, but does not give allegiance to any one religion specifically. Cybertooth85 22:43, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete I'm probably going to hell, what's wrong with saying so? The other two are funny enough aswell. Just because something's funny doesn't mean you should delete it. --Falcon9x5 13:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and list the last two on TfD. // Liftarn 13:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• undelete the first one: it is an abuse to speedy delete something which has survived a specific vote to stay. As to the other two, restore and list for people to argue about. Why are people so exercised by boxes whose comments are directed against the person who chooses to use them? Sandpiper 18:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete all. These shouldn't have been deleted as T2 is not valid at this time. JohnnyBGood t c 18:37, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Archived discussions

See /Archive, /Archive 2, /Archive 3

• Template:User Wikicheese-ologist (result kept deleted)
• Template:User ProIsrael: (result keep deleted, WP:SNOW)
• Template:User varied sex: (result kept deleted, closed as frivolous challenge)
• Template:User Triceratops Accident (result kept deleted)
• Template:User antiuserboxdeletion (result kept deleted)
• Template:User Darwinist(result kept deleted)
• Template:User Communist (result kept deleted)
• Template:User No Marxism (result kept deleted)
• Template:User infidel undeleted.
• Template:User Sock Puppet and Template:User Puppet Master ... it's complicated discussion
• Template:User against Saud (result almost unanimous keep deleted)
• Template:User_Unamerican and others (result nomination delisted early; template kept deleted)
• Template:User transhumanist and Template:User anti-transhumanist (result kept deleted)
• Template:User boylover and Template:User girllover (result kept deleted).
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Userboxes/Alerts (result kept deleted)
• Template:User admins ignoring policy (result kept deleted)
• Template:User Unamerican and others (result kept deleted)
• Template:User vomit (result kept deleted)
• Template:User Objectivism / Template:User No Objectivism (result: both kept deleted)
• Template:User_Thermostat_Bicker (Archive#Template:User_Thermostat_Bicker: undeleted and relisted on TfD)
• Template:User marriage man-woman (result: kept deleted)
• Template:User Same Sex Marriage (result: kept deleted)
• Template:User independent Iraq (result: kept deleted)
• Template:User antiparty (result: kept deleted)
• Template:User review (result: kept deleted)
• Template:User Copyright Nazi (result: kept deleted)
• User:nathanrdotcom/Userboxes/ABF (result: undeleted)
• Template: User evol-X (result: kept deleted)
• Template: User feminist (result: undeleted)
• Template:User userbox insurgent (result: nomination delisted early without explanation; template kept deleted)
• Template:User userbox revolution (result: nomination delisted early without explanation; template kept deleted)
• Template:User marriage man-woman (result: no majority to endorse deletion, no supermajority to overturn; I'm re-creating and taking it to TFD)
• Template:User opposes ubx screwing (result: kept deleted as protected page)
• Template:User USA Police State (result)
• Template:User No Meat (result: recreated as redirect)
• George W. Bush templates
• Pseudo-templates Userbox:Anti ACLU, Userbox:Anti UN (result)