Wikipedia:Userspace abuse

Superseded by the fact that WP:PROD can now be used in userspace. See the PROD page for details.

As Wikipedia becomes larger it also becomes a bigger target for people who want to abuse it. Despite the fact we have clear rules posted all over the place (most importantly near edit screens where editors cannot miss them) there are still people who ignore these rules and post material that is meant to advertise a certain product or business or promote the user's own name, website or band, etc.

With the recent additional of speedy deletion criterial G11 (against blatant advertising), advertising of commercial material is relatively easily dealt with, but there is a large number of people whose material gets moved to the userspace with the template {{userfied}} where it sits indefinitely because the user who originally posted it has no intention of contributing to the project.

By userfying self-promotional material, we allow people to abuse Wikipedia's resources and use the site as a free webhost which violates WP:NOT.

To get an idea of the size of the problem, Calton is keeping a list of such material here.

This proposal aims to make self-promotion and advertising in the userspace deletable in a clear process. The key to each of the proposals is that the user in question has no relevant contributions outside their userspace.

Proposal 1: To MfD each 6 months

This is the method currently in use by Calton.

Any userspace that contains promotional material and belongs to a user with no edits outside their userspace (excluding attempts to put promotional links to their name in articles) can be submitted to MfD after 6 months provided the user is warned on their talk page.

Pros:

• User isn't bitten.

Cons:

• Process is slow and still allows promotional material to remain for 6 months.

Ideas:

• Time frame could be shortenened.

Proposal 2: Expand speedy deletion criteria

Currently, we have speedy deletion criterion U2 about nonexistent user which states user pages of users that do not exist can be deleted. We also have a criterion against encyclopedia articles on non-notable people (A7), but neither of these criteria handle promotion in the userspace. They should be expanded to include the following:

• U4: "Self-promotion". Any userpage that is only used for advertising or self-promotion which belongs to a user with no contributions to the project outside their promotional activities.

Speedy deletion criterion G11 about commercial advertising should be expanded to also include userspace material.

Pros:

• Speedy deletion, as the name says.

Cons:

• If user uses account only sporadically, if at all, the user has only a short window in which to contest the deletion.

Ideas:

• Soften language on no contributions to the project outside their promotional activities to allow for a small number of inconsequential edits so as not to encourage people to technically avoid this while still meeting it in spirit.
• Or, no significant contributions to the project outside their promotional activities. ("Significant" is open to interpretation, but so is much of what an admin does, after all.)

Proposal 3: Userfy with care, avoid the problem

With established users, a little self-promotion on a userpage is acceptable. We've been less strict with userpages compared to articles. However, userpages should generally focus on editorial work. Before userfying material, editors should investigate a user's contributions to get an idea of their intention. If they haven't done any edits that were not promotional in nature, the material should be deleted using the G11 and A7 speedy deletion criteria instead of being userfied.

Pros:

Cons:

• Makes new page patrol more time-consuming and intensive, which may drive some people away from doing it.

Ideas: