The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep and continue discussing policy. -- Jbamb 15:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes

These userboxes templates were nominated for deletion by Tony Sidaway (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) on 4 January, 2006.

A large number of userbox templates concerning beliefs and convictions

The purpose of these templates is to provide userboxes that an editor can apply to his user page, and in doing so he adds himself to a category according to his personal convictions or religious beliefs The dangers of this were starkly demonstrated late last month when, after the nomination for deletion of Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia the creator of that page used the userbox categories to locate over 40 Roman Catholics whose user talk pages he spammed in an attempt to subvert the consensual decision-making process of Wikipedia in order to keep a page that was avowedly intended "to nurture and keep wikipedia's pro-life/pro-catholic articles and categories."

We're getting into dangerous territory here, and this is a very recent thing. Of the 44 userboxes that I found listed on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Beliefs yesterday, only 3 had existed prior to December (See Important Notice Regarding Creation Dates), and a very high proportion seem to have been created over the Christmas/New Year holiday. These userboxes must go because they turn Wikipedia into a network of people linked together by their factional interests,and as such are a grave danger to the neutrality policy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and anything that threatens the neutrality policy must go.

To clarify, it's not so much the pretty little box that makes these userboxes so toxic, it's the ease of adding the box, which adds the editor in question to a category that we know will be abused by POV-pushers, because it already has been. This isn't about stopping people having a "bumper sticker" on their user pages, it's about stopping the category system being abused to destroy the neurality policy. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:User AI
Template:User childless
Template:User Pro-life
Template:User Pro-choice
Template:User life and choice
Template:User against fox hunting
Template:User ape-equality
Template:User flag Australia
Template:User Run-Off
Template:User vote
Template:User Monarchist
Template:User liberty
Template:User liberal
Template:User Christian democrat
Template:User apolitical
Template:User No Marxism
Template:User libertarian socialist
Template:User Socialist
Template:User anti oligarchy
Template:User marxian
Template:User marxist
Template:User Christian communist
Template:User Trot
Template:User Commie Bastard
Template:User Anarcho-capitalist
Template:User Anarchosyndicalist
Template:User Anarchist
Template:User pro concealed carry
Template:User anti gun control
Template:User evol-2
Template:User Jew
Template:User Jain
Template:User Adventist
Template:User rc
Template:User Catholic Evangelical
Template:Reformed Baptist
Template:User eastortho
Template:User religion flying spaghetti monster not really
Template:User IPU2
Template:User pope
Template:User Hell
Template:User spiritual humanist
Template:User secular humanist
Template:User humanist
Template:User Noahide
Template:User lennonist
Template:User monolatry
Template:User religion interest
Template:User religion
Template:User evol-4
Template:User evol-3
Template:User evol-2
Template:User evol-1
Template:User evol-0
Template:User creationist
Template:User evolution
Template:User No Recycling
Template:User Recycling
Template:User clean fuels
Template:User not-Drug-free
Template:User Drug-free
Template:User All Drugs
Template:User cannabis
Template:User EFF
Template:User antimonarchist
Template:User Christian
Template:User Chinese Traditional Religion
Template:User Capitalist
Template:User Communist
Template:User Anti-euro
Template:User trusts Jimbo

Comments

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Keep

Speedy Keep all. Unless people are suddenly coming here to visit user pages and not encyclopedia pages, I don't see the harm in these at all. The number of visitors seeing them must be so small as to be meaningless when taken as a whole of all of Wikipedia's traffic. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all, pending a more complete userbox policy. I believe that one is now under discussion. Once it is accepted, then delete any uservoxes which are unacceptable under that policy, and only those. This is an attempt to make policy via a deletion discussion, which is usually a poor idea, or else it assumes consensus on an existing policy which clearly does not yet exist. DES ^(talk) 05:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all for the time being because there are discussions already as to what Wikipedia policy on Userboxes should be and I believe we should not be deleting Userboxes until some form of final consesus is reached. Also, just on a sidenote, Template:User childless isn't regarding beliefs or convictions, might like to remove it... --Loopy 05:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all per DES and Loopy--Naha|^(talk) 05:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep. Reasoning behind proposal is specious. A user could just as easily express his beliefs in text on his user page; do we want to police them all? Nor is is any great danger that some POV holders wish to organize themselves. Concerted (but not formally coordinated) efforts of likeminded editors effectively act as organizations already, but that's just a phenomenon of existing in a social space. It is the clash of differing POVs that result in effective NPOV policing. More dangerous to me would be the development of an unspoken, and thus insiduous and undetected, kind of groupthink. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - The argument that these boxes somehow cause harm in the form of creating political polarization that wasn't already there is specious, at best. – Clockwork Soul 05:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all pending consensus being developed here: Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes. Suggest that all those sharing their views here may want to consider participating there, once policy is clear, userbox related TfD discussions will go a lot smoother. IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 06:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
speedy keep Did you people leave your brains home today?--Xenaphon 06:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - In terms of explaining your position, your remark could be more helpful. --DragonHawk 06:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep pending finished policy on userboxes and completion of that already-existing discussion. --AySz88^-^ 06:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all but then what happens when we get ((User against eating banannas))? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 06:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all for now, unconvinced that this is the best solution to what is fundamentally a problem of user behavior. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. Considering it's completely fair game to express beliefs on one's own user page, why should doing so through userboxes be policed or outlawed? John5008 --- talk 06:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep pending policy - As others have noted, this vote is premature. Serious discussion on a general policy on user boxes is happening. We should allow that discussion to happen. (Personally, I'm in the delete camp, but discussion needs to happen.) --DragonHawk 06:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep--Masssiveego 07:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. We are liberal with what goes on userpages, and I am quite OK with people can declaring themselves as muslims, communists, christians, catholics, liberals, Bush-supporters, Bush-haters, etc on their userpages. If they want to declare themselves as such with userboxes, let them. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all --Closedmouth 08:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Pending policy decisions already underway. This nomination is premature at best. No reason to throw even more gasoline on a burning pyre 1001001 08:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all Wikipedia is not going to break apart if we let these live. We have learned now that people get very upset if those boxes are deleted. It's just plain not worth that trouble. It's just like fighting against a trend. Just let time go by. That trend will loose it's momentum by itself. Requesting to remove a userbox "This user is a {Moslem,Jewish,Christian and all other religions}" is just a bad idea. Adrian Buehlmann 08:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all -- Per others, - Trysha ^(talk) 08:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all — Wikipedia is not censored for minors nor anyone, WP:NPOV does not apply to user pages: Free speech .
People will only their interests or personal beliefs in text on own user pages without templates otherwise in any case: You are essentially suggesting a whole change in Userpage policy. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 08:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep —Andux 08:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong KEEP - free speech, and they are only used on userpages, which WP:NPOV does not apply. Brian | (Talk) 08:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all pending development of consensus at pages other than TfD, and as per the Keep arguments above which detail the situation better than I could ever hope to. Lord Bob 08:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All and Make More!!! No censorship on user pages. We can still put our beliefs on our pages in text, so why not with boxes too? For some people, (such as myself) political, religious and other beliefs are integral parts of life. The Ungovernable Force 09:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all, for now. If one of these is particularly offensive to you, nominate it individually. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 09:30, Jan. 4, 2006
Keep because they are used on user pages only and there should be no censorship. Can anyone tell me to whom e.g. Template:User humanist or Template:User religion interest are offensive? --Junyi 論 10:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. If you're worried about factions then perhaps we should delete all WikiProjects? the wub "?!" 10:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong KEEP all - So we can't voice views now? None of them say they are directly wrong. Ian¹³_ID:540053 10:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Your speech swayed me a bit, but I believe that Wikipedia is better as "a network of people linked together by their factional interests". The community benefits from being linked together by common interests and beliefs as we can improve and discuss related articles together. Perhaps excessive userboxness isnt the way for this, but I think its OK to state such beliefs on your userpage although some of the listed ones are a bit questionable or very similar to one and other. As for the "POV-pushers", vandalism happens on the main article space and we're not going to delete belief-related articles because of it. -- jeffthejiff (talk) 11:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep all Banning these would be truly ridiculous and (whatever the deletionists may say) completely against the free spirit of Wikipedia. It is user space while NPOV is for articles! The only positive thing about seeing these nominations here is that now there is a fair process, while certain admins tried very hard to prevent that (saying things like 'screw process' and 'what the community thinks doesn't matter.' Larix 11:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: We should encourage users to state their beliefs and the POV they see the world from. We're trying to build an encyclopaedia and that can only be helped by us understanding our fellow editors and being able to engage in sensible discussions when editorial problems arise. If you're worried about people using the categories to recruit users to bias a vote or whatever, perhaps we should discuss banning the recruiting of users to bias votes, but userboxes aren't the sole way of doing that. Joe D (t) 12:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All: There is nothing wrong with people putting their opinions and beliefs onto their user pages - people are certainly allowed to describe themselves however they wish. And without the userboxes describing said beliefs, there's nothing to stop people from just typing in what the box used to say. And sure, the boxes allow people with similar beliefs to locate each other... but what is wrong with that? Nothing. Also, some of the userboxes templates up for deletion certainly may be controversial, but Recycling and the Flying Spaghetti Monster? The templates of such shouldn't even be in this discussion. -- Natalya 12:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All It's all been said above. Let's end this reign of censorship and summary judgement. karmafist 12:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All - Solar 12:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All as per the view of the majority of previous editors who have indicated their "Keep all" sentiments here. Hamster Sandwich 12:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Most - I really don't see what's wrong with building up a larger sense of community around here. Yes, groups do come with an opinion, but I very much doubt it's going to ever lead to something like all the Template:User_Drug-free people getting together to declare Ian_MacKaye a king in his article etc. What it can do, particularly with some of the smaller and more specific categories is allow people to find someone to help with articles they're working on. Right now, though it would never happen, a " fan of Jim O'Rourke" template could help me to vastly improve said individual's articles. So yes, keep. Jellypuzzle | ^Talk 12:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. Strongly. —Nightstallion (?) 13:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. Having a community that strives to distribute knowledge artificially restrict the dessimination of one type of knowledge is dangerous, unproductive, and pointless as the only reason user pages can't be text-searched for these topics anyway is because search isn't advanced enough yet. Plus, userboxes are cool! ♥ GeekGirlSarah ♥ 13:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Strongest possible WP:ENC is cool! El_C 13:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible KEEP : Because a formal policy governing Userboxes specifically should decide the fate of all such boxes henceforward. And also because the heavy-handed & arbitrary behaviour of certain admins (and their contemptuous attitude towards other users) is far more harmful to the Wiki-project than some piffling pastel boxes could ever be. -- Peripatetic 13:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
KEEP ALL. Wikipedians must have the right to let others know who about who they are, if they choose. -- Crevaner 13:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Strongest possible unrelated to being in categories rational must be exposed as the tautology that it is. El_C 13:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All - Whether or not userboxes are removed, opinions will remain. What's the point? Wikipedians, after all their tireless work, should have the right to express their personal views anywhere outside articles, let alone on their own userpages. But, hey - that's just my opinion. Darkhorse82 13:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep the originals, Delete or Redirect the duplicates. Many of these userboxes duplicate themes that are covered by other userboxes. For example, ((User Christian)) duplicates ((user religion|<whatever>)). These duplicates could be deleted or redirected if possible (I would rather keep them all). But the originals (I notice that ((user religion)) is listed here for deletion as well) should be kept as they allow users to express a POV (which is allowed on user pages), and censorship of beliefs is not acceptable on Wikipedia.—gorgan_almighty 13:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all - (a) I cannot see the logic in the selection listed above. For example, Template:User socialist is listed, but not Template:User Irish Republican; similarly, wanting to change the Australian Flag seems taboo, but not wanting to grant statehood to the Northern Territory. (b) Surely, these labels enable the other users to note the views of the user concerned. As such it is a voluntary confession of possible bias. Vinodm 13:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- The two templates listed were not under Wikipedia:Userboxes/Beliefs, but under Wikipedia:Userboxes/Location. Do reread Tony's argument, he is concerned about abuse of Wikipedia process through vote-stacking operations. --- Charles Stewart 17:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all as per most of the other keeps above. ➨ ❝R E DVERS❞ 13:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep all. I don't like cliques either, but this isn't the way to deal with the problem. Userboxes are a quick and efficient way for users to disclose their own biases. I'll grant they don't need to be cute or sarcastic, but the solution isn't to delete all of them, or large, arbitrary groups of them. Certain admins seem to believe every Wikipedian should adopt a veneer of absolute neutrality (or at least of "moderateness"), which is ridiculous. If users are allowed to say anything on their user pages, why shouldn't they be allowed to show anything? Bhumiya 13:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All First, attempting to treat a behavioral problem through logistics (i.e. eliminate POV by making harder for people to communicate/organize) will not work. Secondly, even before userboxes/categories, many people perceived that there are many more politically liberal than conservative wikipedians and that there is systemic bias in political articles. While unscientific, self-selected user categories support that hypothesis. This demographic imbalance won't go away by preventing people from identifying themselves, and is a greater and more insidious threat to neutrality policy than any so-called "faction". Tony, in ignoring this, is treating a symptom and not the disease. Lawyer2b 14:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All. People should be able to put what ever they want on their user pages. This is a Wikipedian rights issue. -- TrojanMan 14:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All per DES Werdna648^T/_C\^@ 14:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
DELETE THE CATEGORIES, KEEP THE USERBOXES - this is an obvious solution and should have been done without nominating 50-odd userboxes. JUST REMOVE THE CATEGORIES FROM THE USERBOX. Deano (Talk) 14:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- It would only be a solution if in addition it was ensured that users only used templates by substing them into their user pages: otherwise What links here can be used as effectively as categories to put together a vote-stacking campaign. --- Charles Stewart 15:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep All. Any deletion of these templates will amount to outright censorship. -- Freemarket 14:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep All - Otherwise delete all POV opinions expressed in the text of any User Page. Endomion 14:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong/Speedy Keep All I really cannot see the problem here. The argument that userboxes create sectarianism/factionalism/etc-ism makes no sense. Would one suggest that simply because I dont put I hate Coke/Pepsi on my USERpage make me any more/less likely to vandalise and/or add POV to Coke/Pepsi articles? We ALL have our closet sympathies, our own inherent biases, whether we acknowledge them or not. As people have stated above, its the constant POV tug-of-war that helps keep things NPOV (Coke ppl keep Pepsi honest and vice versa...). Just because someone is not registered Democrat or Republican, Labour or Tory, SPD or CDU, does not make them any less likely to have a tendency toward one or the other. Nevermind the fact that it is inherent CENSORSHIP, which I thought was antithetical to the whole concept of Wikipedia, but it's attacking people based upon views expressed on their userpages, a place I did not know about for long after I started using Wikipedia as an informational resource - not to mention that they can still expound upon their beliefs in text. Moving on, I apologize for skirting Godwin's Law, however, individuals who have a neo-Nazi, Aryan Nation, KKK, et al viewpoint are still allowed to have those views, no matter how much they may disgust society (or in this case, the Wikipedia community) at large. I happen to like userboxes because they add a bit of flash and flair to an otherwise dull userpage (seeing as my HTML skills leave much to be desired, I lack the capability to do this myself). They also enhance rather than detract from the sense of community we have here. It helps form associations between like minded individuals to help create and maintain quality articles, especially for more obscure topics. Creating a NYC statehood userbox allows/allowed/will allow (?) me to find others who might be able to unearth more information about a topic in which I am very interested. Interest breeds activity and contribution, and finding others who share that interest will likely spur collaborative effort and an improvement in both quality and quantity of articles herein. I would be against the creation of that Pro-life Wikipedians or whatever, but they should certainly be allowed to state their convictions on their userpage and network via that avenue. Mobilization of people for a VfD can also be accomplished by viewing the edit lists of related articles, so the role of userboxes in this problem is completely overrated. Of course, I can only address the intellectual aspects of these arguments - technical ones relating to server load are another matter, one with which I have little familiarity. Sorry for the length and unbroken block of text (I cannot manage to break it up without incurring wiki-format wrath). hellenica 14:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Nicely said. Whole-heartedly agree. However, your exception against Pro-life Wikipedians seems a bit like an arbitrary personal preference that runs counter your argument. Pro-lifers should be allowed to do all the positive things that community development create that you listed ... maintain articles, etc. Guðsþegn – U T C E – 16:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - My exception wasnt against Pro-Life Wikipedians, it was in reference to previous mentions of the Wiki Catholic Alliance or something like that - an entity which seems to exist purely to mobilize support for/against certain AfD. I would be just as opposed to WikiNARAL doing the same. What I dont mind is having Pro-Life/Pro-Choice sentiment on one's user page. My understanding of the Alliance or whatever, was that it was not contained merely to userspace but instead was on wikispace (I think there's some brief explanation on this page somewhere). It was a page expressly created to advance a POV in/on articles in the main encyclopedia part as opposed to personal userspace. It's one thing for me to have Coke/Pepsi Drinker userbox... it's different if I have Coke/Pepsi Coalition to nominate AfD or perhaps vandalize articles to which I was opposed. I hope that clears it up - I wasnt picking Pro-Life out in terms of the userbox, but instead using an example that had already been brought up as a major POV disruption. hellenica 19:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong/Speedy Keep All (no exceptions) - I placed my vote here so you could see it next to my response to Hellenica, and know that I wasn't voting twice. Userboxes and Wikipedian lists, all of them, help the Wikommunity (coined it?) by allowing positive community grow and clarifying the POV of users so that others may assess the character of users making claims in articles. The more this censorship push happens, the more I get hardened in my belief that it should be total free speech on user pages. If someone attacks someone, let them suffer the consequences, let their free speech condemn them. Perhaps not allowing anonymous comments on user pages would help. Guðsþegn – U T C E – 18:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Obviously. - Kafziel 14:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. And knowing evolution is not a belief, but a skill you learn in school (in some countries). TCorp 14:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep all. People have a right to show their personal preferences on their page. KittenKlub 14:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Speedy Keep All. Until there is a general policy against all user boxes and categories, then I consider nomination of any non-joke or non-hate templates/categories to be in bad faith (no pun intended). All user categories are 90% vanity, with the other half being a statement of interest areas. — Eoghanacht ^talk 14:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All. This is censorship of my userpage, which is nobody's business. "Stopping the category system being abused to destroy the neurality policy."? Nonsense. The neurality policy isn't at risk. What's being attacked here is controversy, by people who want to impose their views. I don't allow my POV to intrude into my article edits; I take more pride in them than that. As far as "making my own" boxes, I have: Template:User pro concealed carry & Template:User anti gun control are my creations. Now Big Brother wants to force me to give them up, because somebody I've never seen & will never see is offended by them. What next, delete this? ((user 1|blue|white|[[Image:Beatlessullivantogether.jpg|60px]]|This user thinks [[The Beatles]] are overrated.)) It's my page, butt out. (BTW, I'm liable just to revert them if you delete.) Trekphiler 15:04 & 15:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep all. It's all been said above. Those who attack userboxes, "because we shouldn't be doing anything but writing an encyclopedia," should then just be writing - not wasting our time deleting userboxes. Ifnord 15:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all boxes, remove category links. --Alf ^melmac 15:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible keep until the policy on userboxes is finalised. But i think that these userboxes shouldnt go into categories. Delete the categories, not the userboxes and you stop the attacks spreading. We only need categories for assistance on a user's useful features like adminship or html skills «ßØÛ®ßÖÑ§3» ^{Talk | Contrib's} 16:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Stop this bullshit. These don't hurt anyone. Leave them alone and try WRITING AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. I don't even know why i wasted time voting on this. --Phroziac _. o º^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 16:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep. Although perhaps someone should nominate Tony Sidaway for deletion (that's a joke) for even starting this silly nomination to begin with. No offense Mr. Sidaway, but you really need to look up a bit on the concept of freedom of expression. Wikipedia is supposed to be about spreading information, not about spreading censorship-- AndrewBartlett 16:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep. This seems to be a really stupid argument, just let people have the boxes and leave it at that, it really is a very silly debate this. --Horses In The Sky 16:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Really Really Strong Keep. Really, these userboxes illustrate a personal choice, and do not impose anything on anyone else. Userboxes don't ~~kill people~~ violate NPOV, people violate NPOV. While userboxes may be abused by POV pushers, articles aren't abused by userboxes. — TheKMan^talk 16:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all and make policy. There comes a certain point that either we delete all user boxes, or just create a policy. Let's create a policy. There is no reason not to have social groups on Wiki organized this way. -- Jbamb 16:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep. I understand Tony's concern that this is an incredibly recent phenomenon that Wikipedia has yet to clarify, but I have to strongly disagree with his suggestion. People like networking and proudly identifying their beliefs. Palm_Dogg 16:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As Strong Keep as Possible No valid case against them. Having these userboxes does not magically make us unable to write articles (as some of their opponents seem to think), getting rid of them will not get rid of users' POVs, having a POV does not keep you from NPOV editing, these boxes are a convenient way of admitting your biases, they and the cats can be used to easily inform editors of a discussion going on (eg this TFD, the boxes/cats are a good way of telling editors about this TFD), there's no reason to think they will make all the editors hate each other for having different opinions; their only inherently negative use is to gang up to win POV-driven edit wars on articles, but we already have policies against that sort of thing, and we could always make a new policy that prohibits using boxes/cats for edit wars. Yeltensic42.618 16:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. There is a discussion currently going on about the future of userboxes in general. Wait for some kind of policy to come out of that rather than trying to delete a certain group of userboxes. Hitchhiker89^talk 16:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all No harm. --Thorri 17:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep all. Nothing puts me in a worse mood than seeing my page vandalized by a TfD tag. ;-) Seriously though, I don't see a problem with the userboxes. The boxes look cute (for some), categorisation only helps building up a community and if it sometimes helps bringing more people into a discussion/fierce argument then even better! Another comment on user pages in general: I consider mine (together with subpages) a desktop provided for me to work on Wikipedia. Don't you feel the need to fit your workplaces to suit your needs? And one last thing: some boxes may also "die naturally" by not being (commonly) used - these will be the cases where a userbox was simply useless - otherwise it suits someones' need and thus fulfills it's purpose. --Misza13 ^(Talk) 17:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. If I accept the original reasoning, it is the categories that are harmful (and therefore must be removed in their entirety), not the userbox templates. Also, isn't it against WP:AGF to assume that, say, User catholics will necessarily want to push a catholic POV on Wikipedia? On the other hand, it is madness to have a template for every possible userbox, as they are easy to create — I originally advertised the userbox which someone else made into User pope, yet I am still happily using the raw userbox code. squell 18:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All. I don't seem the harm done by these userboxes. People are entitled to their own opinions and beliefs. --Vin 18:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All. They do no harm, people are individuals and some ant to show this with userboxes. --Anti-establishment 18:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong/Speedy Keep All, and WP:POINT. Deleting them is a form of both censorship and instruction creep, and if users cannot use userboxes, then they will just find other ways to put that information on their user pages... unless we get rid of user pages too or establish Wikipedia:User Page Police, either of which would be ridiculous. As mentioned by earlier keep voters, userboxes and categories make NPOV an easier goal to achieve, not the reverse. We have enough trouble to combat already, with vandalism, POV-pushers in article space, spamming, etc. And for those concerned about POV - we have noticeboards, and all kinds of pages on Meta to help people do that; should we then, by that reasoning, shut those down too? Let people do what they want with their user pages, as long as they're not coming here as spammers. --Idont Havaname 19:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all pending the passage of a userbox policy. Ingoolemo ^talk 19:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all while the policy discussion is ongoing. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep What is wrong with using those to personalize userpages? Cyberevil 19:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All. This is a completely ridiculous nomination and debate. What is on other people's user pages doesn't harm Wikipedia or anything. I hope this issue is closed very soon with the total survival of all the userbox templates. -- OldRightist 19:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The inciting incident was most likely persuasion (despite the inflammatory terms "spammed" and "subvert"), not a dangerous thing at all. Is the "grave danger" to NPOV from people having interests? Or being linked together? Either way, it's almost certainly better to know of both to help understand a person's POV. EncMstr 19:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All. We should encourage people to wear their convictions/biases on their wiki-sleeves--it aids in the determination of whether someone is engaged in POV pushing. I know that I put userboxes on my user page as a means of disclosure (which I hope will be perceived by other editors as a good-faith disclosure on my part). Dick Clark 20:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible Keep: The only purpose of user pages is for them to be POV. Maprov 20:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All There's nothing wrong with showing your POV on your userpage. If the main fear here is the automatic adding of users to categories via userboxes, why not just remove the categories from the userbox templates? --¿ WhyBeNormal ? 20:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: when in doubt, don't delete. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 20:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all - surely it would be better as a Wikipedian in a contentious discussion to know the bias of the users taking part in the discussion as displayed by these boxes on their user page, rather than leaving it to assumptions and guesswork? At least keep until we have a better policy decision regarding this issue. -- Francs 2000 20:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep, there is nothing wrong whatsoever with these userboxes. And even if there is, it will be indentified by the official userbox policy, when it is complete. There is certainly no reason to delete them now. (And those TfD messages have screwed up my userpage. Gah!) -- Gurch 20:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per the arguments above. A.J.A. 19:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, I don't even understand why some of these have been put up for deletion, whereas others haven't. Template:User evolution is not a belief, it is saying that that person understands it, I understand it, it's nothing to do with people believing it or not. Plus why is something like Template:User AI there, whereas Template:User UN is not. They are both very similar useboxes. Plus, deleting them will not stop people from using them, people will either create them again or just use the code directly on their userpage. --Cooksey 21:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, pending policy discussion, per Lar. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 21:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All, we know when we sign up with them that yes, it means other Wikipedians with similar values may be able to find us, either to spam us, or to solicit attention for a new Wikiproject or anythign like that. We're grownups, we recognise by putting it on our userpage, that it means others can find us...big freakin' deal Sherurcij ^{(talk) (bounties)} 21:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All - It seems like a broad brush is being placed over a specific user problem. --Dysepsion 21:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
SPEEDY AND STRONGEST POSSIBLE KEEP ALL!, FFS, what is with all the deletionists citing NPOV needing to be extended over to userpages and beyond, and for what purpose? The only thing I support deleting will be the deletionists themselves, for they are in effect little more than vandals. E. Sn0 =31337= 21:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
KEEP - Removing the templates is censorship. We shouldn't delete them just because what COULD happen. If that's the case, people shouldn't live in California because of earthquakes because they could die, or Florida because of hurricanes. Blocking freedom of expression is bad. Phaldo 21:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep all - I thought userboxes were there for people to show their opinions. I think it will be a waste of effort if we delete all these userboxes that are listed.- JustPhil 21:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. No reason to delete them. If the users want to be listed in a category where they can be located and spammed, it's their problem, not Wikipedia's. JoaoRicardo^talk 21:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Strong Keep All. The problem can NOT be that significant. On the other hand, people's user pages being screwed up by a deletion notice IS.--Wormsie 21:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. For the above stated reason. Categories should be removed. Also, there should be some punishment (temporary suspension or something) for someone abusing the Userboxes (by talking to people with similar interest to sway a Wikipedia decision. Simple as that. Some policy on userboxes is also necessary. Gflores ^Talk 21:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. ((user freedom)) Rogue 9 22:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. It seems to me that these AID not HINDER in keeping a NPOV since this allows people to be aware of other's potential bias when reviewing edits to articles. Why remove the userboxes when we can just type out our beliefs in our user pages? It does seem logical to remove the categories, especially if this end this fight. Cornell Rockey 22:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All I agree with what the above user says. These userboxes allow other users to understand his/her beliefs in doing so we can create a community of understanding, compassion, and respect. Dustimagic 22:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All - Take away my "Liberal" userbox and I'll just add it in text. There's no requirement to use them - those that do know the 'risks,' and spam is easily blocked. - Hayter 22:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. I'd consider selective individual deletions, based on specific problems, but deletion in bulk: no. In the end, deleting the userboxes will have little effect on the poisonous factionalism infecting the community at the moment. The process so far has just fed the fires, and has become a major distraction from the rest of the project. If we are supposed to be building an encyclopedia for the general readership, I can't fathom the reasoning behind this initiative. Userboxes have little impact one way or the other on the goal. The hard feelings being generated in the community, however, are another matter. CarbonCopy (talk) 22:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep A userbox expresses a point of view. They are all subjective; some are silly, some are specious and a lot are serious. They are to be found on pages that espouse a POV and their definition describes their subjective nature. You may as well remove ALL userboxes from the system on this basis, not just the belief ones.-- (aeropagitica) 22:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
KEEP ALL: User pages can be POV. It doesn't matter. This is just part of some stupid crusade against userboxes. I have yet to see a reason to delete them. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 22:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 22:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There is not problem with these. Station Attendant 22:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. Terra Green 22:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Let us end another pointless debate, Keep clearly has won the day. A big "sod off" to those who are trying to dismantle the wikicommunity. Bartimaeus 22:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. Before we do something that could alienate users or be seen as censoring or restricting people's actions, we'd need to be sure that the userboxes were the cause of the alleged problem and that getting rid of them would improve it. It looks to me, though, like the boxes are merely used inappropriately by some, and are not the cause of the problem. Further, it seems like getting rid of them wouldn't fix the problem because the folks could accomplish the same thing with no userboxes through other methods. We can't set a precedent for removing any tools that can be used for bad purposes; after all, the "edit this page" button is used for evil all the time! While certain tools may indeed make it easier to do bad things, I think we must deal with the events individually by reasoning with people or, as a last resort, blocking them. If we're too strict, people are going to feel bullied and some will leave. delldot ^talk 23:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep ALL, this anti-userbox campaign by a vocal but misguided minority has gone on long enough and is severely testing the limits of WP:AGF.Gateman1997 23:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All, It's the category that enables a user to contact others not the templates, as user is free to add themselves to the category without the user box. And if someone decides that they don't want to be notified, or what not they can easily say "don't contact me". Chooserr 23:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep ALL. If userpages are for users to express themselves. If you can type things about yourself, why not use userboxes?Funky Monkey 23:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Keep them and let's go back to writing articles. MiracleMat 23:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep, Wikipedia is not a nanny state. Plus, the categorization system, despite being abusable to organize POV-pushing, can actually be very handy under legitimate circumstances - e.g., were someone to found a "WikiProject Buddhism" (surely an unobjectionable goal, if done properly), they would just have to go through Category:Buddhist Wikipedians to find potential members. ~~ N (t/c) 23:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All. I don't think that userboxes themselves divide Wikipedians, but rather that the Wikipedians are choosing to associate themselves further with other groups. Specifically directed at Zantastik's argument above, that's great, advocate them elsewhere -- but if we're going to allow people to write information about themselves in Wikipedia user pages, then we should allow them to write anything they want. Furthermore, the entire point of transclusion is analogous to modular programming -- all of the people who have the pro-life userbox could still have the userbox on their userpage, with the exception that they would have to have put the userbox itself on there rather than include a template. Templating effectively reduces the work that everyone else therefore has to do to include these things, and since they are intended only to be used on userpages, it doesn't take away from NPOV in encyclopedic articles. Robert Paveza 23:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All. If you don't like userboxes, just don't use them. Userboxes are put on userpages, not on any articles. What you put on your user page is up to you, and userboxes provide little tidbits of information that describe you. If you prefer to use userboxes, use them. If you prefer paragraphs, use those. It's not that hard. I feel it is easy to organize information about be into userboxes. --G VOLTT 23:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Duct Tape & Super Glue Keep I've said it before, it is perfectly possible for users with userboxes to make useful edits to Wikipedia. Also, someone please point me to the evidence that these userboxes are devisive. I'll be more than happy to see what you have. --D-Day 00:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Issues of vote campaigning should be dealt with on a per case basis; its illogical to not allow Wikipedians to categorize themselves. Potential for abuse isn't new to a website that lets anyone edit it. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 23:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep ALL this is precicely the kind of crap Orwell would despise. The thought police are out to get us all ... gaaah. If a user wants to willingly identify themself as something, I see no difference between a little colorful box, or a paragraph on their userpage. ALKIVAR™ 23:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep All Despite the bad connotations, this is a similar situation to "guns don't kill people..." Userboxes and categories by religious/political/belief affiliation aren't bad, but people who abuse them are. Sanction those who misuse these tools to incite sectarianism instead of ruining it for the rest of us who use them properly. -Tony 00:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Also, I noted that the ((user Recycling)) template is up for proposed deletion. Isn't that a bit silly? Many places in the US require it by law. -Tony 00:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep ALL Once again I can think of a million better things to delete. Dankru 00:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep ALL (except the Beatles one --- J/K!): Stop being paranoid! wknight94 00:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep ALL WTF Is wrong with userboxes dammit? Mike 00:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Go and write an encyclopedia. — Matt Crypto 00:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all'. I find it awfully ironic that I got here from seeing the "Anti-online censorship" flagged box on my userpage. --Nintendorulez [[User talk:Nintendorulez|talk]] 00:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep 90 % of these userboxes are quite OK. We might need to delete a few really toxic userboxes, but definitely not all of them. If the problem is making sub-groups too cohherent, we might just delete categories (but then again, sub-groups will always be cohherent no matter what we do). -- Obradović Goran (ta^lk 00:36, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Users should be allowed to state their beliefs and biases on their userpage, but should strive for neutrality in their writing. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 00:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all'. What harm are they doing? To me, these templates are little signs saying "Hi, this is an important part of my personality" and also let you see other Wikipedians who have similar interests as you. Dralwik 00:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
'Keep all. I am in favour of keeping these userboxes Baxdogg 00:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Very Strong and Speedy Keep All Users should be allowed as much bias as they want on their userpages short of actual physical threats. It is clear simply from the fact that a userpage is a userpage that any content is not directly associated with Wikipedia. As for fostering a community sense, people who would actually dislike someone for their views will dislike someone for their views no matter whether those views were in a userbox or not. - Cuivienen 00:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong and Speedy Keep All As I said on the AFD for the politics-related categories, these userboxes promote a sense of community among users and make people more likely to keep participating in Wikipedia. Catamorphism 00:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong and Speedy Keep All User pages are for the user to discuss his or her thoughts, opinions, and beliefs, and provide a place for such. Neutrality is important in the articles, but the opposite is important when speaking about yourself. --AmethystAngel 00:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. Morgan695 01:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Very Strong and Speedy Keep All. Thanks a lot to whoever messed up the formatting of my user page with these proposed deletion markings. What gives you the right to even propose that something someone wants to put on their user page should be deleted? Whether you like it or not, everyone has a POV, and it is better if we know what each other's POV is if we ever hope to obtain NPOV. —James S. 01:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. I only just found out how to add these user boxes to my user page the other day and really like the idea of being able to have a little recognisable box to say what I think and feel or who or where I am. I'm sure others are the same. I only have one of mine up for deletion at the moment, but others will have more. Just keep the lot and stop trying to make wikipedia into a sterile place. The boxes add a bit of fun and sense of community and without them wikipedia will be a sader (and less edited) place. Evil Eye 01:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All - Delete Tony_Sidaway as Admin. MSTCrow 01:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mild Keep boxes, mild remove categories. Encourage substing. Mark¹ 01:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Very Strong Keep. If you want to talk about frivolous use of bandwidth and server space, let's start with these repeated attacks. What is the difference between having a POV and shutting up and having a POV and disclosing it. I vote for disclosure. You couldn't possibly think every good user has NPOV, we must simply strive to edit articles NPOV. Lastly, almost every example I have heard of so-called "vote stuffing" (a term that is being used improperly, by the way) occurs when someone tries to delete a category because it could be used for "vote-stuffing". We need another reason to delete these categories and templates than simply because they are self-preserving. In specific cases of mass abuse, I would be willing to consider deletion of an individual category or template, but do not tell me I can't support something as dull as instant runoff voting when nobody in that category has done anything to abuse it in any way. Do the community a favor and go make some article edits. -- Chris 01:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All - I completely fail to see where stating one's personal preferences on the user page violates NPOV on Wikipedia at large, it's unreasonable to insist on conformity of thought on a user profile. You might as well ask users to refrain to post profiles whatsoever -- instead, why not be bold and let it be? Don't let the actions of a miniscule percentage of people on WP take down something that's not causing intrinsic harm. Miwa 01:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just Keep All - 'Nuff said.
Strongest Keep possible - Again... The Wikipedians had previously decided to maintain the categories related on "Wikipedians by politics", and now this request for removing the associated userboxes! Why can't I let you know about my political or religious beliefs? I am proud to believe in something, and prouder to show it on my userpage. That's all, folks! --Angelo 01:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All - as per most arguments above. Dharmabum420 01:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep All - This seems silly to me. My belifs would be in my user page anyway. If this is more about controling vandalism, then a less intrusive way to handle it is best. Justin 02:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Super Speedy Stronger Than Dirt Keep! - per my fellow userbox supporters. --CJ Marsicano 02:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest and Speediest Keep Possible (a) Having people's POV on their user page is a GOOD thing. Why on earth would anyone think that a hidden POV is the same as neutrality? (b) Doing away with the userboxes in order to correct a problem caused by the categories is not the most elegant solution to the (perceived) problem (c) Why would anyone assume that bringing more people into the decision-making process is a bad thing? Yes, it would probably be easier if a small group of specialists decided everything here, without pesky Wikipedians at large butting in, but is that what we want? (d) It's my user page - what's it to you what I put on it? Benami 02:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep - Users already could indicate on their talk page their beliefs. These user boxes only make them more visible. -- Jeff3000 02:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, Keep², Keep³, Keep^{. . .}, Keep¹⁴⁹ xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 02:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep as per many of fellow keepers arguments above Boddah 02:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all or speedy keep if the nominator will voluntarily withdraw this listing. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 02:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. If they never appear on an article page, I simply don't care. If we start seeing talkpage spamming on the basis of the cats, then you might have a case, but really, what's the difference between that and emailing your mates or rounding up a posse in IRC? James James 02:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all we even have userboxes on wheels. Quaque (talk • contribs) 03:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Some Although I don't agree with some of these userboxes, they express people's beliefs and should be allowed on people's userpages, which are allowed to have POV. You go too far with your deletionist mantra.--Shanedidona 03:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all Wikipedia really is communism, if you don't want to see them, don't add them on your page. ε γκυκλοπαίδεια* 03:36, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
keep Userboxes are self identification only. They should only be on a userpage if the user wants to self identify as a part of that category. I have a hard time telling people not to self identify if they so desire. -- Bachrach44 03:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all These boxes are only making information that users already share easier to manage, they do no harm. Janizary 03:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep all - Dear God in heaven, deleting these userboxes will NOT magically delete users' POVs. Biases and opinions are things inherent to each person; the userboxes are an expression of that, not a cause. It doesn't matter whether POV pushers note which categories a user falls into or not, because that user will have those convictions regardless. In fact, in a way, having them displayed is a good way for everyone to KNOW where a user's opinions lie which puts all cards on the table. If someone openly declares himself to be biased in a certain way and starts to make really huge edits to a previously stable article, the community can see where his convictions lie and have a good idea in advance what to look out for. Deleting these userboxes will solve NOTHING except piss a lot of users off and cause MORE strife in the community than any one of them has ever caused. -- Hinotori^{(talk)|(ctrb)} 03:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep No good argument expressed by deletion side, and I think that Wikipedians should be able to have some fun now and again. Please notice also that there has been very little Wikilove shown by the deletionist side here and especially on wikiEN-l Silas Snider (talk) 04:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep if we can't trust users to label themselves however they want, how can we trust them to edit an encyclopaedia any way they want? --Marlow4 05:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong/Speedy/Vigorous Keep All. To say that something will be "abused" by "POV-pushers" is to assume that all userbox users are so weak-willed as to not be worthwhile Wikipedians. Also, please get rid of those damned notices that are so nicely messing up my user page. Wikipedians, like all people, have the right to label themselves as they wish. Finally, I just found out about them, don't get rid of them yet! ;-) — Xoder |✆ 05:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep User pages are personal and NPOV isn't necessary. Smeggysmeg 05:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep as per Smeggysmeg. One's user page is one's own personal space, in which a user should be able to do what he/she sees fit. —chair lunch dinner™ (talk) 05:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
STRONGEST POSSIBLE KEEP - as per User:Hellenica (#53). LET'S STOP THIS MADNESS NOW!!! -- Ianblair23 (talk) 05:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep - They're fun. Though I've seen a few vandals mess up some userboxes, I hardly think Wikipedia will become divisive because a couple people have different beliefs and express them on their userpage. Delete them, and people will just add this kind of stuff as text on their UP. This is ridiculous, and strikes me as censorship. Tokakeke 06:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for the present, pending possible pending overhaul. I don't think deleting them would end the dangers you describe, it would just empower the more clever and software-savvy to do as you describe. Herostratus 06:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Keep All If a user feels the need to reveal any information (in the form of a box for example) that may show a bias or a POV, then that's better than pretending like we're neutral, which is impossible anyway. Full disclosure all the way. Colby Peterson 06:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Having a religious beliefs userbox does not mean the users is defending a PoV just stating an affiliation Captain scarlet 06:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All, We spend most of our time being as neutral as possible. It's nice to have a place where we are more relaxed and can show what we otherwise believe. That Guy, From That Show! 07:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All, Its userboxes! Alot of these are for fun. Why cant I "belive" in evolution? Since these arent article related - I dont see why they need to be removed. ShakataGaNai 07:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Speedy Keep per Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_December_18#Category:Wikipedians_by_politics, this is just a rehash. -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 07:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All -- not only should users have a right to express themselves, it is very helpful for readers and other editors to know something about the POV of each editor. I wouldn't trust an editor who claims not to have one, or prefers to keep it a secret. --HK 08:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All, [userpages are specific to the user concerned, they should have every right to show their beliefs or feelings on them. If they've been used to stalk or harass, perhaps we should just lose the categories but keep the userboxes themselves. I know I, for one, will merely recreate the userboxes relevant to me if they are deleted. gtdp ^{([talk]) ([contribs])} 08:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All. Userpages are intended specifically for the purpose of introducing oneself, one's views and opinions and is the only place, with the exception of talk pages, where they can more or less express themselves freely. I have seen little indication that these boxes are a burden on bandwidth or server space. Beliefs play a strong part in the lives of some people and I respect the right to express this. The categories, equally, are nominal in terms of resource usage, and could even act as a useful tool for those seeking information on the respective religions for articles. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 09:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
String Keep I think that the arguments for the retention of userbox templates which indicate an editor's preferences, beliefs and ideologies are useful from a number of points of view, not least in assessing the relative POV of editors. Sjc 09:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, what's the difference between using a template and just writing out one's interests/biases? toad (t) 10:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, I don't see anything wrong with these userboxes. --Terence Ong ^Talk 10:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per User:Mistress Selina Kyle. --Anthony Ivanoff 10:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep If people are worried about POV-pushers and trolls identifying them from the templates then they shouldn't put up those templates. I can't think of any other reason for getting rid of them. Tom 10:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Speedy Keep All What is the difference between the "reasons for deletion" and maybe a left-wing/right-wing site organizing a movement on the Wiki? All deleting them would do is remove a useful from of self-identification. --Bky1701 11:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All because their all just user page boxs, and don't come under NPOV, and anyway they all seem to be perfectly reasonable. Pydos 11:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Absolutely anything can be abused but it is the abuser who is to blame, not the userboxes. It is more honest if people want to make their POV clear and the userbox is just a shortcut. This would be abuse if people would force others to use the boxes against their will or something like that. There are bound to be some ludicrous or abusive ones but we should handle them case-by-case basis. (By the way, what the "childless" template has to do in this list - is there some anti-adoption lobby I haven't heard of?) - Skysmith 11:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All, Userboxes are fun - they don't cause people to split of, human nature does. Leave the boxes be and realise that it is not a sinister thing but a fun thing. What if a user puts the info that would be in an userbox just in text instead? This would do the same thing but would not be as fun. localzuk 12:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All, especially userboxes which declare comprehension of a topic, such as the first Template:User_Evolution (I note that Template:User_evolution2 is not up for deletion.) These are similar to the Babel userboxes. There have been many times that I've wanted comment on a potential edit, and had no means of inciting it. Userboxes provide that. I disagree with many of the the choices for deletion. I acknowledge that there's been an explosion of userboxes, but I don't recognize that as a problem. I think the policy proposal should go forward before a comparable mass deletion. I do worry about enabling vote blocs, but I think this is just a powerful tool with as much (if not more) potential for good. The issue with voting blocs is that discussion doesn't win in those situations. Userboxes enable discussion as much as they enable the situations where it breaks down. If We're worried about voting blocs, we should fix THAT problem. —Daelin @ 2024–05–02 16:37
Keep. Main objection - forming cliques - seems invalid. And: these allow *anyone* to find out who's what. Do we want to force them to go underground? William M. Connolley 14:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]
Keep - It's fairly siple; and even if they are deleted anyway, people will just make up their own using ((userbox)). --Kilo-Lima 15:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: Good point! --Thorri 15:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep - Why is this an issue? I mean seriously, even if people want to use them as a bumpersticker to categorize themselves, who is hurt here? These are for user pages. I realize that some people don't necessarily agree with those who use their userpages like it was Myspace or something, but lets be honest.. it makes it fun. Lets you put a bit of yourself on here, lets you be creative. If we start restricting that, where is it going to stop? cpritchett42 15:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

Neutral. I can very much see both sides of the issue, and am wavering on the matter (despite my rather enormous number of userboxes). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 09:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Vote, [explanation for your vote] Ashibaka tock 04:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
LOL, one vote that won't offend anyone Herostratus 06:14, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In between. It is the catagories that are the problem, not the goofy things people put on their userpages. Telling people that you don't do drugs (for example) is one thing, but when you start making a list of the people... when does the thinking change from "I'm proud that I haven't succomed to the seductive lure of heroin" to "Hey! I don't do drugs either!"--sansvoix 05:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral - I like the idea of identifying yourself as a supporter of something, since it shows you have positive knowlege of a subject, but some of them (especially the userbox which shows if you are a fan or hater of a certain artist) could be grounds of WP:AGF and WP:NPOV issues when it comes to the person editing the subject's article. (Saying you're a hater would imply that you'll post negative biased info on the person's article and vice versa) --LBMixPro ^<Sp ^e ^ak|on|it!> 07:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Erring on the side of common sense. We can't completely remove ourselves from POV. As much as we try, there isn't a way to do it. Saying something like this in a Wiki community will probably get me shot, but we have to face facts here. While the argument for deletion is strong (userboxes are easy to add and that categorizes people, which makes wikipedia pov through associating people with orgainzations), the argument for keeping them is also strong. Sansvoix, I think, has probably the most convincing argument here: delete the categories, and remove the categorization bits from the religious userboxen. Cernen 10:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. I hate the ideas of using the cat as a tool to rally votes within WP but censoring it will bring about bad precedent. So, I'm switching camp. I'm sitting on the fence with my ass being pierced by the stupid fence. __earth 11:11, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. It seems like a choice between the French way (Religious affiliation cannot be shown in schools and some other public places) and the American way (Religious affiliation is uttered erverywhere). Both countries are however deeply secular. The same way I personally don't care whether to forbid or allow those userboxes as longs as the Wikipedia-articles stay NPOV. Donar Reiskoffer 13:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete

Delete all, per Tony's reasoning. Tito xd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per nom, but this is a temporary solution at best. This list is incomplete, and obviously will be more incomplete as more boxes are created. We do need that policy, and it needs to allow the deletion of violating templates on sight. -- SCZenz 05:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all userboxes everywhere - That being said, don't say I didn't warn everyone that this vote is going to destroy TFD's normal operation for as long as it's here. -- Netoholic @ 05:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, but then it came back, and as long as its here and one has an opinion about it, it would be unwise not to vote. If the consensus is delete though, I pity the poor admin who has to delete all those boxes -- and then has to cope with complaints from people who use them who were unaware this vote was taking place. Sure the notice appeared on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Beliefs, but that's a recently created page to which many of the template listing were moved, not where they were first listed. A great many interested parties are therefore not watching it. A bit unfair, really. I think they ought to be kept for that reason alone, but then I'm biased. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all of them...using MOAB--MONGO 06:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all. As per nominator. A userbox that says "This editor is interested in topics related to Christianity" is fine. A userbox which says "This user is a Christian" is not. And a userbox which says "This user opposes Scientology" is just plain out. Kelly Martin (talk) 06:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- A sincere, nonsarcastic question: how are userboxes that "this user is a Christian" different from user pages that bear the exact same text? They, after all, have always been perfectly acceptable. – ClockworkSoul 06:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Good question. A userbox has a category and thus makes it easy for a large number of people sharing a point of view to be located. This is what makes these particular userboxes so toxic to Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - I see. Why not just remove the categories, then? – ClockworkSoul 06:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - That actually is a good question, why don't we do that?--152.163.100.135 06:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - If templates are used directly (ie. not substed) then the What links here tool allows the users to be equally easily located. --- Charles Stewart 07:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      - Hmm... I would have figured that if one wanted to find people who, for example, support or reject evolution or abortion, it would be just as easy to farm the talk pages of those respective articles. – Clockwork Soul 07:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        You can, but you are unlikely to get many names in this manner. Have a look at the categories assocaited with the aboive userboxes: many of them have more than 50 users. --- Charles Stewart 16:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        
        You're right: so let's remove the categories. A simple fix: no categories in userboxes. – Clockwork Soul 06:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Perhaps, we should limit the issue to one thing: should Wikipedia:User page be updated? It currently reads: You may include one or more Wikipedian categories, such as Category:Wikipedian musicians. Wikipedian categories are intended to help Wikipedians with similar broad interests to congregate and converse. That would be so much easier than this polarized slash and burn campaign. – Clockwork Soul 07:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all. Wikipedia is not a personal home page hosting service. —Psychonaut 06:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - Then delete all photos of Wikipedians which appear on their User Page too. Endomion 17:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - The presence of a user photo may be of use in writing the encyclopedia, as it permits visual identification of fellow Wikipedians at public gatherings where contacts and collaboration may take place. The presence of more than one user photo does not (and so I agree excess photos should be deleted). Neither does the presence of user boxes detailing in minute detail the user's likes and dislikes, pet projects and pet peeves. —Psychonaut 06:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - The presence of a user photo may be of use in writing the encyclopedia, as it permits visual identification of fellow Wikipedians at public gatherings where contacts and collaboration may take place. The presence of more than one user photo does not (and so I agree excess photos should be deleted). Neither does the presence of user boxes detailing in minute detail the user's likes and dislikes, pet projects and pet peeves.
Delete all as they promote sectarianism. --Rob 06:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all - In the long term, we need better ways of arriving at consensus. Until we have them, the kind of vote stacking operations present a serious risk to Wikipedia that far outweighs the very limited benefit these userboxes provide. --- Charles Stewart 07:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per Tony's reasoning. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per nom. Pepsidrinka 08:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all - per nom. Bduke 08:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep until there's a consensus for a sensible policy that brings about the speedy deletion of all the crud in the Templates and Category spaces, including every one nominated for deletion here. I think they should all get the axe, along with many others not nominated here, but ~~not until they are against policy~~. Aumakua 09:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- ...it's obvious from following comments that the consensus is "keep" in opposition to censorship, despite these things being in the Template and Category spaces which were supposed to be for writing the encyclopedia itself, not for decorating user pages and assisting the formation of cabals, therefore I bow to the will of the community. Aumakua 00:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete them all and salt the earth after. Vote-stacking, organized POV pushing, general divisive -- what's good about them. --Calton | Talk 09:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per nom. David | Talk 11:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all, per Tony's reasons. --^BuGs^ 13:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
[I]t's not so much the pretty little box that makes these userboxes so toxic, it's the ease of adding the box, which adds the editor in question to a category that we know will be abused by POV-pushers, because it already has been. This isn't about stopping people having a "bumper sticker" on their user pages, it's about stopping the category system [from] being abused to destroy the neurality policy. El_C 13:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't see what you want to contribute to the discussion by just quoting what's allready said. Certainly not when you use such a font. Try to discuss with arguments, not with layout - if everyone starts doing that, no-one will be able to read the discussion anymore. Larix 13:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'm quite content with this rhetorical device, your apparent puzzlement notwithstanding. El_C 16:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - "Rhetorical device?" I'm not at all comfortable with that. If a non-neglectable proportion of the "rhetoric" practiced took that form of repetition, we'd hardly have better dialog than we would with the voting blocs. The only consolation to this forum is that your post can be ignored, being the odd one. —Daelin @ 2024–05–02 16:37
Very Strong Delete All absolutely agree with argument. if users want cute little boxes on their pages, they should make them themselves. Although I use some user boxes on my user page, I can see that this is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a playground for vain hedonists. I can definately see the danger of wikipedia becoming, at least partly, a huge spam/delete war. delete all. --naught101 13:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I personally don't have a huge problem with this, altough it might take me some time to master the necessary coding. However, we're also talking about banning userboxes which is hella-Nazi-scary. Carolynparrishfan 21:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all non-encyclopedic userboxes. Userboxes have gotten ridiculous and it's time to trim them back to just the necessary ones: the ones that help us write an encyclopedia, such as Babel boxes. Userboxes that identify users as members of various POV sects, groups, cults, or cabals should definitely not be allowed. (after edit conflict) --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 13:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- But POV is allowed on user pages, and censorship is unacceptable (both are wikipedia policy) so what is the justification for your argument? Are you suggesting that official wikipedia policy is wrong?? —gorgan_almighty 14:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - This isn't about censorship. It's about getting rid of those infernal userboxes. I don't care if you write a sentence like, "I am a neoconservative" in your userpage. But having a userbox for that purpose is ridiculous. Userboxes create little groups of like-minded people (cabals if you will) either through the "What links here" list on the template page or by the explicit use of categories. It just isn't conducive to our task of writing an NPOV, unbiased encyclopedia. And even more than the bias-displaying userboxes I absolutely detest the useless userboxes. You know the ones. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 14:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - You have basically stated 3 arguments:
      1. You don't like userboxes (no real reason given),
      2. You don't like POV content on user pages, and
      3. You don't like POV lists of user pages.
  - The fact that you (and others) object to userboxes is not a good enough reason to delete them. POV is allowed on user pages - its Wikipedia policy (See WP:UP), so thats your second reason gone. And as for your 3rd reason, removing the categories without removing the userboxes may be the solution, but I see no need to do so other than to resolve this dispute. I suggest you read WP:UP. —gorgan_almighty 15:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete All. I attempted to fix part of the problem by removing categories from the templates above, but User:Larix is currently re-adding categories to all of them. Carbonite | Talk 14:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- This was no hostile action, so please don't take it that way. I told you why I reverted your edits on your user page. I will look there for further comments. Larix 14:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'm not assuming hostile action and I'm sure you had good intentions, but I do think it was basically a kneejerk reaction. Was there ever consensus to add categories to these userboxes? Was there even consensus to create the vast majority of these userboxes? If not, why does there need to be consensus to remove the categories? Carbonite | Talk 14:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - See my comment below Larix 14:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete all. The main problem is mindless partisan "me too" vote stacking, perhaps policy should more directly target that instead. Bringing new people to a vote to actually discuss things from a NPOV perspective is not bad. Removing categories won't work, there's template backlinks. Also, voting delete here probably is also a delete vote for user lists in POV WikiProjects, which I guess I'd weakly support too. --Interiot 17:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete. This nonsense is a waste of time, divides wikipedians by classifying us ideologically. The Wikipedia exists to write an encyclopedia, and for no other reason, certainly not to do issue advocacy. If one wants to write about him or herself on his or her userpage, that's one thing, but creating actual catagories like that sends us down a road I think most of us would rather not go down. I have my own very strong ideological and religious views; I advocate them elsewhere. --Zantastik 23:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Judging by the popularity of userboxes, it is a road most of us want to go down. What you said is a good example of the arrogance that seems to be common (but certainly not universal) among userboxes' opponents, trying to wrap themselves in the Wikipedia flag. Yeltensic42.618 23:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- As for "waste of time", it takes a lot longer to have this discussion than to stick a userbox on your userpage, that takes all of ten seconds. Yeltensic42.618 23:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all as per nom. Guettarda 02:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. This is not the place. -- Krash 06:09, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. These templates are starting to become a tool for lobby and special interest groups. We already have certain POV groups calling for help outside of WP to support a position in WP debates. Having these templates make life harder for real wikipedians that care about NPOV. I at least support the removal of its related categories. __earth 06:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- See Neutral __earth 11:11, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Telephones make it easier for people to call up bomb threats - also terroists can *gasp* talk to each other with them - We should thus ban all telephones--God of War 06:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Logical fallacy: False analogy. __earth 06:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, Wikipedia is not web-hosting service - people don't dontate money to Wikipedia for this crap. utcursch | talk 09:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Your vehemence is ironic, given the fact that your own user page has at least two examples of "this crap." Benami 11:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment on contributions, not on contributor. David | Talk 15:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete, I agree with utcursch. It's just pointless fluff. Qarnos 12:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all as per nominators reasoning. Reading through this thread on the mailinglist has convinced me. I agree most particularly with SCZenz: this can be only a temporary solution and we are in desperate need for a policy covering this to make it easier to explain the problems to users who don't see it. — mark ✎ 12:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -- unhelpfull in the task of writing an encyclopedia --Pjacobi 13:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, may cause division and affect NPOV Bolak77 13:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep some, delete most

Keep some, delete most. I'll take a bold stand here and say that I was okay with userboxes before December. However, most of them are proliferating way too much, and therefore we need it at a manageable number. I support the idea of userboxes, but not a number we can't manage. While the username space has a wide degree of autonomy, the template namespace does not. Elle vécut heureusement _{toujours dorénavant} (Be eudaimonic!) 06:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why does it matter if there are a lot of them? The large number is merely due to the large demand. Yeltensic42.618 15:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Suggestion to end this dispute. It was suggested somewhere that removing the categories without removing the userboxes may be the solution. This may work, but personally I don't see any problem with the categories at all. You don't have to view them or list yourself in them if you don't want to. Remember that POV is allowed on userpages, and users have a right to express their beliefs without censorship. Any comments that suggest otherwise are pretty much invalid, so if you object to userboxes you must come up with other reasons. —gorgan_almighty 15:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, if the boxes are not deleted, at least the categories should be. However, then it is still quite easy to find people to spam for stuffing up votes by using Special:Whatlinkshere. So I've voted delete for now for this set of userboxes. — mark ✎ 13:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. If the vandalism was one time and has subsided, keep them all. If the problem continues, we'll have to get rid of them, or just tell the users the dangers of publically stating there religion. Or here's an idea: lock all userpages with moderate protection (only logged in users with a decent ammount of votes can edit them) to avoid this vandlism.--HereToHelp (talk) 21:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Supercede by other discussion How many places is this going to go on? Two CFD's including one renomination after a failed CFD, at least two admins taking unilateral action, and this TFD? This should all be decided in one place and that place is Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 22:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is not censorship There is nothing to stop someone from writing "I am a Catholic/Bhuddist/Muslim/etc" on their userpage. You do not need a userbox for that. I find userboxes as very impersonal way about telling someone about yourself, and a lot of people seem to add them purely for the sake of having 200 userboxes on their page. I think the highlighted potential for abuse if significant enough to warrant deletion. Qarnos 12:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It very much is censorship. People cannot express their beliefs in the own userspace in the way they want. They cannot group themselves according to their own wishes. People can use their userspace as little more than a porn site but don't you dare express an opinion in a userbox. -- Jbamb 14:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To be frank, I think this has more to do with people just wanting to use userboxes than expressing themselves. With very little effort you could re-create a userbox on your page without using the template and this would overcome the issues with regards to vote-stacking and (most) of the template performance hit.

Important Notice Regarding Creation Dates

Many of these userboxes have been created since December because the robots have been renaming ((userbox whatever)) to ((user whatever)). That doesn't mean that they are new userboxes or new categories, as the nomination suggests. —gorgan_almighty 13:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how this could be true. If the userboxes have simply been renamed then the history will be in the database showing the creation date of the original version. It is those dates that I used to determine the number of userboxes created. I believe that these dates are accurate. Nearly half of our userboxes did not exist at the beginning of December, and a large proportion of those have been created within the past two weeks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Several may have been un-switched from Template:user religion, losing their histories in the process. --Grand Edgemaster _Talk 17:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The method was copy template to new name, point all include links to the new template, THEN delete the old one. I hope that clears up your confusion, Tony. TCorp 21:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why in the world would you use cut and paste moves? Kelly Martin (talk) 21:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it was done using bots. Then point was to not break user pages that were using templates with older names. TCorp 21:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So basically my original statement stands: The userboxes only APPEAR to be new because of the action of the bots, not because they were recently added. —gorgan_almighty 10:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using page moves would not have broken existing user pages because a page move creates a redirect. I swear, people, you need to learn how to use MediaWiki before you start doing shit like this. Kelly Martin (talk) 13:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment / Suggestion

There are bots out there trying to fix templates within templates, that perhaps should not be running at same time as people deleting, undeleting same. I think the bots should be stopped before deletions, to avoid mutual conflicts. User:AlMac|^(talk) 08:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another comment

I think there should be notices on every userbox to be deleted. This has been done before (I remember seeing it), and it's only fair that people who are using them know about it. I'm not sure how to do that, though. Larix 12:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I found an example: ((User GWB)) Larix 12:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They've been tagged. Larix 12:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I really didn't fancy doing that myself, although I agree that it had to be done. This was an oversight on my part. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why has ((user religion)) not been tagged for deletion? It's in the list and should be tagged if it's being considered. It is after all the main religious userbox which most people use. Tony, did you even mean to list this one for deletion??? —gorgan_almighty 13:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another comment

I don't think this deletion process is being approached properly. Now that dozens of userboxes are tagged all sorts of (no offense) ignorant users who don't know anything about the issues at hand are coming in and flooding the discussion with simple "keep" votes. It just doesn't seem to me like justice is going to be done here. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 14:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And I feel deletioninst are flooding IRC for delete votes too. Ian¹³_ID:540053 17:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But only the inclusionists are defined by Cyde as ignorant so the deletionist flood counts but the inclusionist flood doesn't count. Endomion 17:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I say deletionists are ignorent for not considering each case on its merits do we have a deal? Ian¹³_ID:540053 18:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I find it slightly telling that I'm seeing quite a few well thought out arguments on the inclusionist side, but the deletionists are more inclined to either make sweeping over-generalizations, or to simply say "I don't like the userboxes." Also, thinking of some deletionists' dismissive remarks about newbie inclusionists, I'm beginning to see this as a kind of "generation gap", except with age in terms of "how long you've been on Wikipedia" rather than "how old you are", with older, curmudgeonly editors opposing those young bratty upstarts with their newfangled userboxes. Just something to think about, whichever side of the fence you're on. Yeltensic42.618 02:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion

it would be much simpler (no testing templates and deleting), probably more ethical (let users say what they want, plus user privacy), and perhaps less time consuming to simply change the "what links here" function to not include userpages. I can't see a problem with that, but I must admit, it only just occured to me, so I haven't thought it over completely. --naught101 14:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And if the user box uses an image, you have to plug that hole too. Where does it end? Endomion 18:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

SO just because they are misused they have to go? Penis is misused - but I haven;t seen anyone delete that... Ian¹³_ID:540053 18:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, another hole they would have to plug: filter out any searches in the User namespace for words such as "Catholic" or "Pro-life" or "Patriot" or "Conservative" to prevent any AfD get-out-the-vote-drive. Endomion 19:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Face it, such attempts are futile. We might as well just let it stay the way it is. It would appear that deletionists have highly exaggerated the problem of "vote-stuffing". Yeltensic42.618 02:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

is there any real reason for keeping UserPages listed in the "what links here" and the categories? at least, a reason that's pertinent to an encyclopedia? I can't see one. --naught101 03:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What links here needs a real overhaul; it's already difficult to use for highly-linked pages; it at least groups together links-to-redirects, but doesn't group the other links together in a readable fashion. One helpful way to change its interface would be to offer a drop-down by namespace. (Another might be a drop-down by category; something we also need for watchlists [I don't find mine useful anymore] and RC.) +sj + 05:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of categories

In an attempt to reach a middle ground of keeping user boxes while reducing the appearance of factions, I removed categories from the templates above (the ones that had them). These changes were reverted almost immediately by User:Larix and I received several messages on my talk page about it. While I think it's acceptable for user boxes to be used to express personal views, the categories serve no purpose other than to make it extremely easy to identify those with similar or opposing POVs. While many users in this debate have framed this as a "free-speech" issue, I believe this isn't the case for everyone. Whether userboxes are kept or deleted, the removal of categories should be non-negotiable. Carbonite | Talk 14:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I totally support you on this. Personally I'm in favor of restricting categories to the main article namespace. There's no reason users should be categorizing themselves or others. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 14:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to feel hurt by me reverting your edits, and I'm sorry for that. But as I said above, on your user page, and every time I reverted, it's just that I want a policy to be determined before such actions take place. And I don't think there is consensus for it. There has been a vote to delete user categories on politics only a few days ago. There was a huge majority for keeping them - not because they were in favor of destroying npov articles, but because those categories serve a goal of community building as well. Larix 14:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry, I'm not hurt by any of your action or words. ;) I do think that you're putting procedure over what's actually best for the encyclopedia. However, if you're interested in policy, consider this: these userboxes sprung up very quickly and there never was consensus for their use or inclusion of categories. Yet many users are acting as if editing them requires some policy change or a vote. That's just not true. In cases of controversy it makes sense to return to an earlier stable state. In this instance, that means going back to when users were not categorized by the userboxes on their page. That these caregories are harmful to the encyclopedia means that it should be done ASAP, not after everyone is done fighting about it. Carbonite | Talk 15:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to hear so :) I might be putting procedure over what others consider best for the wikipedia, but that's partly because there is no consensus on what's best for the encyclopedia yet. Larix 15:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I endorse waiting for the outcome of this and other discussions. Ian¹³_ID:540053 15:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We should wait until discussions have been resolved and the userbox policies have been made before making changes like this. I think allowing users to find users with common interests through categories allows us to work together in specific topics more efficiently and with more friendliness. I dont think there are enough users who put themselves in categories at the moment, to be honest. -- jeffthejiff (talk) 15:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you. These userbox-based categories are wide open to exploitation by those who want to create quick voting blocs. I respectfully disagree with Larix. While "community-building" may be a worthwhile goal in the abstract, we shouldn't be helping to build communities that are actually polarized along religious or political lines. This will prove particularly harmful for controversial pages on politics and religion. Those who want to find fellow-travellers at all costs can do the talk-page-trawling if they like, but we shouldn't do the hard work for them. --Peripatetic 15:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The categories are everything that's wrong with this time-wasting, non-WP:ENC farce. El_C 15:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even if you think so, please respect your opponents and don't do any controversial actions before the outcome of these discussions. Otherwise we'll just get revert wars. it would be better to centralize the discussion and act on the outcome of it. Larix 15:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC) (note: this was directed at El_C. Me forgetting to put :::: in front of my comment might have made that unclear. Larix 16:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Even? I will *try* to keep that concern in mind, even while WP:ENC becomes 2ndry via this category fetishization. Thanks! El_C 15:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This page is a discussion about the outright deletion of many userboxes. It's not a discussion about whether categories should be included in userboxes. Carbonite | Talk 15:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although it should be (see Tony's last paragraph). El_C 15:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have thought about this very carefully and I cannot see how "userbox-based categories are wide open to exploitation". What exactly do you mean by this? How can they be exploited? Do you mean that all users in a particular category could be spammed by people who hate that category? If so, surely thats a risk that people knowingly take when they put the userbox on their user page. Please help me understand your POV - what exactly is so harmful about these categories? —gorgan_almighty 15:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Say, take some article on some kinda fancruft that's up for AFD. Or take an article on some "moral/religious" issue that pushes a lot of people's buttons - like euthanasia or abortion or gay marriage or intelligent design. AFD's can be defeated easier thru such group-voting, and on hot-button issues, a lot of disruption can be caused by those determined to push a particular POV into an article. I believe the Second Law of Thermodynamics article faced a lot of problems from some creationists recently. Such activity would only become more widespread after the creation of categories like "Creationist" or "Catholic" or "Hindu_nationalist" (these are just examples that popped into my mind, no offence against anyone belonging to these groups). --Peripatetic 15:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I second that (question). Also, surely people like me who find the categories useful (and fun) will just go to the what links here for the image in the template or such (something you can't take away from us). As the problems therefore remain, I don't see why you shouldn't just make things easier and keep the categories as well as the templates themselves. Jellypuzzle | ^Talk 15:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, since a thief can break in through the window of my house, I should just make it easier and leave my door unlocked? Users shouldn't be categorized by anything that doesn't assist in creating an encyclopedia. Being able to easily find users who speak German is helpful. Being able to easily find other Pro-lifers is not. Carbonite | Talk 15:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But to apply your metaphor, is the fact that theives can break in through windows a good reason to build houses without them? Why not just get rid of the theives? Practically every function on the Wikipedia can be exploited by POV crusaders -- that fact alone is an insufficient argument for deletion, because the same functions can also be exploited by those who seek to enhance the neutrality of the encyclopedia. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To refer to my metaphor again, I'm saying that we should take steps to make it more difficult for a thief to enter my house. Is it still possible for a thief to break into my house? Yes, but it's more difficult and clearly discouraged (something that may not be obvious if my door were unlocked). Ideally we could just rid the world of all thieves and not have to worry about any security measures, but that's just not a plausible solution. Back on Wikipedia, eliminating all POV crusaders would be great, but it's not realistic. However, we can and should remove categories from userboxes to make it a more difficult for POV warriors to identify certain factions. This won't solve any problems completely, but it's a move in the right direction. As for using categories of users to make the encyclopedia more neutral, how exactly would this work? I strongly support userboxes that focus on a user's skills or expertise, but I'm having a hard time seeing how categories of Democratic users or Pro-lifers could ever be used to improve the encyclopedia. Could you elaborate? Carbonite | Talk 23:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can't really battle you off with some epic argument or metaphor but I still disagree. What if a page related to the Pro-Life debate was seen by some to be NPOV on the negative side and some Pro-Life people needed to be found to check if they agree with the article as it stands? Unlikely, yes. But certainly possible. Even more so with some of the smaller categories. Note, Peripatetic is not agreeing with me below, I just posted above him by accident. Sorry. Jellypuzzle | ^Talk 15:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly! You just gave a perfect example of the problem with categorizing users. We don't want people of a certain POV to be easily identified or contactable. If there's a POV issue with an article, it should be discussed on the article's talk page and perhaps on WP:RFC (if more comments are wanted). Bringing in everyone from a certain POV is precisely what we don't want to encourage. Carbonite | Talk 15:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite sure of your reasoning there but wonder what's wrong with bringing in some experts or people from one side to judge the NPOV of an article. To move to something on a small and (slightly) trivial scale and to an area I have some clue about, what if we have an article about say Joanna Newsom and, as keeps happening, people kept writing how she can't sing or has an "unusual voice". Surely if a fan of said singer was contacted and they agreed that the decided on statement is at last NPOV (not the other way round as they could, of course be biased) that's the best judge of neutrality you can get. The same could work for more contraversial topics. Well, according to me it could anyway. I suppose the removal of the categories wouldn't bother me too much (due to the "what links here" substitute) but I have to say that I can certainly find more uses for them than problems with them. Jellypuzzle | ^Talk 16:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You nailed it. --Peripatetic 15:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that many userbox templates automatically add users to associated categories once the userbox is put on their user page. As I have said many times previously, this should not be allowed for POV categories, but is pretty much fine for things like interests, location, language, WikiProjects and alma mater. Userboxes are not the problem, it is the categories. If the plug hadn't been so abruptly pulled, I honestly believe proposed policy #4 would have been the correct solution.

Deano (Talk) 15:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think if people wanted to find others to help them bias an article they could do it just as well without user categories. Removing user categories won't help there. It must also be noted here that WP:UP grants users the right to add themselves to user categories. People were creating user categories long before the invention of userboxes and no one ever complained. The only reason people complain now is that userboxes make the categories more noticable. My view is that if they were acceptable before they are acceptable now, with or without userboxes. —gorgan_almighty 16:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Surely no one believes that factionalisation on Wikipedia can be removed by removing categories from userboxes or even the userboxes themselves. Factions can easily be maintained through other ways. It is easy to gather a posse even without categories and userboxes. On the other hand, as was pointed out above, categories of users according to their beliefs may make it easier to find users with knowledge of a certain subject. (I guess it could be argued, though, that Category:Wikipedians interested in Xism should be used over Category:X wikipedians.) I agree that until some level of consensus can be attained, or at least arguments presented more extensively, Carbonite's actions have been a little foolish. Finally, by removing most of the members of a category (not because they don't belong there, either), this action has essentially chosen to delete categories (or at least empty them) without CFD. jnothman ^talk 23:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just because other methods are available doesn't mean we shouldn't work to make factionalisation more difficult. We also want to send a clear message that grouping users by categories is strongly discouraged unless it assists in the creation of the encyclopedia. As for finding "Wikipedians interested in Xism", that's basically what Wikiprojects are designed for. I'm again puzzled by your implication that CFD should have been used for the purpose editing a template. That doesn't make a great deal of sense. Carbonite | Talk 23:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For all their complaints about inclusionists "putting procedure before what's best for Wikipedia", deletionists have so far utterly failed to explain how banning userboxes/cats would be best for the encyclopedia. Yeltensic42.618 02:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An example

Compare the following two:

Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:User Pro-life (shows 38 users by my count who include the template)
Category:Pro-Life Wikipedians (60 users)

So even if the category was removed from the template, a vote-stacking operation would still have 38 names to work on. Only if there was an effective, policeable mechanism to ensure that users substed templates would removing these categories remove the risk. --- Charles Stewart 16:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A vote stacking operation could take place anyway, they'd just have to communicate offline and not be tracked by wikipedia then. Removing these userboxes and categories do NOTHING to prevent vote stacking. -- Jbamb 16:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually by making vote stacking a lot harder to do (communicating and coordinating offsite takes a lot more effort) they do help prevent vote stacking. Your argument seems to be, "Policy X is going to be helpful but it's not going to prevent 100% of the wrongs so we might as well not bother with it." --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 16:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
One possible solution would be to require that userboxes that don't assist in creating an encyclopedia be subst'd instead of linked. Thus, Whatlinkshere wouldn't work. Personally I think creating a repository of code (that users could cut and paste) for creating various userboxes would be better than the current situation. Carbonite | Talk 16:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Agreed. Userboxes don't need templates: deleting the templates does not mean banning the userboxes. --- Charles Stewart 17:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete the templates and activists will just generate a list of voters by following who links to the image on the userbox. Endomion 18:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The example I discuss doesn't have an image, although it's one of only seven listed that don't. It would be possible to put up for deletion images that serve no purpose other than for grouping users by belief. --- Charles Stewart 20:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would turn WikiPedia into an online version of the ACLU going after public images of crosses and the like. Endomion 22:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Look at the problem, not the symptom

Keep all. The symptom many people are describing is edit wars and their most toxic cousin, afd wars. I would never want to be an admin on the afd page; those guys have the most difficult job on this entire encyclopedia. But I don't see any template:User______ as making their life harder. I even think it makes their life EASIER. I've been a member of several template:User self-referential categories for a couple of weeks now, and no one has lobbied me to vote for anything on afd. But if people really are voting for AFD on social lines -- and the only time I can think of that happening, it was a school sports team -- then userboxes should help. For example, I have my evolution userbox up foremost because I'm proud to understand the science, but also because I know in my weaker moments I might vote to delete Flying Spaghetti Monster as exactly the sort of thing that makes "my people" look bad. If I did, though, the afd admins could see that I have a bias with a simple mouseclick. --Mareino 15:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody is suggesting that the votes of people with opinions are discounted when assessing AfDs, or are you suggesting just that? --- Charles Stewart 15:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think he is, but I do believe to get his point. Namely, there is no massive abuse of these categories at the moment. That has been said by many people before (just look at the vote on categories for deletion some days ago). When people voluntarily declare their own bias on their user page(under the agreement that articles should be NPOV) that's just a good thing. Larix 15:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but the point of this TfD is that userboxes are not a good way of declaring your biases. If Wikipedia faced a wave of people putting a nicely written paragraph in a section titled "My biases" on their user page, then the concern about the project putting itself open to abuse by vote stackers would not arise. --- Charles Stewart 16:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep ok ok just block the people ofending --Madcow 16:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

SOLUTION to vote stacking - Userspace News Ticker

The real solution to the real problem (vote stacking, i.e. a skewed vote) is to have EVERYBODY be notified of votes, not just those from a particular POV. We need a Userspace news ticker or floating news box. Guðsþegn – U T C E – 18:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, right, that's what everybody wants to see floating across their User Page as a marquee, "AfD: Pissboy World Cup"..."AfD:Vaginal fungus"..."AfD:Gay popes". Endomion 19:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's actually a brilliant idea. It would provide hours of mindless Fox News-style entertainment. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 21:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you; that made me laugh almost as hard as when I saw this. WAvegetarian ^(talk) (email) ^(contribs) 00:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lol! jnothman ^talk 00:14, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why does everyone keep picking on me? :( :P Tito xd^{(?!? - help us)} 00:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because they're jealous of your extremely well done userpage. I know I am. But that will last just as long it takes for me to copy its formatting to my own. :-) Lawyer2b 02:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously, there could be news box editors who decide which are trivial but legitimate and which are just SPAM. However it is done, the best answer is still to alert everyone rather than just one POV being alerted. Guðsþegn – U T C E – 00:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree. The "vote ticker" is a brilliant idea. Seriously. It would get more people involved and nobody could claim that votes were stacked or packed or whatever. Lawyer2b 02:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This could go either way, but it would certainly make for an interesting experiement. I'm all for exploring it! Perhaps its initial incarnation could be as simple as a "to do" style template, and evolve from there? – Clockwork Soul 05:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Userboxes don’t remove user autonomy

Keep

My tuppence;

Granted, gangs of users could be ‘recruited’ through userboxes, but a user putting a userbox on their user page does not end their autonomy. The robotic user who will at a ‘call to arms’ from whatever grouping they’re a part of rush to offer their unquestioning support is, I imagine (perhaps naïvely), a rarity. For the sort of person (acting contrary to how Wikipedia ought to be run) who would want to organise a POV attack I am sure that there are other means. Besides, declaring your biases is probably a good way of realising and avoiding them; the user page guidelines invite you to do just that – userboxes are a way of doing it. Most of all, they’re just a bit of fun.

When browsing Wikipedia, when editing articles, people's opinions don’t disappear. However they can still have them, still make them known and still write objective articles for an encyclopaedia. The entire modus operandi on which Wikipedia is based is as a resource written and maintained en masse. It is a community by design. Alienating the community will only act to the ultimate detriment of the encyclopaedia.

We can decide to get rid of userboxes, barnstars, awards, user pages, etc and leave every editor just a faceless number playing at an encyclopaedia. That gets rid of the problems, but without that community it gets rid of the editors too. Nige 19:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete this page - keep the userboxes

There is already a page called Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes where they are discussing this issue. Until a decision is final there - there should be no more calls to delete userboxes. On the proposed policy page a consensus has been reached that it is to early for a straw poll. This is an attempt at a straw poll on userbox policy by indirectly polling on individual userboxes in an attempt to circumvent the proposed policy and establish a "case law" of sorts. I am nominating this page here for deletion - seeing as this is not the appropiate place to discuss userboxes.--God of War 19:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's brilliant, AfDs within AfDs. I wish I thought of that when some of my AfD noms were going south. Endomion 20:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's ridiculous. Userboxes still can and will be dealt with on an individual basis. You're saying if someone comes up with a userbox that is patently offensive (but still a valid view some extreme racist could hold) it should be preserved for no other eason than because there is no consensus on userboxes? Give me a break. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 21:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some governments find Freedom userboxes patently offensive, maybe we should yank those so they don't get their feelings hurt. Endomion 22:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cyde, you're right. However, this discussion is not about deleting individual boxes, but an entire class of them en masse. This plainly ought to be left to the policy discussion. Perhaps an RfC on this entire procedure is called for. It was irregular from the start. TCC (talk) (contribs) 09:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Too many userboxes are a waste of valuable resources and people's donations

I believe this is a pertinent issue that needs more airing. Every few months, the Foundation puts up a banner ad, asking for donations. People contribute because they want a better encyclopedia. More articles, faster downloads. The latter is especially important because we have all suffered from slow server speeds.

I submit that serving up countless Userboxes that contribute little (directly) to the encyclopedia is a wasteful use of Wikipedia's computing power, and importantly, a wasteful use of real dollars and pounds (and yen and rupees) that people have contributed.

While I understand people's attachment to their userboxes, I request them to take this into account. I have been vocal against administrative abuse of power in mass-deleting userboxes. I myself have created two boxes and put a stop to it there, but there are those who have literally hundreds of userboxes sitting on their pages, with new ones being created and put up every hour.

There should be some kind of community-imposed limit on the number of userboxes. I don't know if it should be 300 or 3,000 -- but I think it's wrong for us to beg for money from readers when a certain portion of that money will be used in doing nothing better than serving up innumerable pretty pastel boxes.

I will be posting this in the policy discussion page as well. --Peripatetic 20:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am always here the same old argument that these userboxes take up server bandwith - but I never hear any actual numbers. Maybe you could do a study for us? Also what little the userboxes take away in bandwith, they give back much more in community building that helps to keep people intrested in wikipedia to donate money and help write the actual articles.--God of War 20:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- With all respect, perhaps you could do a study for us instead and estimate precisely how much userboxes have contributed in making Wikipedia a better encyclopedia? The current plethora of userboxes is no more than a month old, with the vast majority of them being created in the last 2 weeks. Wikipedia was just as good before these userboxes appeared, and it will be just as good long after they're gone. People who care about good articles will continue to write and edit them, regardless of whether userboxes exist or not to foster their "community spirit". --Peripatetic 20:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- While adding userboxes is a good thing - deleting userboxes forcefully is a terrible thing. People feel violated having their freedom of speech censored to be politicaly correct. When that happens - they leave.--God of War 20:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to bet that these debate pages take up more resources and bandwidth than all the userboxes on wikipedia put together. TCorp 20:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Touche! More time that could be better spent as well.--God of War 20:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. It makes wikipedia into a community. It does not harm anyone or anything. SFrank85 21:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bandwidth prices are falling, and how often user pages are accessed pales in comparison to how often the content those user helped to create is accessed. In summary, community building is more important as Wikipedia grows than bandwidth conservation (an issue which can be safely ignored) or server loads (something I don't have an accurate sense of). Having said that, indeed it could be maintained userboxes do inherantly little to build community, and that contributing to certain articles and adding oneself to categories actually accomplishes that. While I'd agree with that, it negates the human factor... we like pretty things; and userboxes (in some small way) help to address a common criticism of Wikipedia's, its rather boring style. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 22:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be more concerned about the processor time spent merging the userboxes into the content every time the page is requested. It may seem like a trivial task, but when userpages have 100's of userboxes I think it would add up very quickly. Qarnos 12:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your concerns, but for clarity's sake would like to remark that user pages with 100's of them are rare if they exist at all. With 'only' 26 on my page, I think I use relatively many. Larix 12:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What...

As a largely self-taught user, there are gaps in my Wikipedians prowess. So I have to ask: What is "Substing"? Carolynparrishfan 21:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

if instead of ((user GWB2)) you write ((subst:user GWB2)) then wikipedia replaces the meta template with div code of the box. This reduces the load on the server.--God of War 22:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- It also means that the What links here tool from Template:user GWB2 does not show that page. --- Charles Stewart 22:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Template substitution. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Strong Keep All

I have to say, I did expect that this page would be created - after the mass deletion of userboxes and the outcry that followed, it was inevitable that a wholesale attempt to purge userboxes would be conducted in the TfD forum. I am completely and utterly opposed to the deletion of userboxes, and to the removal of categorization from userboxes. There has been no compelling evidence presented that userboxes create voting blocs, or that they are wasteful of bandwidth. However, the repeated attempts at out-of-process deletion over the past few days have certainly created voting blocs and been extremely wasteful of bandwidth. None of these boxes violate policy, or the spirit of wikipedia. They are harmless. They have the potential to provide a means to disclose POV bias, as well as to find others with similar interests. This nomination is inappropriate given the ongoing discussion on userbox policy, and particularly disturbing because the user who mass-nominated these userboxes was also responsible for unilaterally deleting them during the initial purge. Speedy Strong Keep All. --Dschor 22:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep All

This is on a user page, not an unbiased encyclopedia page. FREE SPEACH and by the way, how is writing showing of religion? Use your head. Griz 22:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Why are they seemingly only a majority of Catholic Oriented Icons in question? Drop the bias against them, if that is your intention, it disgusts me. Griz 22:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (solution)

How about we:

Get rid of the categories.
Anyone caught abusing userboxes (by what links here or whatever) to sway a decision receives a temporary suspension.
Assume good faith. The users messaged by the abuser will report this breach of policy. This should be reiterated on the Userbox policy page.

More can probably be added. This should help reduce such problems by a significant amount. Comments, suggestions? Gflores ^Talk 22:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh what a wonderful WikiPedia that would be, with hundreds of secret policemen pulling up people's User:Talk page looking for evidence of contacting other people about votes. Welcome to the New World Order. Endomion 22:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there is suspicion of such abuse, I don't see why not, we have Wikipedia:RC patrol for vandalism. Hopefully this won't be the case, since #3 says the user will be reported by those he messaged. The temporary suspension should scare off some, as well.

~~Isn't it ironic that the person who nominated userboxes for deletion because userboxes are used to round up votes used userboxes to round up votes?~~ Endomion 23:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could you explain that comment? I nominated these userboxes for deletion. Are you accusing me of using userboxes to round up votes? If you are, I have to tell you that you are wrong. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If Endomion is referring to the TfD message being put on the templates for deletion, it was User:Larix who did that. --- Charles Stewart 04:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I see that, apologies to Tony. Endomion 05:14, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the vote seems overwhelming.

Can we close this farce now? Seriously, all the userboxes suddenly expanding to tell me that they're up for deletion is screwing up the format of my user page. Rogue 9 22:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see this TfD run its course. If you want to repair your user page, you can move the TfD notice from the affected boxes to the talk page. I don't know why this wasn't done: to madden potential keep voters, maybe... --- Charles Stewart 01:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think it was a bad idea to include a TfD notice in the userboxes to begin with. I think the landslide preportions of this vote could possibly be due to most of the people who are aware of the vote being the ones with lots of userboxes on their pages Qarnos 12:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it only fair the people who would be affected by the deletion know about the process? Larix 13:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not arguing that it isn't - I'm just saying that all Wikipedians deserve to know about the process. The main reason the userboxes were TfDed is because there is evidence they had been abused for the purpose of vote stacking, and that, in my opinion, is exactly what has happened here, albeit accidentally, by including a notice in every affected userbox. It's actually quite ironic. Qarnos 13:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Think Fast

When I logged on today and saw that some of my userboxes were proposed for deletion, I was shocked. I couldn't believe that someone had nominated my templates that express my views for deletion. Then I followed the link to this discussion, and I was even more shocked to find that all userboxes that display any view had been nominated for deletion. I would never, ever place something that advertises or pushes for a religion or any other view in any article. This would be wrong and would violate NPOV. However, I feel that it is my right to have my views expressed on my user page.
In a newspaper, responsible journalism does not allow articles to take a slant on a subject, but it is possible that religious or other views are expressed in an letter to the editor or something of that sort. This is not wrong. It is just a way for people to express their viewpoints in a public forum.
A college professor should not teach his students what they should believe; he should not influence their beliefs. All he should present is the facts. A biology teacher should present the facts behind evolution and leave it at that. The classroom is not the place to present his views. After class, however, he can pick up his poster and go to the town square and hand out pamphlets telling why evolution is 100% correct and that you are, without any doubt, wrong if you don't agree with him. This is his right. (i.e. As long as he does not infringe on the rights of others, such as libel, slander, or yelling "Fire" in a crowded movie theater.) It is freedom of speech and is necessary for the transfer of knowledge and ideas. This is, after all, what Wikipedia is about.
According to this, which is an official policy, "NPOV (Neutral Point Of View) is an official Wikipedia policy which states that articles should be written from a neutral point of view, representing all views fairly and without bias." There are two points in this excerpt that are very important. First, it is an official Wikipedia policy. Second, it says that articles should be written from a neutral point of view. It does not say anything other than articles. It does not say user pages. It does not say user talk pages. It says articles and nothing else. I say definitely keep these userboxes. --Think Fast 22:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Think Fast Link_the_windwaker

Well Said--God of War 23:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. This anti-userbox campaign by a small group of users is getting out of hand and straying into the realm of bad faith.Gateman1997 23:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep - NPOV should stay in the articles, and only in the articles, with the User Pages devoted as a personal space for opinion and discussion. --Xanthar 23:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you there Think Fast. Evil Eye 01:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep of userboxes, as Think Fast says, but categories can be deleted to resolve the attack issue - «ßØÛ®ßÖÑ§3» ^{Talk | Contrib's} 10:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very well said, User:Think Fast. While I'm (only a bit) concerned that the boxes have multiplied like rabbits (We are userboxes. Prepare to be categorised. Resistance is futile.) in the last days, I (being a ((user dar))) believe that once the UB-euphoria is over we'll be albe to weed out any total crap and leave some 100-200 really useful/funny boxes. --Misza13 ^(Talk) 12:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from User:Gateman1997

Is anyone else confused by the large number of delete voters who have userboxes on their page that are either up for deletion of VERY similar to the ones up for deletion? I just can't understand why that is, unless several of our users have multiple personalities or some other quirk.Gateman1997 23:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh and just for those that might want a souvenir of this madness...

We have this box - We have many copies and versions of this box - some, unlike this box are properly listed and include images - some are up for deletion - we don't need more!--God of War 00:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Show me where we have this box?Gateman1997 00:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Userboxes/Userboxes - This is where userboxes about userboxes go. I've seen others that wern't categorized here though.--God of War 01:11, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vote is 174 'Keep' to 24. Please get this proposal off my user page

Thank you. —James S. 01:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

((sofixit)) - just move the offending TfD messages to the template's talk page. --- Charles Stewart 01:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll say; the ratio of keep to delete votes are over 2.5 to 1, a definitive message: The People Have Spoken, the Deletionists have lost. Now let's see some ACTION to back up the Will. E. Sn0 =31337= 02:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I got the original count wrong because I was estimating by number of occurances. The actual ratio is more like 7.5 to 1. —James S. 04:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

SHEEEEEYIT! It's definitely time to PUT THIS FARCICAL ISSUE TO BED then! E. Sn0 =31337= 05:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

agreed, get that stuff off my page!!!The Ungovernable Force 02:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Future campaigns to delete userboxes which are used to rally votes should not use userboxes to rally votes. Endomion 02:09, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That'd be nice, people have userboxes, and all of a sudden they look and the userbox is deleted. Very considerate of you. Robert Paveza 02:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was User:Larix who put the TfD template on the userboxes. Larix voted strong keep in this TfD. --- Charles Stewart 02:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also concur, since I have used userboxes, there has been a wide variety of interference. Enough! --Zaphnathpaaneah 02:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand, Charles. How do we move the TFD messages to the templates talk page? -User:Asarelah

It is now 177 to 24. The messages are plaguing my user page. The issue is resolved. End it, now. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 10:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with above. Enough vandalizing our user pages. --Misza13 ^(Talk) 12:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While I am on the side of "keep most, delete some" userboxes, I am quite distressed to see this discussion referred to as a vote. XfD pages are not votes. They are discussions for the purpose of reaching consensus. The idea should be to persuade everybody that your reasoning and conclusion are right, not to overwhelm the "other side" by sheer numbers. Wikipedians should be constantly reminded of this. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 12:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you're getting at Jdavidb. The problem is that a consensus, given some of the views presented here, is impossible to reach. Some, like myself, are very much for keeping all of the user boxes. Others want to get rid of the lot. I would be fine with getting rid of some of the more pointless ones but there will always be a minority who will not be satisfied no matter what. I like to think of myself as "flexible" in this way, but as I say, many are not. The other problem is deciding upon which boxes should go. I mean, if we get rid of the userboxes based on religion on the grounds that they are "pointless", we'd have to get rid of all the comedy ones too. This is one issue where a majority opinion is going to have to do. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 12:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Refactoring

It is probably a bad idea to refactor a deletion discussion to make it appear like a vote, with separate piles for yay and nay. This seriously damages any possibility of reaching consensus. Please in future do not divide votes up like this. The people who close these things know how to do their job and it isn't necessary to disrupt the discussion in this way. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I asked on the talk page a little while before I did it, and received no objection. Further, I've seen this done numerous other times on WP:AFD, so it's not without precedent. And it certainly makes it easier for people who don't want to sit there counting over a hundred individual comments to find out the current tally. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bad idea. The fact that it has been done on AfD almost explains why it's a bad idea. Kelly Martin (talk) 03:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is justifiable when the TfD reaches a certain size, since there is not much of a flow of discussion to be maintained (or at least it mostly happens in the comments section). Even if we heavily discount keep votes not justified by argument, the outcome of this poll is going to be a very clear keep, so I do not see the concern about consensus. --- Charles Stewart 03:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Guide to Articles for deletion pretty clearly states that discussions should never be refactored, because *fD are supposed to be more of a discussion and less of a vote, so AfD precedent should probably be ignored. --Interiot 03:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. I can see why it was done, and clearly it was done with good faith. But it just doesn't seem right to me because it emphasizes voting over substance and neglects the discussion by placing all like-minded comments together. Already we have people saying X keep and Y delete, which isn't really right. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree with Tony on the question of nomination; agree strenuously with Tony in this section and the above paragraph in particular. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 12:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As the 'people' in question, why isn't it right to tally votes? I bet you wouldn't feel that way if your opinion was winning. —James S. 04:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. I'm so glad Tony isn't in charge of a country... Larix 10:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not right to tally votes because there are no votes. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 12:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just end the vote. It would take a flipping army to change the outcome... all it's doing in in-convincing people with them. “Fix it yourself” is not an acceptable answer. It's messing up my user page and it's not my doing, fix it. --Bky1701 11:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From One of the Victims: Keep Pending Policy Discussion

I got the spam about "Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia"and ignored it (I can manage my own spam here and elsewhere). I'm a Roman Catholic, and my faith is very important to me, but I'm far from being a fanatic. As a fairly new Wikipedian, I discovered the userboxes just a few weeks ago and during the holidays had time to explore them. They're fun and useful, I think, in putting a human face on what we're doing here. Let's not go running around hysterically just because there are those in the world (and here) that do. Halcatalyst 04:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New wave of deletionism

The deletionist have re-organized and are trying a differet tactic. They are listing templates on less public forums such as:

Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:User_soup_nazi_and_Template:User-grammar_nazi--God of War 07:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is hardly a different tactic. Haven't templates for deletions always been listed at WP:TfD? Pepsidrinka 07:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The appropiate place for such discussion is WP:UBP - Deletionist know that users aren't going to be hotlinked there directly from their userboxes like what's happening on this page. To see all the proposed deletions on wikipedia go to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Userboxes:Alerts--God of War 07:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ceci n'est pas une userbox.
This user likes René Magritte