User:Pi72/Essays/Solving The Userbox Problem

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Foreword
This is an essay. This is not a formal proposal. This essay contains a draft for a proposal, created with the idea that the userbox problem hasn't reached an end yet, and it might be needed one day.

Outline and aims of this draft
In the end of year 2005, there was a mass deletion of userboxes, which were deemed to be non-needed, or even harmful to the Wikipedia project by some admins. This effectively created what has been called the Userbox War, with admins banned, editors banned, things deleted, etc. There were several proposals to solve this problem, from the proposals which actually started the problem (keep them all, or delete them all), to technicalities involving having userboxes but not as templates, or moving them from one namespace to another. A consensus wasn't reached, but the problem was settled and left as it was (more or less).

What this draft tries to achieve is to analyze the background of the problem, which might not be the userboxes themselves, but how admins and users make a problem about them. This problem might arise again sooner or later, because the analysis might prove that the problem hasn't been settled definitely or solved in a satisfactory way. And then the main aim is to make three proposals which aren't based in taking extreme measures, nor taking into account tricky technicalities to support one side or not. These three proposals are designed to solve the userbox problem, not to decide wether userboxes are good or bad; just to stop them being a problem.

These three proposals are simply outlined as:
 * Divide the userboxes in two groups: one with the needed, wanted, useful userboxes for Wikipedia, and the other with the not needed, or only indirectly useful for Wikipedia.
 * For the directly useful userboxes, have them as templates in the template namespace, nicely organized and maintained by a Wikiproject, so they can be truly useful for editors and Wikipedia.
 * For all the rest of the userboxes, allow them to reside in user space (kind of like The German Userbox Solution), and have them organized and maintained solely in user space.

Useful links and references

 * Userboxes
 * User_page
 * Userbox War
 * Lamest edit wars
 * Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point
 * Jimbo's take
 * User talk:Jimbo Wales/Userboxes
 * simple userbox solution
 * Userbox migration
 * WikiProject Userboxes
 * User:GRBerry/Userbox migration
 * User:Royalguard11/Userbox_personalities
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-06/Userbox warring
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-13/Userbox warring
 * Category:Wikipedia userbox discussions
 * User:Crotalus horridus/Abolishing userboxes considered harmful
 * Mackensen's Proposal

Past writing in need of copyedit into the essay
I feel the need to explain a bit about the current situation of userboxes, as I see it. Apparently I've came to Wikipedia after a war about userboxes, which, also apparently, was not solved. Proposed solutions like Userbox Migration (aka The German Userbox Solution) didn't reach consensus, straw polls failed, but at least the war seems to have come to a pause (not to an end). Editors don't speedydelete userboxes on sight, but some people are following the Userbox Migration guidelines already. I suspect that the war will continue sooner or later; meanwhile, it has spawned a wikiproject, an essay on sides of the war, and attempts on categorization in user space. Well, other wars raged the country. While this thing is not resolved, I consider userboxes as gray area, so I really don't know wether I should list new userboxes in the corresponding Wikipedia categories or use other means to list my userboxes somewhere so others can use it. I don't know if I will waste effort on what is, looking closely, a silly fun thing just to see my userboxes deleted, moved or vandalised, and lots of people fighting over something like this. I think that is essentially bad for Wikipedia and for the people. Not the userboxes, but the lack of an official policy or guideline which stands out from the mess that all the proposals, projects, blurb and whatnot have created.

My main gripe is that maybe the straw poll created to solve this problem was too complex and tedious, and maybe it caused not enough people to participate, and gave contradictory results. The result was that the problem hasn't been solved. While some people are already putting into effect the userbox migration, others act as if the simple userbox solution is where things are at, and sooner or later someone will ask again why userboxes exist (or not) and where, and the war will begin again. That will happen because neither solution is an official guideline or policy, not because this or that. Remember, userboxes might deprive Wikipedia from a few more edits, but things like these wars deprive Wikipedia from a lot of effort, disrupt the process, and makes Wikipedia lose some good editors. I also find quite annoying that people seem to not pay much attention to Jimbo's take on the subject. IMHO they are already enough to build a policy or guideline which can settle things of. We all know what Wikipedia is not (a bureaucracy), but policies and guidelines are needed for controversial issues. And userboxes have proven to fall in that category!

If/when things get heated up again, what I'd propose is the following: a policy or guideline which can be described clearly in a nutshell, to settle things now. Get a consensus about it, not exactly if the guideline is the best possible one, but because clearing things about the subject will do good to Wikipedia. In other words, the guideline should not specify which userboxes need to be salvaged, but rather if any userboxes are to be salvaged and how. Details can be discussed later. Arguing about the details before deciding that such way is a good way is useless and goes nowhere, IMHO. Such nutshell could be, for example: "Userboxes which are useful to Wikipedia's goals are to be kept in template space, standarized and categorized by a guideline. All the other userboxes need to go from template space." What does this imply? Not that other userboxes need to be moved. Or deleted. Just that they don't pertain to Wikipedia's efforts towards encyclopedic content. People already has thousands of userboxes in the user space. You've separated the problem into two smaller pieces; one is useful userboxes, and other is the other irrelevant or unencyclopedic userboxes. Later, once a consensus on the first part is reached, a second guideline could be created, which addresses the usage of userboxes and how users can use their own user space. Probably with expanding just a little the current guideline is enough, so it specifically covers userboxes, but not necessarily with too much detail. Wether such expansions condemns or allows userboxes (and how) should be reached thru a consensus, of course.

My current point of view is that userboxes can exist on template space, only if they are directly useful for Wikipedia; for example, babel boxes, sister Mediawiki projects, and Wikipedia projects. Maybe other userboxes which prove to be useful with consensus about it can later be treated in the same way; I'm thinking that expertise userboxes (without needing to be attached to a particular project) could be useful for locating people being able to help on certain articles. Wikipedia projects with userboxes should move them to template space. These userboxes should be categorized and listed in the Wikipedia space, so people can use it in a more or less official way.

For the rest of userboxes, if they can coexist peacefully with the people (i.e. not necessarily NPOV but not divisive or political either), they should live in user space. Categorization and listing should be done entirely in user space. As someone adopts an userbox, someone could also adopt a page which lists userboxes from a certain category, while allowing other users to list more userboxes, move them from category, etc. Someone could also adopt a page which lists all these categories, with users (not necessarily the user which has this page) maintaining such list and links, proposing moves, new categories, merging lists, detecting duplicates, standarising them, and catching orphan userboxes and userbox lists into the userproject. How this can be achieved is left to users; userboxes are popular, and somehow an arrangement can be made when a policy on userboxes solves all the current chaos. You can see that happening right now, but there's not a coordinated effort, or a centralized place where you can really say "here you can find the vast majority of userboxes".

That's only my opinion anyway, I'm still quite noob and I might be lacking a global scope on these issues. I hope I've not offended anyone! I'm just a bit frustrated about all this. If you have something to comment or add about this paragraph, please do so in my talk page, thanks.