User talk:Ssbohio/Userbox

Tolerance in the Wikipedia community
Tolerance in the real world is a principle I feel very strongly about, and it is my opinion that standards on Wikipedia should be at least as high. There is an unfortunate conflict between this principle and the aggressive campaign against permitting user boxes that suggest that a user has a viewpoint. This conflict has been made apparent to me because I chose a userbox that indicated my personal preference for using green energy, (a little piece of information that helps to create a picture of me, influenced by 14 years of work aimed at improving energy efficiency in buildings in the UK and Europe), only for this userbox to be deleted by someone who thought such a preference was "inflammatory". (By the way, I find the separate argument that user boxes use a substantial amount of server resources difficult to believe - are there statistics on this?).

I see two possible consistent alternatives. One is to forbid any material on user pages that expresses any degree of personal opinion about anything. The other is to tolerate any such material, except where it is generally agreed to be offensive (confrontational viewpoints, for example), and to suggest that user pages should be designed so as not to alienate those who read them. The problem with the former policy is that it is intolerant in a way that reminds one of totalitarianism. User pages are not articles (although they have some attributes of articles by a user, about that user). Many users who have contributed a resource worth many thousands of dollars to Wikipedia for free have spent a small amount of time creating a picture (sometimes slightly whimsical) of themselves on their user page. There is a balance to be made between an idealised desire that all Wikipedia editors have no personal views (so, in reality, should hide them), and the freedom of expression of users in a space away from articles and discussions about them.

The main argument I can see for the aggressive policy against certain userboxes is that it has a tendency to characterise a certain user as being motivated by pushing a certain viewpoint. I would disagree with such a attitude by a user, but I do not think opposing the use of certain user boxes has a significant effect on this phenomenon. It is worth noting that in many cases, a statement or a user box on a user page that expresses a viewpoint performs a useful service to Wikipedia by declaring an viewpoint of a user to other users, even though such a viewpoint should not be allowed to influence the content of contributions. Elroch 01:00, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You've missed the main opposition point on userboxes, actually. Userboxes are templates, but templates were designed to help write articles (and as such need to be NPOV).  -- Cyde↔Weys  01:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I would state the same point as Cyde, but slightly differently. The problem with userboxes is that people really really ought not to be using their user pages to advocate for or against green energy or anyone else. We actually are extremely tolerant about this, and I see no reason for us to change that. However, the issue with userboxes is that they are templates, and as such, they are categorized and easy to replicate and easy to use for campaigning and so on, and so they turn individual advocacy behavior, which is bad enough, into group campaigns. The pages which list userboxes, in the template namespace, make it seem as though putting these things on userpages is a normal and accepted community behavior, when in fact it is not.


 * There is a middle ground, I agree. The middle ground is to let people do as they will in the user space, and merely use reason and argument to teach people over time why one ought not use Wikipedia userpages for political or other campaigns.... while at the same time saying, no, really, the template namespace is not for that, that we do not endorse this behavior. This is the solution that the Germans have put into effect with great results.--Jimbo Wales 02:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Jimbo, I'm both pleased and puzzled to read your words here. Simply saying "they ought not" isn't a policy that ends the abuse of Templates space, and I think you know it won't end the unforgivably endless debates, which are chewing up editing time.
 * Your Statement of Principles notes that "Very limited meta-discussion of the nature of the Wikipedia should be placed on the site itself. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia." I urge you to follow this principle and keep this a matter to a mailing list for you and the Admins to sort out.
 * Leaving it to the "parliament of billions" to it sort out has led to tribalism and factions. Hundreds of thousands of words have been written - not in articles, but about boxes. No consensus seems immanent, other than they’re "cool."''
 * Like all Web collaborations, WP needs clear policies. It’s the site owner’s job to sort out policies of this magnitude and make the fairest decision possible to protect the integrity of the project. Direct democracy can’t solve it. Gentle persuasion can’t solve it. A half million more words written about “Userbox policy proposals” can’t solve it. But you can, and I hope you do. - Nhprman 04:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm also surprised that you seem to be labeling many/all ("the problem with userboxes is...") POV userboxes as actually advocating/campaigning the view represented, when I don't think the majority of them are doing so. Most are probably being used to describe the editor with no subtext or intent of actually wanting that bias to slip into article-writing.  In my opinion, it's not likely (though certainly possible) for someone to view something like "This user is a Christian" or "This user is Jewish" as advocating or identifying with that religion.  What if they were reworded to avoid any such interpretation, like "This user has a bias favorable to Christianity" (with "bias" linked to WP:NPOV or some other explanatory page)?  --AySz88 ^  -  ^  04:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Or we could simply end this debate with a new policy from Jimbo moving all boxes to user space, then focus on writing articles instead. Problem solved. (I also can't resist commenting that a box saying "This user has a bias favorable to Christianity" has no place on Wikipedia, and is symptomatic of the problem with Userboxes in general, but with Templated boxes in particular.) - Nhprman 05:16, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There is zero conflict between your ideals and Wikipedia guidelines and policies. See Divisiveness. The solution is to expand your free speech rather than limit it to a bumper sticker slogan. Express yourself! Please! Just don't blindly label yourself with some divisive unthinking slogan or category. We are all complex enough to deserve better than that. WAS 4.250 02:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Elroch, there's a problem with your suggestion that we "tolerate any such material, except where it is generally agreed to be offensive (confrontational viewpoints, for example)". This plan requires that we make a bunch of decisions about which views are offensive and which ones aren't.  That would force Wikipedia to take all kinds of political stands when it comes to questionable cases.  How can we condone declaring your membership in one ideology with a history of violence, but not another one?  Near the boundary, there are countless such decisions that would have to be made, and that's not how we need to be using our energy; it's enough trouble deciding with topics are encyclopedic and verifiable, without having to worry about allowing some Irish nationalist party's userbox that a group of users claim is horribly offensive while another group screams about how we allowed a userbox for some Irish unionist party that also killed people... and so on and so forth.


 * That's so far from the project of writing an encyclopedia; we've got no business going there. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:26, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The introduction to Userboxes states, "Wikipedia is first and foremost an online encyclopedia, and as a means to that end, an online community. Userboxes are to help us create the best encyclopedia we can." When I initially read this statement, I felt confident userboxes were a reasonable tool to support collaboration and community building within the online community dedicated to building this encyclopedia. In that spirit, I added a few userboxes to my page (just as Jimbo has) and joined the related WikiProject. About the same time, I started to notice the highly contentious userbox deletion wars, along with several active and failed attempts to resolve them. Assuming good faith, I joined in many of the discussions, attempting to clarify the web of issues for myself and possibly others in hopes of finding sound and equitable resolutions to these issues. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Instead, what I found as a major obstacle was what appears to me to be a relatively small group of administrators attempting to zealously enforce what they perceive to be the de facto policy on userboxes established through various comments made by Jimbo Wales. While it makes sense to listen to Jimbo’s comments, it makes even more sense to follow established policies and guidelines. I find it unfortunate some administrators are using Jimbo’s words as weapons in attempts to stifle the current processes intended to clarify policy on this issue. As a professional evaluator, I am well acquainted with issues related to characterizations, appraisals, neutrality, points of view, bias, factions, campaigning, policy development and the like. What I see occurring here is very troubling in the sense that many unintended consequences are plaguing this protracted userbox debate. For example, while Jimbo may well be acting on this matter in a spirit of tolerance, the actions of some of his representatives are perceived by many as personifications of intolerance, souring them to participating in the voluntary activity of encyclopedia development. If, in fact, Jimbo has a clear policy position on userboxes, then it should be communicated as such, not as a posting here and there on a discussion page, and subsequently used by some in attempts to bully their colleagues. I strongly urge Jimbo to further assume his leadership in Wikipedia by making an official policy statement on userboxes that addresses the outstanding issues on this matter. Rfrisbietalk 05:59, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed. The circumstances that allow some users to say (perhaps with some justification) that the Admins are acting on what they think Jimbo is saying, and may be misinterpreting his comments, are the very reasons why his "non-statement statements" about Userboxes are a huge problem for the project. Though - if I may spin this just a bit differently - I think Jimbo's tolerance for the situation is actually the core of the problem, and I don't blame the admins as much as some seem to for thier zeal in taking at least the FIRST half of every statement Jimbo makes against Templated User boxes at face value. It's the "but this isn't a real policy" part of these statements that drive people mad. - Nhprman 06:17, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I've no idea who wrote that userboxes were "to help us create the best encyclopedia we can." You were grotesquely, obscenely misled. --Tony Sidaway
 * "Wikipedia is first and foremost an online encyclopedia, and as a means to that end, an online community. Userboxes are to help us create the best encyclopedia we can." Really?  Somewhere along the line userboxes got terribly terribly off-track, then.  Most userboxes don't even pretend to be even tangentially-related to writing the encyclopedia.  (Dammit, edit-conflicted with Tony) -- Cyde↔Weys  06:04, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * "Wikipedia is first and foremost an online encyclopedia, and as a means to that end, an online community. Userboxes are to help us create the best encyclopedia we can." Prescriptive versus descriptive. You should see what that wording replaced. WAS 4.250 14:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Someone seems to have added userboxes to Jimbo's page, which seems to have misled the above editor to think that sticking a load of pastel boxes expressing belief in all kinds of causes is the way to be a good Wikipedian. That's a little sad.  I've removed them from Jimbo's page so as to avoid further misleading other users. --Tony Sidaway 06:14, 28 May 2006 (UTC)