Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Template:User Status

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

The result of the discussion was: Keep Any rewrites can be done boldly and do not require a MfD. * Pppery * it has begun... 00:30, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Template:User Status

 * – (View MfD) &#8203;

This template fundamentally doesn't make sense. It functions like a "user status" on an instant messaging service, like Skype or Teams, but Wikipedia isn't that. To keep this status updated, one would need to consistently make tons of edits, updating it each time they are active or inactive. Since that's infeasible and arguably mildly disruptive because it makes page history unintelligible, the "status" in the template will just fall out of date. Which explains why it's so low in use and why any uses are probably not up-to-date anyway.

To be clear, the reason for nomination is that the userbox fundamentally doesn't make sense on Wikipedia, and its mechanism of function is necessarily either useless or misleading. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:53, 2 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep but remove all statuses except for "busy". Most casual visitors to a userpage with such a userbox would believe that the information about the user being online/offline is updated automatically and it isn't. While userboxes can be many things, including humorous, surrealist, and plain nonsense, they can't be misleading. Making frequent manual updates of this type is unsustainable in practical terms (someone might want to do it for a while, but it can't be expected that they will have the will to do it consistently, and doing so makes for a poor user experience as it's boring) and can be seen as inflating one's edit count (see Template talk:User Status). However, the current uses are almost all for the "busy" status (four out of five), a status that is generally understood to be set manually and is not changed so frequently. The users with the "busy" status seem to say that they are busy in real life. To convey this information by way of this userbox that suggests that the information could be something else, but there are no options for other statuses, and the status never changes, seems like a mildly witty way to say "I'm always busy" or "I'm constantly busy these days". I suspect that this is how the userbox is actually being used.—Alalch E. 12:34, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @Adin-Atherton Is the above correct? —Alalch E. 12:37, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I am unsure why I would be asked about this topic. Adin-Atherton (talk) 19:09, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You have this userbox set to "busy". —Alalch E. 02:36, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep just as is: I don't mean to WP:WAX?, but this is the exact same as statustop, just in userbox form. Queen   of   Hearts ❤️  (no relation) 20:47, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Rewrite should just be "active", "wikibreak", "semi-active", "mostly inactive", "semi-retired", "retired", "deceased", "banned", "blocked", "role account of X", "bot account operated by Y". -- 65.92.247.90 (talk) 05:23, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * That's reasonable. —Alalch E. 17:10, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.