Wikipedia talk:NPOV in userboxes

Pre-Publication Commentary
Good idea, and essay is all this needs to be. You mentioned that you were looking for a better title, and a couple might be "State support, not opposition, in userboxes." or "Use affirmative voice in userboxes" - but those are both wordy.

You might have a more complete scale of ways to word. For example: I've seen userboxes that were examples of all but the top version.
 * 1) believes that "foo-barists" will burn in hell/are idiots. Unacceptable, likely to be deleted on sight.
 * 2) hates "foo-bar". Almost definitely unacceptable, real risk of deletion.
 * 3) opposes "foo-bar". Could be better, likely to be proposed for deletion.
 * 4) does not support "foo-bar". Likely to be fine, but what do you really mean?
 * 5) supports "bar-foo". Likely to be acceptable  (Where "bar-foo" is the natural opposite of "foo-bar", as for example "theism" and "atheism" are natural opposites.)

I also think we don't want to mention avoiding "migration into userspace". Migration out of template space is definitely what Jimbo wants, and the community seems willing to accept this so long as they are semi-accepted there. (Semi-accepted - we can say that they aren't really great, we can discourage their use, but we won't go on deletion sprees unless they are really out of hand.) GRBerry 18:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * is it really necesary to maintain neutrality even in a userbox? if a user 'likes' cheese, what's wrong with saying 'this user likes cheese' rather than rewording it into a clunky 'this user approves of cheese'. npov is great for articles and even policies but when thit leaks out into censoring personal opinion then that gets really unnecessary. of course, my ideas dont apply to obviously offensive ones like "foo-barists will burn in hell" but mildly expressed opinions like "opposes" "does not support" and "supports" should be allowed, and even "hates" should be okay when not controversial (if someone sayid that they "hate" fruitcake i dont think that necesarily needs to be deleted">Smith Jones (talk) 22:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)