User talk:Jimbo Wales/Userboxes

I wonder if you might consider...

I wonder if you might consider simply removing your political/religious/etc. userboxes and asking others to do the same. This seems to me to be the best way to quickly and easily end the userbox wars.

Userboxes of a political or, more broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project. They are attractive to the wrong kinds of people, and they give visitors the wrong idea of what it means to be a Wikipedian.

I think rather than us having to go through a mass deletion (which is what is likely to happen if the userbox fad doesn't go away), it will be better to simply change the culture, one person at a time. Will you help me?--Jimbo Wales 10:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Wales, though I am not officially a member of the userbox project, I must disagree with you. Everyone has different viewpoint in politics and religion. I think it is okay as long as the userboxes don't contain incredibly offensive material.- JustPhil 12:16, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above statment. --Domthedude001 04:13, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Nobody is being asked to remit their beliefs; this is simply a plea to assist the Wikipedia culture in avoiding conflicts with others (of less than ideal Wikipedian composure) that may be looking to cause trouble in the community. Thinking globally, much of what one considers "non-offensive" may be thought of differently to a person of another culture, and in light of this it would be a smart decision not to share too much of your personal persuasions.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  04:53, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Will I help? No. Userboxes do not harm the encyclopaedic content, and if anything serve to indicate possible conflicts of interest. I see nothing wrong with declaring your beliefs on a user page.

Oh and threatening a mass deletion is hardly the best way to go about changing peoples attitudes now is it? Modest Genius 21:13, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't see that Jimbo is necessarily threatening a mass deletion; he seems to be saying that if conflicts over the appropriate usage of userboxes continue to escalate, a mass deletion may wind up being the only viable method of ending the conflict; and he seems to be saying that he doesn't want this to happen.

I tend to like a lot of the more obscure userboxes; they're cute and fun. On the other hand, they often contain information that (even when not polemical) is largely irrelevant to an evaluation of the user's viewpoints as they're liable to influence the editing of articles. User:MatthewDBA/Templates My table of userboxes has undergone a lot of changes; right now, I have only a few that may indicate whether I have expertise in a particular subject. As far as the argument that userboxes are helpful in displaying a point of view: as mixvio has said, the point of view comes through regardless of whether a person has a userbox displayed. I think the assumption should be that people can (and will) edit articles more-or-less neutrally regardless of their personal viewpoint. If their bias interferes with neutral editing of articles, that will come through without a userbox. Thus, I see many of them (those that imply that a user has a particular bias) as not providing any new information, and in that sense not very useful. If they don't interfere with the ability of others to edit (for example, by encouraging people to engage in heated discussions to the exclusion of improving the article space), then they can stay. Apparently, though, (at least) some people have been having precisely this sort of difficulty; in that case, I feel that they should be removed (to the extent, and only to the extent, that they interfere with editing). -- MatthewDBA 12:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the sentiment of purging such information. I would rather see it openly displayed than have it cloaked, wouldn't you? More open transparency is good, particuarly for open source based Wikipedia. --ReSearcher 04:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

• I have to admit, I’m not 100% certain of what the problem is here. If I’ve got the issue right, Jimbo wants userboxes off of userpages because it displays a lack of neutrality in a person and he says this is bad for wikipedia.

I could be completely missing the gripe, but I don’t see that this is a problem. No one will ever come to wikipedia totally impartial. We’re gravitated to edit and becoming involved with the pages that interest us. Someone who finds the chemical processes of mitosis boring isn’t going to sit in an edit-war over the subject unless they’ve little else to do in life, so unless you expect people to only edit pages they aren’t personally interested in I don’t think it’s a good idea to assume no one carries internal opinions.

That having been said, however, just because I, for example, am a liberal and identify strongly with that, it’s not fair to assume that I can’t impartially edit articles related to conservative issues. My outside POV doesn’t interfere with my Wikipedia POV and as long as a user can maintain that separation then I don’t see a problem.

Furthermore, I’d rather go to the userpage of someone I’m in a dispute with and see these clarifications of their opinions upfront. Either way a person’s POV comes out through their actions and edits whether they state it on their own profiles or not.

Ofcourse, I could be completely misunderstanding the problem. If so please help me out. :P - mixvio 07:25, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I think such information is useful: if I'm trying to assess someone else's contribution to an article I'm working on, it can be helpful to know that they are coming from a particular angle, so I don't tread on too many toes. Myopic Bookworm 13:13, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

You know, this is exactly what I was thinking. OneGyT/T|C 18:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Now you see that Jimbo will always triumph, because Users are dumb. END THE DICTATORSHIP! JOIN THE VANDALS! STOP LICKING HIS BUTT! VANDALIZEEEEEEE! Uzerbokz 14:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I do NOT agree that userboxes should show NPOV. I believe that userpages are NOT part of the encylopaedic value, and that it only enrichens wikipedia's culture to have a trackable way to find out how us Wikipedians feel about certain issues. If you remove those userboxes showing POV, then you need to disallow text showing POV, and that removes any purpose of a userpage, which is to let others know who you are. A person's identity consists primarily of their opinions, experiences, and beliefs, and if we aren't allowed to express this, we have no reason for a userpage. So, if you do remove the said boxes, remove userpages. If someone comes to the site who has never been here, it's unlikely they're going to be going to people's userpages and getting offended. Nobody forces anyone to go to them. They are purely optional. Tiejaz 10:23, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe that userboxes should be allowed, as they are not part of the encyclopedic community. Officially people do have the right to express their own opinions and thus that means that userboxes do not have to be NPOV. They are expressing what they feel, don’t they have that right? As said by Tiejaz, above:

If someone comes to the site who has never been here, it's unlikely they're going to be going to people's userpages and getting offended. Nobody forces anyone to go to them. They are purely optional.

This is true, Userboxes are OPTIONAL. Non-users rarely go waltzing around Wikipedia to see Userpages. Many of theses non-Users have no idea that userpages exist. And if you want to express your thoughts and beliefs and whatnot, why should you be forbidden~to do so? Jean-Paul 10:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Though I am new to Wikipedia, I must say that Userboxes and Userpages aren't part of any article, and I find it unlikely that people will be offended by them. So what if someone has a userbox on thier page that says they are a communist? Or that they support Lenin? Sure, such views aren't exactly favored by mainstream society, those people have the right to express their views the same as anyone else. To say that people can't say what they are and how they feel is wrong, morally and politcally. Ben 22:48, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The purpose of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia. Anyone is free to say what they want on a webpage or in a book or on a street corner. Discouraging it on Wikipedia is not a moral wrong. —Centrx→talk • 14:03, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

my take on it

• I believe that we should keep the political and religious userboxes, but trim them down. One reason for this is that it makes it easier for Wikiprojects to recruit new members to their projects
• I also can see Jimbo's concern- Wikipedia is not a free host, blog, webspace provider or social networking site-I have seen many user pages, seen numerous userboxes, and then looked into that users contributions. It turned out that that user had made maybe 10 contributions, 9 of which were devouted to the userpage, the other to a site that quickly reverted their edits. Userboxes are giving the impression that wikipedia is a free blog site. We need to cut down on them, but don't abolish them Macwiki 01:10, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I am working on a plan on [1] to fork the existing collection of userboxes, and create a site that is for blogging and social networking. It'll be an open-source alternative to MySpace, Orkut, LiveJournal and Lavalife, which is more hype than I've ever seen for a wiki before. The userboxes (which will exist alongside prose and images) are important there for several reasons:

• They'll make it easier to build a profile. User:Seahen probably says more about me with userboxes than I could ever say about myself with prose.
• They'll make it easier to browse users and pick out key attributes.
• Hopefully, eventually, an offsite, open-source script will be created that will use the boxes (possibly in combination with a text search) to perform matchmaking.

So far, it's been over a week and I've had only support from the destination Wikia. What I'm wondering is if someone could batch-copy, or tell me how to batch-copy, the userboxes over. Is there a tool for doing this? Seahen 15:15, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

J. Finkelstein on Jimbo Wales' attitude

Jimbo says, "they give visitors the wrong idea of what it means to be a Wikipedian." What is it to be a Wikipedian? It is not necessarily to be an opinionated person, or rather, a digital recreation of a person. According to WP:EDIANS, "Wikipedians are the people who write and edit articles for Wikipedia." The way I see things, there're pros and cons to every situation, and in this one, the pros include seeing a user's point of view and his or her expertise when dealing with a user (plus, they're fun!). The cons include risking developing political or religious groups, or harboring negative sentiment among registered and non-registered users against users with specific userboxes. Apparently, this risk is enough to make Jimbo want to nip the problem in the bud, before it develops into a serious problem, or even a problem at all, within Wikipedia. Although it may be true in some situations that "[a]ny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" (Ben Franklin), Jimbo doesn't want to risk losing the hard work he put in to making Wikipedia what it is today over the petty disagreements of a few. Also, it's his site, people, let him do what he wants :D . J. Finkelstein 16:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not his site. It belongs to the Wikimedia Foundation which is a bit different.

Yeah, I know it's not his, but it sounds funnier if I say that it is :\ . Also, I respect him, so I would do whatever he wants me to do lol. J. Finkelstein 19:14, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I think I'll pass

Userboxes define a user and his/her beliefs. In my opinion, not many look at them, especially when some people are collecting say 30, 40, or 50 or more. My user boxes are on a seperate page as opposed to my main User:Noles1984 so if one does not want to view them, they do not have to click my userbox link. I think this might be a good cure for the problem. I actually find the userboxes useful in formulating an idea of what a user is about. Also, political userboxes shouldn't be thought of negatively since everyone has a point of view and are entitled to it. I'm opposed to cednsorship and I have that userbox :-) ...also, religion shouldn't bother anyone. As said before, users that are serious contributors understand differing points of view. One other thing... one must consider "college wars" where we have users from rival schools possibly getting in to a battle. Shall school userboxes be banned? Anyway, those here for political/religious/college wars won't visit often in my opinion. 25px|USA Noles1984 16:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

What I Think

I, for one, am okay with userboxes. However, I don't think people should get too personal with the userboxes. I dislike it when users use userboxes to show their beliefs on politics, religion, (very) personal life, etc. I believe users should only use userboxes to show their academic interests, societies they are members of, their hobbies, where they're from and stuff like that. I also believe that users can make userboxes, as long as they stick to the same rules. To sum it up, don't get too personal with your userboxes! --Kschwerdt514 04:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

suggestion: move "This is a Wikipedia user page." code to a userbox

I like Mr. Wales' "This is a Wikipedia user page." box more than Template:User page. Can we move the code on his page to that template? See also discussion here. - Paul2520 (talk) 09:02, 24 November 2015 (UTC)