Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Various userbox listing pages

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany 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 debate was keep and continue discussing policy. -- Jbamb 15:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/userbox templates concerning beliefs and convictions, Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes, Wikipedia:Userboxes, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Userboxes

[edit] Various userbox listing pages

• Wikipedia:Userboxes/Beliefs
• Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion
• Wikipedia:Userboxes/Political Parties
• Wikipedia:Userboxes/International Politics

The purpose of these pages is to list userboxes that an editor can apply to his user page, and in doing so he adds himself to a category according to his personal convictions or religious beliefs The dangers of this were starkly demonstrated late last month when, after the nomination for deletion of Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia the creator of that page used the userbox categories to locate over 40 Roman Catholics whose user talk pages he spammed in an attempt to subvert the consensual decision-making process of Wikipedia in order to keep a page that was avowedly intended "to nurture and keep wikipedia's pro-life/pro-catholic articles and categories."

We're getting into dangerous territory here, and this is a very recent thing. Of the 44 userboxes that I found listed on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Beliefs yesterday, only 3 had existed prior to December, and a very high proportion seem to have been created over the Christmas/New Year holiday. These userboxes must go because they turn Wikipedia into a network of people linked together by their factional interests,and as such are a grave danger to the neutrality policy. The pages above, which enable quick access to those userboxes and their associated lists of users, must also go for the same reason. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and anything that threatens the neutrality policy that is its bedrock must go. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, just because one person abuses it doesn't mean the rest of the community should suffer. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• keep, pending a more complete userbox policy. I belive that one is now under discussion. Once it is accepted, then delete any lists of userboxes which are unacceptable under that policy, and only those. DES ^(talk) 05:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, unconvinced that deletion of the templates/related pages is the best way to solve this problem. Undesirable user behavior is the issue and should be addressed on a per-user basis. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete They strongly advocate violating WP:NPOV.--MONGO 06:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep - This is completely out of process - userboxes go on the templates for deletion page - there has been no mention of this deletion on the userbox page, i think it was intended to be hidden - Until a firm policy is established at Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes no more userboxes can be deleted.--God of War 06:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • This is about deleting the pages. The templates have also been listed for deletion. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, pending a more complete userbox policy. One is under discussion here: Wikipedia talk:Proposed policy on userboxes and I strongly urge interested editors to participate. Deletion at this point is premature because it is not clear (to me at least) that statements of personal belief are disallowed in userspace or that statements of personal belief actually link people together in a way that enables POV pushing. That discussion is going on in a centralised place and should be brought to conclusion before deletions are carried out. IMHO anyway. ++Lar: t/c 06:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Apart from my clear support for userboxes, I don't think it's a good idea to delete them before the policy has been decided upon. —Nightstallion (?) 07:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep --Closedmouth 07:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nominator. Have you listed the userboxes for deletion yet? --Carnildo 08:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - keep them Brian | (Talk) 08:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - With the recent conflagration over userboxes, no reason to add gasoline at this time. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Proposed policy on userboxes 1001001 08:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep - absolutely no reason to delete the page... deleting the offending categories is a whole 'nother ball game. Deano (Talk) 09:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep per 1001001 --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 09:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and the contents please --Doc ^ask? 10:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. David | Talk 11:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Keith Greer 12:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep Boddah 13:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep Userboxes are not part of the article namespace; they cannot be blamed for any percieved lack of neutrality in that area -- Gurch 14:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - get rid of this and those infernal userboxes it links to. There's no place for this kind of POV-pushing, bias-causing userboxcruft on an encyclopedia. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 14:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep for as long as the userboxes are there - these pages need to be too. Ian¹³_ID:540053 15:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Until there is a general policy against all user boxes and categories, then I consider nomination of any non-nonsense or non-hate templates/categories to be in bad faith (no pun intended). All user categories are 90% vanity, with the other half being a statement of interest areas. — Eoghanacht ^talk 15:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. The fate of these pages is directly related to the fate of the userboxes, and the general concensus seems to be that the userboxes should be kept (see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/userbox templates concerning beliefs and convictions). I will repeat here what I said on that page: POV is allowed on userpages, and users have a right to express their beliefs without censorship. Removing the categories without removing the userboxes may be the solution, but I don't see any problem with the categories at all. You don't have to view them or list yourself in them if you don't want to. —gorgan_almighty 15:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. People have a right to express their preferences on their own user pages. KittenKlub 16:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Deleting this has no hope to correct the problem the nominator sees. -- Jbamb 16:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• KEEP the userboxes, DELETE THE CATEGORIES. This is yet another example of userboxes being blamed for the problems caused by automated POV categories. POV categories should not be allowed within templates, and it is because of them that harmless userbox templates keep getting TfD'd. Delete ALL POV categories, and then there will be light at the end of the tunnel. But while the categories remain inside template, this nonsense will continue. Deano (Talk) 16:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Probably the best "compromise" solution IMO. There would still be ways to tell who was anti-this or anti-that, but it wouldn't be quite as easy as using a category. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep per Deano, its not the suerboxes that cause problems, its the categories becasue they can help POV bashers targest large amounts of people with the same POV, religion, etc - «ßØÛ®ßÖѧ3» ^{Talk | Contrib's} 17:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Really Really Strong Keep. Really, these userboxes illustrate a personal choice, and do not impose anything on anyone else. Userboxes don't kill people violate NPOV, people violate NPOV. While userboxes may be abused by POV pushers, articles aren't abused by userboxes. — TheKMan^talk 18:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Faily relaxed delete (on balance) - but I've put the associated categories, which IMHO are far more harmful on WP:CfD --Doc ^ask? 19:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep pending policy discussion. There's clearly no consensus on this issue, and removal of these pages will not aid the development of that consensus. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strongest possible KEEP: If we're not allowed to personalize our user pages, what are they for? Maprov 20:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - Enough already with these ridiculous delete nominations. The create dates are new because the project recently renamed most of them by making copies and deleting the old ones after all links to them were fixed. These pages belong to the Userboxes Project TCorp 20:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Unbelievably strong keep. Agreed with the above. I want to express myself and I have a right to do so. It has been said before and I'll say it again, userpages do not need to be NPOV. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 22:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Neutrality^talk 22:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strongest Keep possible and then 50% more then that. This is becoming tiresome.Gateman1997 00:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep I'd include my reasons why, but I'd simply be reiterating what all of the above "keep" voters have already said. --¿ WhyBeNormal ? 01:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Station Attendant 03:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep I'd say why, but I'd be repeating what I said on the template deletion page. Benami 04:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Nightstallion, Deano, et al. —Andux 07:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, A user page is an expression of the person behind the signature tag. When it comes to expressing one's self, they are going to express POV. If expressing POV isn't allowed, then User pages should be written by third-party biographers in order to avoid the issue.--Silverhand 07:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Again STRONG KEEP. BTW This spamming of deletion requests for userbox material is unconstitutional in the extreme. Sjc 11:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Strong Keep and please stop with the overnomination. I have never seen such a determined campaign of deletionism on the wiki before, and certainly not in the user space. Leave the categories and the userboxes alone. They are not harmful. --Dschor 11:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep - This is getting ridiculous. Just leave the userboxes alone, they haven't made any drastic changes in how things work. You're just blatantly scaremongering. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 11:42, 5 January 2006 (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.