Template talk:User atheist

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I really prefered the one without the image..... am I the only one?Cornell Rockey 22:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm with you here, the letters alone were a little more straightforward. This seems to suggest that athiests are against God, and I don't think that's the case, we just don't have one (or two or three for that matter). I just don't think it should be presented in a way that defines atheism in terms of theism. The term "atheist" does enough in that respect. Zeke 22:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Why has this template been deleted? Can someone please point me towards the discussion and vote that took place in order to make it so?  (aeropagitica)  23:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

First off, let's be clear that there's no voting on Wikipedia. Voting is evil. Rather, we have discussions in an effort to seek consensus. Having said that, consensus really isn't always as important as it's said it to be, and is often superseded by discretionary administrative action. That's what happened here, so there's no discussion or consensus to be pointed to for this specific userbox. This template was deleted as part of a deletion spree[1] under T1 of the criteria for speedy deletion which says that templates can be deleted if they are polemical or inflammatory. I don't know what this template originally said, but you can use your own customized userbox on your user page that says something like {{Userbox|white|blue|ath|This user is a [[weak atheist]], or whatever you want to call yourself}} which will look like

You can find out more about creating your own custom Userboxes for your userpage at Wikipedia:Userboxes — Jeff | (talk) | 00:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

This template originally said "This user is an atheist". It therefore does not fall under T1 and its deletion is an abuse of process. The deletion is currently under review at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Userbox_debates#Template:User_atheist. Please feel free to discuss and voice your opinion there, though, as Jeffrey correctly noted above, Wikipedia is run by consensus and common sense, not by raw votes. Your opinion and eloquent arguments will be more valuable than just voting "endorse deletion" or "oppose deletion". Anyway, since this template is used by almost 250 users and was the only major religious template deleted on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion, I anticipate trouble ahead... Why can't we all just get along? :( -Silence 02:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Not to sound like a pessimist, but I doubt anything will come of this. There seems to be a group of admins who have interpreted Jimbo's imposition of T1 as a missive to go purging out userboxes en masse that could be interpreted as polemic, inflammatory, or divisive (which two of the three is actually included in the CSD-T1 criteria occasionally varies). While this hasn't yet spread to much of the religion userboxes, beliefs userboxes have been widely deleted, and I think the political parties userboxes have been completely wiped out. In case anyone was thinking along these lines, I don't believe there's any evidence that the speedy-deletion was anti-atheist in nature.

I did say that we prefer discussion and consensus to voting, but I also said that consensus doesn't necessarily mean anything if it comes up against discretionary administrative action. The deleting admin has said in this case that that the deletion review in this case represents a "waste of time", which I think supports my statement. Something I meant to mention before is that users who keep {{user atheist}} on their page might be visited by User:Pathoschild (or someone assisting him) who's been (most admirably) trying to reduce the conflict over this latest deletion spree by substing back the raw code of the deleted userboxes into user pages. (See User:Pathoschild/Projects/Userboxes for more details.) Or, as I suggested above, Wikipedians can replace their links to this template with a customized userbox of their own. — Jeff | (talk) | 03:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hey stop deleting these pages!!

[edit] Upmost incompetence!

Can someone smart enough please wrap the content in <noinclude></noinclude> tags? Regardless how much you hate the UBXs, please be responsible for your actions - some 200+ user pages are now listed as protected deleted (and who's doing harm to the community here, eh?). Thank you! Misza13 ^(Talk) 13:08, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. It's amazing how stupid people may be. Vandalising so many pages with one click of a button. Even WoW is not that productive.  Grue  13:52, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia thinks expression of atheism is "Polemical [and] inflammatory"

The deletion of this userbox (and the subsequent use of T1 as justification) is evidence that Wikipedia as an organization is hostile towards atheists. Not just atheists, though; if you have any religious beliefs (or disbliefs) at all and feel strongly enough about them that you wish to express them, you are being polemical and inflammatory, according to Jimbo Wales and whomever decided to use his decree as a mandate for mass deletion of expression.

In other words, it was a pretty bad mistake to delete the userboxes. Jeff Silvers 02:52, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] linking to Category:Atheist Wikipedians

can this template be made to compliment Category:Atheist Wikipedians? alot of other templates do with their respective categories. (see User:MiraLuka/Userboxes/User liberal with Category:Liberal Wikipedians --Philo 11:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added to undelete page

This page has been deleted to Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Userbox_debates, because I feel it is perfectly acceptible to have this userbox. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TheTrueSora (talk • contribs) 14:12, May 12, 2006 (UTC)

Here's a bit of history in case you've come here wondering why your userbox has been deleted: Template:User atheist wasn't the first casualty of the new expanded T1. Template:User Christian was hit first (although another admin has recently restored it, I don't expect that to last). You can find some of the recent background at Template talk:user Christian. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remedying a major error

It's paste time to fix this ridiculous mistake from weeks ago: When this template was substed and deleted during the campaign for mass-deletion a while ago, by an accident resulting from misinterpreting the out-of-process recreation of User:Bhumiya as being the correct version when it wasn't, hundreds of users' userpages were vandalized with a template they'd never meant to add to their page and a potentially offensive image, and it was made impossible to easily fix because the mass-substing requires so much more effort to revert than a simply template-revert would have. Almost 200 users who had originally had "Template:User atheism" on their page now continue to be stuck with the wrong version. They should certainly have the userbox on their pages replaced with something at least close to the version that was there before Bhumiya's unfortunate error; this would do just fine:

{{subst:userbox
 |border-c=#6ee0f7
 |info-c=#8ff9fe
 |info-fc=#000000
 |id-c=#6ee0f7
 |id=[[atheism|ath]]
 |info=This user is an '''[[atheism|atheist]]'''.
}}

This should certainly be pasted to almost all of the users listed as linking to Image:No god.PNG, so they aren't forced into having a template and image on their page which they never selected anything remotely similar to. Users who do want the image-bearing version can easily add it themselves, rather than having it forced down their throats by a historical bureaucratic error. (We could also simply replace the raw code on their pages with {{user atheist}} again, since that's what they originally had to begin with, but that may not be a good idea considering the ongoing T2 dispute.) Incidentally, it seems that there would be close to 500 users using {{user atheist}} today if not for the arbitrary, erroneous subst that User:Ilmari Karonen unwittingly caused back in February. -Silence 22:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Meh, by transcluding a template on their user page people are leaving themselves open to anyone editing the template (and they know it). And that image really isn't that offensive. Nobody really even reads userboxes anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it. --Cyde↔Weys 22:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they leave themselves open to having the templates they use altered, but they don't leave themselves open to those changes being irrevocable except by mass-edit action: that problem is the direct result of the hasty and very poorly-handled task of mass-substing the wrong version of the template to the userpages, rather than taking a few seconds to double-check that the most recent version is the correct one. The image is both potentially offensive and wildly inaccurate; no symbols are used to denote things that are banned or prohibited, or to denote opposition to something! An image like that is much more appropriate at an antitheism template than an atheism one; many atheists couldn't care one way or the other about God, they simply don't believe in him. As such, it is both potentially insulting and potentially misleading to use such an image on people's pages. And while I wouldn't object to such an image if they'd voluntarily chosen to add the template to their pages in that format, the fact that it was sneakily added in by a historical accident, and bears little to no resemblance whatsoever to the versions of the template they added to their pages, indicates that a mass-replacement of the templates using that version of the templates is a very, very good idea. -Silence 06:14, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'm not just "interested in" atheism

Hello, I restored this template to the version which says "this user is an atheist", which is what most users accepted when they included it into their userpages. Also, I'm pretty ignorant on what "CSD T2" is supposed to be, that being the sole commentary for this recent change introduced by user:Doc Glasgow. I know that there has been a decision or suggestion that WP shouldn't include templates grouping users on the basis of their worldview, belief, or whatever. And although I do not know any details, I think that is basically a good idea. But as long templates like user:christian are tolerated, I will certainly not accept that this policy is enforced on the back of the atheists. My objection will end the very day templates like user:christian say "this user is interested in the christian faith". -- 790 17:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protected

Protection was requested on WP:RFPP. Done. Please discuss any differences on this talk page. --Tony Sidaway 19:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I'm sure you meant well by your action but the request was to protect the template in the form it existed when it was recovered through DRV, not what Doc changed it to after it was restored. --StuffOfInterest 19:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

See m:The Wrong Version. --Tony Sidaway 21:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Guess I should have done or waited for someone else to have done a revert before requesting page protection. Of course, I'm sure it still would have received as quick of attention then. --StuffOfInterest 21:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that it looks improper because you did it in a version that is clearly hospitible to your views (I'm not at all insinuating that is what really happened, I am saying it looks that way)- it wouldn't look that way if you were not the one doing it, or you did it in the version that is the "wrong version" for yourself. RN 21:23, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I asked for it to be protected to a version which came through DRV, had been restored by three different people, and was being changed by one person. I could have just reverted again and let Doc get one step closer to 3RR but though I would use a more formal means. Actually, I don't even use the template as I got sick of boxes disappearing at random ages ago and subst'd most of them then. --StuffOfInterest 21:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Erm, I meant Tony... sorry :) RN 21:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, OK. Oops. Sorry if I sounded a bit snappy. It's been a long, allergy filled day. --StuffOfInterest 21:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Protection was requested and protection was granted. See the Wikipedia:Protection policy on this. This is the correct place to discuss which of the two versions to leave it on. Like anyone, I have my opinions on this, but I won't be engaging in the discussion or editing. --Tony Sidaway 23:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I've restored the "This user is an atheist" version, as this was the one that protection was requested for, which Tony seems to have misunderstood. I find the whole debate slightly strange; as above, practically every religious denomination has its own userbox alongside an "interested in" one; the whole matter of deleting the atheist box smacks of discrimination and censorship. User:ProhibitOnions|(T) 23:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC) (full disclosure: I am myself an atheist)

You seem to have mixed adminning and content editing. Not a good move. --Tony Sidaway 23:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

No, I've never edited this page before now. It was the long-standing consensus version, and the version immediately prior to your protection of the page. I have, nonetheless, reverted myself. Please accept my apologies.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 00:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inequal treatment of different worldviews

Inequal treatment of template:user_atheist and e.g. template:user_christian could be regarded as discrimination against non-religious users, and should not be continued. -- 790 09:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I demand that this abuse of administrative powers is undone, and the template restored as of this debate, unless T2 is adopted as an official policy. -- 790 14:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)790 05:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC) restore, delete, whatever, but treat them the same. -- 790 05:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

No, becasue people who reject christianity as the true world faith, are only doing it to be disruptive--64.12.117.6 11:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Moving towards user space in line with the German solution for the userbox issue seems to be gaining a few supporters. --StuffOfInterest 10:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User page move

Why was this temp[late moved to somebodies userpage? I have reverted it back --Mercifull ^{(BattlestarWiki)} 13:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:GUS. There is an effort underway to move many of the user boxes out of template space. As for this one, I have a version of the "is an atheist" box in my collection of boxes. --StuffOfInterest 16:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)