Wikipedia talk:Userfication

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Contents 1 Should we have a Wikipedia:Userfication policy guideline? 1.1 Support 1.2 Oppose 1.3 Neutral 2 Thoughts 3 article to be userfied 4 Problems with this page

[edit] Should we have a Wikipedia:Userfication policy guideline?

[edit] Support

1. Strong Support. --GeorgeMoney^{Talk  Contribs} 01:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
2. Support. --Charlie^{(@CIRL | talk)} 06:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
3. Support - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 16:20, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oppose

1. First of all, WP:RULES says "don't call for a vote." But more importantly, is there something about the way we do things that is lacking? We're not here to have perfect rules, we're here to build an encyclopedia. Mangojuice^talk 16:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral

1. Weak neutral I dont think we need policy/guidelines to govern how this works, but I can't see the harm. I've been copying the content of vanity pages to the correct user pages for months, it seems like something that is common sense. Also, this may be evidence of instruction creep. (feared by all paranoid wikipedians). I don't even know why i'm voting! (neutral means opinionless, right?) MichaelBillington 07:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thoughts

I think this is a good codification of existing practice. My comments:

• We should not have redirects from article space to user space, but moving (AFAIK) automatically creates redirects with no way to turn this off. The instructions should also have the editor mark the old page with {{db|userfied}} and administrators can delete it via WP:CSD R2.
• I don't think this needs to be known as "policy," because everything here is optional and can be carried out through existing policies. "Guideline" might be more appropriate. Maybe there is really no difference.
• I am glad this page doesn't take a stand on userboxes (although it seems motiviated by the current discussion), since I don't think that issue is settled enough for there to be policies being introduced about it. — brighterorange (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• (edit) Also, I don't see when cut'n'paste moves are ever appropriate, but I just may not being creative enough. History is important for the GFDL. — brighterorange (talk) 01:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, this idea is totally unconnected with the userbox situation - I was trying to explain to a newbie this morning that he ought to userfy a page instead of deleting it, but found no policy page (or guideline page) to point him to. I agree completely about deleting the resulting redirects. With respect to cut and paste, the only circumstance where that would really be justified is if you needed to move something to the other party's main user page, but there was some minimal content there already, and the content being moved had been made in a single edit (or I guess a set of edits by one person), so there was no real "edit history" to speak of. BD2412 T 02:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This is not policy material in its own right. It's just a codification of existing practise, and I don't think we need to hard-code it. It's just a useful definition. I cannot imagine we need to poll on the meaning of userfication. -Splash^talk 18:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

We need a policy so that when people disagree with it, we can say "but look most people agree with this". Ashibaka tock 23:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It is impossible to disagree that a page has been userfied! We can't have a policy that mandates userfication, and copyrighted works or attack pages can't be userfied because of Powers higher than any Wikipedia policy. This is just a definition of what we mean by a piece of wikijargon, and it tries to, but does not, create new policy or procedure, nor codify an existing one. -Splash^talk 23:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

What about "not a substitute for regular deletion processes"? I think this is a useful thing to have in policy. This is like a subpage of Wikipedia:User page. Ashibaka tock 19:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

...which is not policy. -Splash^talk 01:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It is however, possible to disagree as to whether a page should have been userfied. For this, we need guidelines. BD2412 T 20:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

We need common sense more than guidelines. As a definition and a description, I think it's fine (even helpful), but as a would-be policy? It's just not policy material. As a policy it is tied up by much more important policies that actually do the job this page repeats. You use the word guideline, though, which I guess is vaguely palatable.... except that the exceptions it describes are policy! -Splash^talk 01:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

How about this: we need a centralized location to integrate all of the existing policies and common sense guidelines that govern the process of userfying stuff. BD2412 T 01:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe we could have a userfy vote page, a bit like AFD, as userfying is removing the article, so similar to AFD --PhiJ 17:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] article to be userfied

can i just come out and admit that this process is confusing to me. i found an article that i believe a large portion of should be on the person's user page. the person is a very minor comic writer, but notable enough (i've been told) to have an article. the article itself is very vain and has a lot of superfluous information (i.e. a job he had copy editing, his sister's name, etc) that would be better off on his user page. the main creator/editor of the page is the person himself (check the edit history).

is this a good case for userfication? how would one go about doing it? would someone else want to do it for me because this process is a little more advanced than i'm used to doing on wikipedia. the article is: Ryan Scott Ottney

Thanks

Sparsefarce 00:10, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with this page

As I said above, I don't think this should become a guideline. But I also have substantive problems with some of the things the page says. First of all, I think the page should do more to discourage userfication generally. Most userfication is a result of someone creating an encyclopedia page about themselves.. while such entries can be userfied, it may not be a good idea, if they weren't intending to actually join Wikipedia. Second, userfication of an article other than one apparently about the user will likely be regarded as unfriendly. Finally, I totally disagree that userfying a page always requires a deletion process. Ignore all rules and be bold dictate that userfication in obvious cases can just be done, and the issue brought through deletion process if it's contested. Mangojuice^talk 17:00, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• I am agnostic as to your first point, and disagree with the other two. A page can be userfied to a subpage of the users page if it is not about that user. Granted, however, that disruptive hoax material and possible personal attacks should be deleted altogether. On the third point, a biography that provides no indicia of notability is subject to speedy deletion, which is a deletion process - determining that something meets that qualification also justifies userfication. However, if there is any possibility that an article has encyclopedic merit, then it should go through PROD or AFD, as other editors may be able to contribute evidence that the article should remain an article. A userfied page substantially disappears from the map, and others may not know it exists to offer support for its existence as an article. BD2412 T 18:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • What about redirects from articles to articles? Anyone can make one without going through a process, although AfD sometimes results in a redirect. But redirects are removing information from the encyclopedia in some cases. What you're saying seems to apply there as well, so unless you're arguing that no one should ever change an article into a redirect without a deletion process, I think there's something inconsisten. What I'm saying here is, this should be a user behaviour guideline. De facto, anyone can userfy any article at any time. I do think it's worth saying that in some cases deletion process should be used, but what about WP:BOLD? It's probably a good idea for newbies not to do this kind of thing, but if it's clear it's the right thing to do, I say do it. Besides, the purpose of AfD and prod is deletion, and userfying is a side effect. Mangojuice^talk 13:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, suppose I userfy Jimmy Carter to the page of the person who has contributed the most to it, based on my belief that Carter is not notable, having only been a one-term President with low poll numbers and no Supreme Court appointments. Or suppose I userfy The Ramones to User:JoeyRamone? All I'm saying is, content should not be removed from the main article space unless it meets some criteria for material to be removed from the main article space, and we have a whole set of processes in place to determine if such material meets such criteria. BD2412 T 13:49, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Those would be inappropriate. Specifically, that would be disruptive to Wikipedia, and blockable offenses. But let's not tell people not to stuff beans up their noses... I have never seen this kind of thing happen, and never heard of it, and I hope it doesn't start happening. I'm comfortable with saying that articles that don't appear to be about the user who created them should generally not be "unilaterally userfied" but I think that's just common sense. But your example here isn't really about userfying, it's about abusing the move feature. Maybe we do need a policy to say what the move feature is for and what it isn't for... but since it doesn't happen much, I say that's WP:BEANS. Mangojuice^talk 19:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
        • I've seen plenty of page move vandalism in my time, some of it across namespaces, but your underlying point is true. Userfication should primarily be used to correct likely errant attempts to create a user page in article space. BD2412 T 19:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Turns out there actually is an official guideline about moving and merging: WP:MM. I'm going to update it so it talks a little about cross-namespace moving. I'm going to link that one here and vice versa. Mangojuice^talk 18:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Good find. BD2412 T 22:53, 19 May 2006 (UTC)