Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:IXella007/Shop

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous 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 delete. The precedent of previous similar deletions is important as it would be inappropriate to keep some while others are deleted. While I would like to encourage IXella007 to continue to try and help other users on Wikipedia I would suggest that this could be approached in a better way, and that gaining experience of editing articles would be a good idea. WP:NOT is the most relevant policy here and while I appreciate the keep arguments I think that inexperienced editors would benefit from similar pages elsewhere. violet/riga (t) 10:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:IXella007/Shop

Yet another one of these "shop" thingies. This one's under construction, but serves exactly the same purpose. The reasons for deletion are the same as Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Gp75motorsports/ChampionMart and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Vintei/shop, i.e. Wikipedia is not myspace/an MMORPG/whatever. Also nominated are any relevant subpages.

P.S. I find it somewhat odd that most of the editors on Daniel's list come up with the exact same concept, edit each other's user pages and/or participate in the relevant MFDs. It reminds me of some sort of cabal... MER-C 12:58, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per my reasons for nominating the other two MfDs. Increases the bureaucracy, makes it only a social network (which is why it feels like a cabal), and provides no help to the encyclopedia. Metros (talk) 14:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per my reasoning in the essay Wikipedia:Editors matter. These pages may be useless; that's irrelevant, as we don't need to worry about server space, and these pages are hosted in userspace and don't purport to be part of the encyclopedia. The key question here is not who can cite the most WP:ABCs, but whether deletion of these pages would be a net benefit to Wikipedia. If the pages are deleted, we risk driving away inexperienced users whose contributions to the project are valuable; thus there is a risk of harming the project through the deletion of these pages, and I can't see any conceivable way in which such deletion could benefit the encyclopedia. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, then let them declare it, rather than trying to drown the opposition in a flood of WP alphabet soup. To those who feel that shops of this nature are a bad idea (for whatever reason), WT:USER is the correct place to raise such concerns; if you want these kind of pages to be prohibited, then get consensus for it. The policy as it stands makes no such indication, and MfD is not an appropriate mechanism for trying to prohibit a class of pages which presently are allowed. Walton^One 14:44, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep This is my shop, under my rules. And also I can't have this deleted because the shop is newly created and I have no assistants in my shop.  iXela  talk  15:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC) P.S: I want this disscussion over without further talking.  iXela  talk  15:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Deletion discussions such as this last at least 5 days, it will no be closed right away just because you want it closed. Metros (talk) 15:35, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Fine, let's make this discussion end before Christmas, OK?  iXela  talk  16:34, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Five days after December 23 would be December 28. This would be the earliest time the discussion would close. Metros (talk) 16:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
• A shop helps newcomers be intrested in Wikipedia, and teach them how to use HTML. But I know it shouldn't teach them to sign in mainspace. Shops aren't just miscellaneous things just to get in free web hosts or blogs, you should approve what I'm saying.  iXela  talk  16:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Once again, as many of us have mentioned in the other shop MFDs, why is HTML vital for newcomers to know? I barely know HTML and have been contributing just fine to Wikipedia for several years. The only time I've ever needed HTML has been for....working on my user page. Metros (talk) 16:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
• I shouldn't get stuck like this just like User:Bluwiki123, a previous account of User:Nillanilla3ee, who is my brother. But User:Bluwiki123 had gotten into something even worse. User:Bluwiki123 had proposed User:Bluwiki123/Bluwiki123's List of Fantasy Wrestling Tournaments. That disapproves WP:NOT Wikipedia is not Myspace. And that deleted his entire userpage. I have something even more better: I contribute to the encyclopedia more than my brother. User:Nillanilla3ee had made mainspace edits, while User:Bluwiki123 had made exactly 0 mainspace edits. (see discussion) Both User:Nillanilla3ee and User:Bluwiki123 belong to my brother.  iXela  talk  16:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
  • And this relates how to anything at hand? Metros (talk) 16:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I believe the user is trying to say that, wikipedians are somewhat predjudice aganist newbies and will delete their stuff merciless as they would not aganist an experienced user. RuneWiki⁷⁷⁷ 14:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Look, just stop the madness, man. All these stores are intended to help newcomers. —BoL @ 19:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
  • And what help to the newcomers is that? Metros (talk) 20:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• *yawn* —BoL 03:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

• And this means what exactly? Metros (talk) 03:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

• You noticed that he's been getting stuff from the shops? And one more thing, I think we can delete it now, I just need the code and transwiki. —BoL 06:40, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per Walton^One. To this user however, let me say this. As users we are supposed to be writing an encyclopedia. You have very few articles in the mainspace and more than half your edits are in your own user space. Please try to help the project more directly. --Bduke (talk) 21:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per WP:EM. Sarsaparilla (talk) 00:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep; however, the user has very few edits to other areas of the encyclopedia aside from their userpage. This should be remedied, else I fear the user will be accused of using Wikipedia as WP:MYSPACE. Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 00:43, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - per my reasons in User:Vintei/shop, does not help the encyclopaedia. -Halo (talk) 08:07, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
  • But it doesn't harm the encyclopedia either, since we don't need to worry about server space. In contrast, deleting it may harm the encyclopedia by driving contributors away. Walton^One 15:47, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. This process should be centralized, and in fact already is. It doesn't even make sense to have so many shops. How would new users decide which one to ask for help in? If someone asks you for something you don't know how to do, do you just ask another shop owner? This becomes a bureaucratic nightmare and it's better off to have help being asked in locations by type, which again already exist. To Walton, deletion benefits the encyclopedia by preventing this unorganized mess, as well as to explain to these users our seriousness in contributing to the encyclopedia. –Pomte 08:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "to explain to these users our seriousness in contributing to the encyclopedia" - why is this necessary? One doesn't have to be "serious" about contributing to the encyclopedia. Some people are; others are just casual editors who fix things here and there. To survive as a project, we need to recruit and retain contributors, and we need to accept that some will be more serious about contributing than others. I fail to see any benefit in driving away those volunteers who aren't sufficiently "serious"; such an objective, far from helping the encyclopedia, actually damages it.
  • As to your other point, I don't see why the lack of organisation of this process is necessarily a problem. Yes, there are centralised places where new users can seek help, such as the Help desk or Adopt-A-User; but if some other users want to provide such help through unofficial channels, why stop them? New users don't need to "decide" where to ask for help - they can ask for help in multiple places if they so choose, and anyone who can't help them will, hopefully, refer them to someone who can. We don't need strict, formal processes. I fail to see any evidence that these shops have caused confusion to new users. Walton^One 15:47, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Not seriousness about contributing such that they have to make a conscious effort towards major edits, but seriousness about the role of contributing as the primary thing that people should be doing. If MfD drives people away, so be it. Lots of things drive people away, and the same things can also attract them to stay. Editors matter, but we don't need to account for their psychological needs to this extent. For actual evidence, we need a cost-benefit analysis, which seems unlikely to be conclusive. Maybe MfD keeps would drive better contributors away. Maybe these user pages give the wrong idea to new users and perpetuate the cycle, reducing positive contributions overall. Maybe the type of person who can be driven away by this type of event would be more likely to cause disruption elsewhere. It's pure speculation, so the principle stands.
    • Why have multiple redundant processes? If shopowners ever go inactive, others have to check periodically to mark them as such, and to direct new users to other places. Current processes aren't strict or formal, and don't need to be, but they can be maintained more efficiently. It would benefit everyone involved if they are limited in number, so all shopowners can glance over the same requests and handle specific ones, and requests don't need to be cross-posted. If they are cross-posted, time is wasted by the multiple people delivering the same response. In a way, you're trying to maximize contributions in terms of the number of editors, and I'm trying to maximize contributions in terms of efficiency. –Pomte 01:56, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Since we are an organisation of volunteers, I don't think we can, or should, try to tell people what they "should be doing". As I said, some people contribute to the encyclopedia more than others, but every little helps; and even a volunteer who makes 5 mainspace edits a month and 100 user talk edits a month is, in their own small way, helping the encyclopedia. This isn't a professional workplace, where we can expect employees to spend the majority of their time on the work they're paid to do.
      • Although I obviously haven't conducted a scientific cost-benefit analysis, I've spent a great deal of my life at MfD (sad, I know) and I can state from experience that many, many editors are driven away by aggressive MfD'ing of their userpages. User:Da.Tomato.Dude is one of the earliest examples I can remember, from back in April, and there have been countless more.
      • To address your second point, yes, the "shop" process would run more efficiently if we consolidated everything into one "shop". And maybe we should do that. But in practical terms, coercively deleting the existing shops, which is the action we are currently debating, presents a serious risk of driving away the users who have created them. So your final point is something of a false dichotomy. If we delete all these "shops", then yes, less time will be wasted responding to requests in multiple places; but this would not actually, in reality, improve efficiency. Editing is not a zero-sum game, and if you stop people working on one thing, they won't necessarily spend more time working on a different thing as a consequence. Fundamentally, what I'm saying is this: if a volunteer, who contributes in good faith, wants to create a "shop" like this in their spare time and devote some of their time to running it, why not let them? Deleting their shop does not mean that they will contribute more to the mainspace. It is most likely to drive them away. I see it happen again and again, and it's becoming very frustrating. Walton^One 16:25, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I was originally thinking of deleting this userspace edits per this policy about userpages, but Waltion One brought some good points about performance and the treatment of newcomers. Normally, I am willing to keep that page if it is an experienced user. Instead of deleting out of the blue by concensus, we should help newcomers ny teaching them how the policies work and all that stuff. PrestonH 23:51, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per my reasoning in the previous shop MFDs. I should note that these shops also fester a sense of WP:OWN. --Coredesat 07:53, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Doesn't WP:OWN apply primarily to mainspace edits? Sarsaparilla (talk) 15:40, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
    • WP:OWN applies to all pages on Wikipedia, including user pages. The fact that the user whose project this is has been saying that it's his project with his rules is very unsettling. --Coredesat 22:06, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
      • WP:USER states, however, that by convention you aren't supposed to edit other peoples' user pages. Clearly a really big contradiction with WP:OWN, no? I know: the idea is to let people a) prepare articles in userspace in peace and b) perhaps to let users display informative personal content that doesn't need to be touched by other people, but damn, do we ever need deductive skills when looking at our policies. Giant mess, I tell you. =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 22:54, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Doesn't seem harmful. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 22:54, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Seems awfully similiar to the signature pages that got themselves hosed out of existence, seems to imply a posistion or importance for the page editor that will confuse newcomers, and is a pretty blatent violation of the principal behind WP:NOT#MYSPACE. -M^ask? 00:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
• Comment IXella007 is suggest that you just move to this wiki [1].  Sunderland06  17:31, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Per my comments on the MfD for Venti and Runewiki777's shops. Yamakiri^→Г_C← 12-28-2007 • 03:26:55
• Kill with fire - So wait, it's gone from "create bureaucratic Neopets-esque duplicate of Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help" all the way to "we don't have enough of these duplicates, so let's make more?". Seriously - I don't see the point in having one, and the point in having *more* than one is utterly alien to me. My best guess is that a bunch of users saw the "mart" ideal and wanted to be "leaders" of their own little walled garden user page design groups. Extremely silly. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 03:40, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete These pages reflect a eBay/MySpace style community which is not what Wikipedia is about. Jehochman ^Talk 03:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a community. Thuresson (talk) 04:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete These shops are counterproductive, encourage activity harmful to the encyclopedia, and promote the fallacy of WP:OWN. Xoloz (talk) 05:58, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:NOT#MYSPACE and Wikipedia:User page, which states: "Wikipedia provides user pages to facilitate communication among participants in its project to build an encyclopedia." (emphasis modified) This "shop" is dedicated entirely to a venture that is wholly unrelated to the goal of "build[ing] an encyclopedia". The page promotes bureaucracy and unproductive MySpace-style social networking, and the creator's comments in the discussion above support claims that this type of page undermines WP:OWN. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 07:08, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. I especially agree with Black Falcon. Violates many policies. Just pointless. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 10:49, 28 December 2007 (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.