User talk:NikoSilver/CountryUsernames

[edit] Precedents

• April discussion in WT:U that lead to mass blocks and scrambles of country/usernames: thread (agreeing users: User:Alexander 007, User:Pschemp, User:Essjay, User:Malo). As a result, at least 113 country-usernames were blocked by 5 admins.
• 113 precedent user blocks by 5 admins (Pschemp, Freakofnurture, JoanneB, Banes and Malo):

(see also thread of List of currently blocked IP addresses and usernames for a summary)

• Users appealing to precedent in determining rationale for RFCN (indicatively from recent cases):

1. Acalamari
2. Borisblue
3. Tohru Honda13
4. WJBscribe
5. Aecis (also here)
6. Kukini
7. Ginkgo100

• Recent attempt to include that in policy: Wikipedia talk:Username policy#Countries et al (failed on the grounds that "we don't need to change policy for 1 user", and suggestion to "proceed in WP:RFCN" for the particular users)

[edit] Case

[edit] Past country-usernames blocked (no doppelgaengers):

1. Poland (talk · contribs) - edits mainly for the notorious Gdansk/Danzig issue
2. Switzerland (talk · contribs) - AGF editor, changed name (previous redirected and blocked)
3. Montenegro (talk · contribs) edits mainly on country/people related articles (before recent separation referendum with Serbia)
4. TURKEY (talk · contribs) - some edits, no apparent abuse (except maybe userpage?)
5. Syria (talk · contribs) - some edits, no apparent abuse
6. Tajikistan (talk · contribs) - decent edits in country/history articles
7. Egypt (talk · contribs) - one decent edit in userpage
8. Niger (talk · contribs) - no comment.
9. Oman (talk · contribs) - no apparent abuse
10. Japan (talk · contribs) - rants to Jimbo (among others)

[edit] WP:U: "potentially offensive or inflammatory":

Most countries have contentious issues that very frequently result in edit-wars. The other side of the dispute is very likely to be offended by the use of a country name in editing such articles.

[edit] WP:U: "implies authority":

Many users (including moderate compatriots of the user with the country-username) would not like a "User:Fictionlandia" seemingly speaking on behalf^[1] of the country in question with the usual abusive extremities (or simple nonsense).

[edit] WP:U: "names of living persons" or "companies"

This could be an extension of the policy against names of living persons or names of entities (such as corporations, trademarks etc.) Country positions (official or otherwise) are definitely equally (if not more) important than the positions of companies, or those of living persons.

[edit] "Imply group accounts"

An editor called "Fictionlandia" can be perceived as speaking for the governmental group that governs the country "Fictionlandia".

[edit] WP utility

Watchlists and History pages are likely to be confusing to new users:

22:18 Fictionlandia (diff; hist) . . (0) . . Fictionlandia (Talk | contribs)

[edit] WP:POVFORK

New users and most importantly non-users (i.e. readers from all sorts of mirrors) are likely to be confused that the userpage of these users is the respective Wikipedia article. Many country-username owners have been witnessed to create article-like userpages (some even transwikied in other languages!) with POV that the community has proven that it fails to constantly police. The exact policing of these userpages is an additional activity that admins are frequently reluctant or otherwise busy to apply for the following reasons:

1. In userpages (per WP:UP) there is a high level of community tolerance regarding the content.
2. Frequently, the issues presented in these userpages may not be evidently nationalistic. They may be part of the story, or even within the "gray area". These would certainly not survive as the NPOV version of the article in question, but may as well survive in a userpage.

[edit] Summary

Consistency vs double-standards: The fact that a large number of country-usernames (113/~200) is blocked, gives an advantage to those not blocked in certain disputes (e.g. User:Australia is free and not blocked). Among others, they can fool new users that they edit with authority, they can confuse in watchlists/history pages, and they can create article-like userpages with POV that the community has proven that it fails to police. The latter can also confuse absolutely unfamiliar readers (non-editors) for being the respective WP article. We definitely don't need these problems, and the utility of solving them surpasses whichever "liberties" may be oppressed (to those who mostly don't deserve them in the first place).

[edit] Desirable outcome

WP:U should explicitly prohibit country-usernames (note: only e.g. "Fictionlandia" or "Republic of Fictionlandia" not "Fictionlandian"-which is acceptable)

-or-

The 113 precedents above should be unblocked (or their passwords unscrambled).