Wikipedia:Why do you care?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
 |
This page in a nutshell: Policing the userspace for policy violations is not helpful when dealing with productive contributors. |
The goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia. But the goal is not to prevent any non-encyclopedic activity. Occasionally, these two goals are contradictory. Many insist that participation in the encyclopedia proper -- ie. article-writing and administrative functions -- be the only possible activity on Wikipedia.
Of those people, we ask: Why do you care?
Overzealous editors will often focus on tearing down non-encyclopedic userspace pages, rather than on building articles. There are a lot of busybodies on Wikipedia, but before you become one of them, consider this: If a user is contributing well to articles, why do you care how good or bad their userspace pages look? As long that user makes good contributions to the article space, and their interactions with other users are polite, why do you care what else they do on Wikipedia, or why they're here?
"Wikipedia is not a social networking site" is commonly cited as opposition to many of the ideas that would make Wikipedia perhaps a more attractive and enjoyable place to edit. To the extent that social networking is not the primary purpose of Wikipedia, this argument is correct. But if "social networking" is what it takes to attract individuals who otherwise contribute well to articles, perhaps it is in the encyclopedia's best interests to let it go.
Loosen up. Have a cup of tea. Don't worry so much about what other people are doing, as long as it's not hurting anyone. If an editor's article contributions are good, their primary reason for being here and their extra-curricular activities are irrelevant. You shouldn't care.
