User:Jfg284/userboxes

Recently, as I'm sure everyone has noticed, the whole issue of userboxes has gotten completely out of hand. My attention was first brought to it around New Years, when (what is, I guess, now being reffered to as) the Great 2006 New Year's Day Userbox Purge took place (See Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Kelly_Martin Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Snowspinner_3). It was never clear to me that User Pages were not, in fact, the one place on the project where users were allowed to say what they thought - I was under the impression that they were our place inside Wikipedia, where we had the sanction to express how we felt about anything. I had seen niether a policy nor a guideline which contradicted this. That being said, I had only been here since September (late October as a registered member), so I simply chalked it up to a learning experience (I now gather that at some point along the line earlier in the project, this point was heavily debated in relation to a user with a name along the lines of JesusIsLord! and it was decided that Wikipedia should never be a soapbox). While I was a little upset at this new peice of information, I realized that it was not my place to fight it - it was a practice by which Wikipedia was run, and I couldn't change that.

Then came the whole pedophilia userbox wheel war issue. It, in a similar fashion, bothered me slightly...the talk of banning pedophiles rang too loudly of censorship and xenophobia (and immediately called to mind this peice). I agreed with the popular sentiment "where would we draw the line?" I was accustomed to "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit", and was not anxious to see a hasitly added clause "(except pedophiles)." Furthermore, I learned that Jimbo Wales was the Ultimate Authority at Wikipedia. Again, as with the user page / soapbox issue, this is neither a policy nor a guideline. But, once again, I accepted this. Once again, this was not my place. And, on a brighter note, the fact that I went months without realizing this does speak to the success of the project - it did seem to be a democracy, which says loads concerning Jimbo's self restraint.

Now, as to the userboxes themselves: I've read two statements by Jimbo regarding userboxes.

One is found on his talk page:

I wonder if you might consider...

I wonder if you might consider simply removing your political/religious/etc. userboxes and asking others to do the same. This seems to me to be the best way to quickly and easily end the userbox wars.

Userboxes of a political or, more broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project. They are attractive to the wrong kinds of people, and they give visitors the wrong idea of what it means to be a Wikipedian.

I think rather than us having to go through a mass deletion (which is what is likely to happen if the userbox fad doesn't go away), it will be better to simply change the culture, one person at a time. Will you help me?--Jimbo Wales 10:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The other message came from the mailing list:

Regarding at least the political templates, I would like to raise

gently, a different issue. I have concern about people massing together

in groups based on political affiliations at Wikipedia.

For me, when I enter Wikipedia, I try to leave my personal politics at

the door. I try to leave my personal opinions about religion, etc. at

the door. Here, I am a Wikipedian. And this inspires in me a feeling

of serious quiet thoughtful reflection. A mood of kindness and love. A

mood of helpfulness and productivity. Neutrality and _getting it right_

in the company of others who are doing the same, this is what I'm here for

Now, I feel that Jimbo overlooks a very important aspect of human nature here, summed up very eloquently by a wiser man than I: opinions are like assholes: everybody has one. And the problem comes when these opinions clash during the development of an article. Maintaining a neutral point of view, as well all know, is vital to the project; I feel one of the best ways to maintain that view is for everyone to openly admit the prejudices they may have.

For example, during the course of a loooong [[discussion on the dinosaur talk page, in which I supported the inclusion of a small paragraph explaining the creationist view on dinosaurs, I was accused of having an ulterior motive. Now I, as one may expect coming from the Northeast of the US, am no religious man. I do not believe in God, I rarely go to church (memorial masses, Christmas, and Easter with the family), and I most certainly do not subscribe to the belief of creationism. I tried to explain this, and to encourage the assumption of good faith, but to no avail. Had I been a userbox guy, it would have clearly been in my user page history that I am non-religious. Had the other editor seen this to begin with, they may not have developed such strong feelings that I was pushing a creationist agenda for my own ends, and the discussion may have ended more fruitfully.

In this way, I feel the "political or, more broadly, polemical, nature"d userboxes are in fact good for the project, as they identify the opinion of the user. The person will have their views and opinions anyway; where is the danger in them openly admitting them? The assumption that people will break up into warring factions (Democratic Wikipedians attempting to puff up the Bill Clinton article while tearing down the George W. Bush article, Republican Wikipedians doing the opposite) is, in my opinion, a gross breach of assume good faith. Wikipedians are assumed to be civil, and their having a small colored box on their user page is unlikely to change that.

--jfg284 ^{you were saying?} 13:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)