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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 discussion was userfy Wikipedia:Userboxes/Politics by country to User:Ipatrol/Userboxes/Politics by country; all templates on the page that are still in Template: space can be userfied to their respective creators' userspaces by any editor (see WP:Userbox migration). There was not enough consensus for outright deletion of this page or its associated templates, but there certainly is a consensus that this page does not belong in the Wikipedia: namespace, and there is a long-standing consensus that userboxes belong in userspace.--Aervanath (talk) 06:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Userboxes/Politics by country

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The compromise in the "Great userbox war" was that divisive, political, polemical and non-neutral userboxes were removed from template space. Whilst such things were not banned, they were heavily discouraged and allowed only in the unofficial domain of userspace. I'm disheartened to find that years later we have a project space page devoted to parading these things. We don't want a new war, but can we remove this and any similar pages? These things are not good for the project and its neutrality, and while we tolerate them, we should not have official project space encouraging them. Scott Mac (Doc) 18:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. This issue was decided years ago, and this page clearly falls outside the domain of what was decided. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:27, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Holy crap delete. First thing I saw on the page was titled Independence, Unification & Nationalist Movements. Nuke the page, and nuke the userboxes too. ⇒SWATJester Son of the Defender 18:33, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Wikipedis is not the place for this. Myspace might be. Pedro :  Chat  18:45, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Bigtime delete. Per nom, we cannot have this in project space. If this heads for WP:SNOW I'd support an early close. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I personally agree with OP's POV re: the BNP, but Wikipedia is not censored. Freedom of expression means nothing unless freedom of expression extends to those things that one profoundly disagrees with. However, I agree with the general sentiment that this should be moved out of the mainspace as placing it in the mainspace implies official approval - or at least official acquiesance, in a way. Katana0182 (talk) 22:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and delete or userify the included userboxes that are outside user space. Jclemens (talk) 19:15, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete, but please don't close this early - that would cause more problems than it would avoid. I note that the vast majority of userboxes listed here are in userspace, and the vast majority (in and out of userspace) are completely inoffensive. However, while it's somewhat a matter of cherry-picking, there are examples like the BNP one (and a few worse ones). Of course, those bad userboxes could be cleaned up, but then we are left with the question of whether we want a project-space directory of every political userbox (we probably don't), and the related question of whether we could keep it cleaned up (we probably couldn't). Rather than risk endorsing divisiveness, it is probably best to delete it. However, if someone is willing to userfy this - I am not - that would also be acceptable to me. — Gavia immer (talk) 19:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Userfying individual boxes is fine (not all of them but most of them are fine in their own right). That's not what this MFD is about. It's the fact that we have Wikipedia project space devoted to it, as opposed to userspace where, generally, there is a more Laissez-faire attitude. Pedro :  Chat  20:00, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right, I think we agree on the individual userboxes; I'm willing to bet we even agree on which specific ones are unacceptable in project space. My point, in case it wasn't clear, is that someone might want to userfy the actual directory page, independently of the actual userboxes, and that I would be fine with this.— Gavia immer (talk) 20:28, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, apologies. Yes I suppose someone could indeed userfy the whole lot (with my personal misgivings that it would get to MFD again, but that's totally another matter). Sorry for misunderstanding your post. Pedro :  Chat  20:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
my own view is that if anyone is foolish enough to use some of these boxes, it's good that we know it. It's useful to have a view of the foolishness and potential POV that may be present. Even the crap. DGG (talk) 01:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge per Katana, or Userfy per B (I'd be willing to have it if no one else wants it) I'm fine with having the list in user space rather than project space, but I thought one reason to have userboxes is to proclaim Wikipedians' biases openly on the user page. Gotyear (talk) 00:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If there is any merit in declaring biases, then they should be "admitted" and not "proclaimed". The tone should be "this user strives to leave his biases out of his editing, however if you see his conservative/liberal/socialist biases evident in his editing, please let him know". The problem with userboxes is that they indicate a "pride" in ones biases, whereas if one's biases are evident in wikipedia, then one should be apologetic for that. The consensus seems to be that userboxes declaring bias are heavily discouraged, but not absolutely prohibited. Thus they are disallowed in project and template space (which might imply official sanction) but if kept in a user's own space, they are usually ignored.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a problem with the way belief and opinion userboxes have warped our editing culture since the sudden doubling of our editor base in late 2005. People see an opinion userbox and think it's Wikipedia saying "yes, use your userspace to proclaim how proud you are of your beliefs." Well if you have any pride in such biases, you should leave it at the door even if you cannot do the same with the biases. It was an unfortunate coincidence that those userboxes became popular with the "new draft" of thousands of new editors following the news items about Wikipedia.--TS 01:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (albeit lonely but hopefully the arguments have weight) This is not the templates, but the list of templates -- while the nom seems to think that each of the templates ought to be deleted (which, I submit, ought be done on a case by case basis lest we have the classic baby and bathwater scenario). I see no harm is allowing an agglomeration of wonderfully conflicting templates to be listed, and would, in fact, be more disposed to delete a list of "officially politically correct" templates. Let's delete the actually bad templates and not delete the list <g>. Collect (talk) 12:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've not suggested that the templates, which are mainly in userspace be deleted. I've merely suggested the few in template space be moved to userspace or deleted. This isn't about deleting userboxes.--Scott Mac (Doc) 12:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. Political userboxes are located outside of template space, just as was previously decided. Nominator himself wrote that such things are not banned. And if they are not banned, they do not break any rules. Nominator himself wrote that such userboxes are allowed only in the unofficial domain of userspace. And that's where they are located. You say don't want a new war, but you openly start one by attempting to delete this. If you don't want a new war, just leave it as is and ingore these userboxes. These things have nothing to do with project's neutrality, as they belong to user namespace, not article namespace. If and don't want to encouraging such userbozes, just don't use them. Personally, I've never seen much Wikipedia:No personal attacks violations caused by an unserbox located at a user's page, but I've seen dozens of conflicts cuased by attempts to delete certain userboxes. Netrat (talk) 12:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • You've missed the point. This isn't about deleting userspace material. It is about deleting the listing page from the official project space.--Scott Mac (Doc) 12:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Which would be nice if each person above thought that was what was intended. Vide ". Nuke the page, and nuke the userboxes too." etc. I find it hard to think that a list of permitted userboxes would be "not permitted" though. Collect (talk) 15:29, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, logically this does belong to Wikipedia:Userboxes. However, since all userboxes listed belong to user namespace, this listing page may be moved to user namespace as well. I would accept it. Netrat (talk) 12:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Even the loony BNP. They're already in userspace. I've made one userbox for myself that was based on one of the userboxes on the page under question, although I think mine was too neutral to be included on that page. Tangurena (talk) 22:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or I'll take it I don't see anything wrong with it, but feel free to move it to User:Ipatrol/Userboxes/Politics by country if it's decided it can't stay in the project space.--Ipatrol (talk) 22:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. There are already plenty of obnoxious editors that spend day in and day out POV'ing around the political beliefs, we don't need to give them a list of bumper stickers to help do it. Trusilver 01:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete the lot. Userboxes like these do not help in any way to build the encyclopaedia; they simply promote factionalism and divisiveness, and turn people's userpages into soapboxes for their political beliefs. This is not what Wikipedia is for. I don't see the value of allowing them even in userspace; why should we allow someone to have a userbox on their page proclaiming their support of a far-right party (or any other equally controversial issue)? What possible useful purpose does it serve? Terraxos (talk) 03:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • <rant>: I joined in July of 2003 - or at least my first edit using a username wasn't until then. I didn't become much more than an occasional contributor until later. Excuse my ranting...but this has been a long time in coming...and this sort of "kids these days" attitude on the part of some, the now-regular, knee jerk, reflexive notability purges of so-called fancruft (If I was not assuming good faith in the authors of the policy - I would guess that the whole notability business was probably instituted for the benefit of a profit-generating wikifarm operated by some who are powerful in WP circles...but since I am assuming good faith...I never said anything just now.), along with the reduction of articles written in good prose to absolute b**lc**p that looks like it belongs in an academic journal of postmodern studies (with all the references, jargon, and stilted prose of the "excessively-referenced" writing style), as well as the constant efforts of the deletionists to sabotage the Project and turn WP into some kind of emulation of a dead-tree encyclopedia, which it isn't, it never will be, and it never should aim to be. It should be something more than that.
IMHO, WP should be both broader, more in-depth, less-formal, less authoritative, more dynamic, and far more interesting. Obvious nonsense ought to go - but why not err on the side of keeping stuff around that might have some value to somebody?
Perhaps I think that we take the rules a bit too seriously around here. I think that Wikipedia is meant to be an endless repository of knowledge - how-to content - video game hints - tables of useful data - not-so outlandish "original research" - so-called "fancruft" - and articles written in "in-universe style". If it wasn't - it would be boring. Now - feel free to bring out WP:NOT, and your favorite definition of what Wikipedia isn't - but here's a question that I'd like the deletionists here to answer: What did these userboxes ever do to YOU that they deserve to be deleted? If they were in articles - well, then they shouldn't have been - but if they weren't - why delete them? Why does an editor expressing who they are and where they come from on their userpage cause this sort of moral panic amongst the WP community? Why can't we all just get along? Instead of destroying stuff and deleting things (except for POV nonsense in mainspace, vandalism, autobiography/self-serving editing, as well as slanderous BLP entries) why can't we just get back to BUILDING stuff?</rant> Editor who wants to remain anonymous from 71.127.2.217 (talk) 03:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No one is proposing deleting userboxes. Your "why can't we all get along" philosophy is exactly what we want in this place, it's just that if we have people at the door handing out Hammas headbands, Zionist bumperstickers or Fascist armbands, it is a rather naive application of "assume good faith" that thinks that encouraging such individualist expression helps us all get along.--Scott Mac (Doc) 09:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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