Forum:CT Archive/Restricting use of user pages

Wookieepedia &gt; Consensus track &gt; 

In the past couple of weeks, we've had three Senate Hall threads (Forum:User page fanon, Forum:User page fanon: Thread, and Forum: This is a problem) where regular users have criticized the tendency of some other users to work entirely on user pages &mdash; in most cases, by writing biographies of their fanfiction personae which would be better off as articles on the fanon wiki, though other people have criticized galleries like this one.

A lot of users have suggested that some sort of policy be instituted restricting this sort of thing. On the one hand, restricting user page use, especially fanon and image use, could be helpful in many ways:
 * It might lessen the tendency for new users to come online, assume this is all about roleplaying and fan fiction, and add fanon to the main article space.
 * It would ensure that we don't have a repetition of previous WOTM nomination battles, where users tried to get awarded solely for their userpages, and were soundly ridiculed for it.
 * Sending more people to the fanon wiki could help that community grow and improve.
 * Some users think that it would clean up the wiki by getting rid of situations where someone floods Recent Changes by making 38 successive edits to their userpage. I doubt this would happen: if that sort of user were making constructive edits to actual articles, they would still have trouble finding the preview button.  8)
 * It would cut down on complaints about other users "stealing" code from other user pages, warring over their userbox "collections", and other foolishness.
 * Flashy userpages attract vandals. Darth Cow's page has been vandalised a few times by people who I don't think he had anything to do with.

On the other hand, there are some major pitfalls:
 * Jack Nebulax, Jasca Ducato, and several other users have balanced an imaginary bio with productive article edits. Why stop them?
 * Kwenn's UnWookieepedia and similar subpages can be said to serve a useful, community-building purpose. I'd hate to see it booted.
 * The List of sexual references and the Earth references page started out as user subpages created just for fun, and have since been moved to the main namespace as actual articles.
 * Despite what some may think about wasting space in the database, we've been repeatedly told by wikia staffers not to worry about this.
 * We don't want to get a widespread reputation as an unfriendly site full of ban-happy administrators deleting and reverting everything in sight. It's unavoidable that some people, usually banned vandals or POV-pushers, will think of us that way, but we don't want everyone in the fandom to think this.  Thus, a user page policy would have to be followed by absolutely all Wookieepedians, from bureaucrats and sysops on down to the latest newbies.  Are we going to make Azizlight get rid of The Galaxy Cup page?

All the same, we do need to stem the tide somewhat. I'm tired of moving and deleting stuff that belongs on the fanon wiki, and I feel sorry for the kids who come on here and post fanfic that none of us will pay any attention to. So I'll put an outlined policy below, and let people argue over it. Is it too harsh? Not harsh enough? Both? &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 02:51, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposed policy (June 22, Silly Dan)

 * User page fanon must be restricted to either the main user page or a single subpage. Not a user page and a subpage, and not a series of subpages.  If you can't contain your imagination, you can use interwiki links to the fanon wiki or something like that.
 * User pages must comply with the User image policy.
 * We must decide what our user image policy is. 8)
 * User subpages not containing fan fiction may be kept, subject to the user image policy and some usefulness to the project (like a personal sandbox, a to do list, a contributions page, a toolbox linking to maintenance tasks and useful templates, or a fun page for community building.)
 * Anything that would be better off on, say, Livejournal or Myspace, should be left off.
 * User pages must not be put in categories which would cause them to be mistaken for "real" articles. Likewise, using Template:Title to make the userpage appear to be a "real" article would be bad.
 * Users violating this policy will be reminded of the relevant sections of WP:NOT, and of the existence of the fanon wiki. It is very important that people be warned and redirected in a polite manner: after all, this is "their space" which we would be criticizing.
 * Users in violation of these rules may be blocked according to the blocking policy we're establishing for registered users who post fanon. They may also have their user pages edited, deleted, or protected from further edits.