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Wikipedia talk:Userboxes/Archive 7
Loud annoying warning box
Tag with moderationOkay, I'll cop to losing my cool over this tag. Having taken my one action to rm it, I don't feel free to take another direct shot. But I offer an alternative.
Let's all try to stay cool. John Reid 02:15, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
WP:BOXPOL is the shortcut redirect to Wikipedia:Userbox policy. You may choose to expand both shortcuts, if you like. You may also edit Wikipedia talk:Userbox policy/Header as you see fit; it's not in my space and this is a wiki. Please keep in mind that it's intended - unlike the previous item -- to be a simple, neutral introduction to a complex, highly polarized situation. As such it will always have shortcomings. I think it's good that newcomers get some kind of heads up before wandering blindly into this political minefield; I think it's evil to turn that into a recruiting poster. John Reid 03:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Charon, I think you're a bit lagged. The version you saw by the time you posted your comment did link to WP:GUS as well as Wikipedia:Userbox policy. It's since been edited -- for the worse IMO but it's way past time to replace the current, offensively patronizing tag. So far as the substantial part of your comment goes, I strongly disagree with your take. Wikipedia:Userbox policy is the active policy proposal; it's been heavily edited, has begun to stabilize, and most moderates accept it. GUS is the production of a small group of vocal extremists, including admins who seize on any excuse to abuse their authority and ramrod through a solution against community consensus. I think I did a fine job of writing a tag (the previous version) that managed not to express my position. Now will you show the same neutrality and take down the pro-GUS billboard? John Reid 15:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it's only honest to tell people just how broad the extremes of this debate range. This is a highly polarized issue; new editors should know this right up front and not couched in soft words. There is no point at all talking about neutrality in the context of a debate. GUS and Wikipedia:Userbox policy are each strongly supported by different groups of users. It's only fair and right that new editors who come to this page get pointers to both these very different initiatives as quickly as possible. I think you added some good links and I'd be well pleased if you restored the earlier content and also retained your improvements. John Reid 15:27, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Userbox columns boilerplateHere's a userbox columns boilerplate I made for someone. Feel free to try it out. :-) Rfrisbietalk 23:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC) Templates And UserboxesSo All userboxes will no longer be templates, right? They are all being put on users' pages? I'm user 100110100; please respond there; Thanks!68.148.165.213 14:18, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Userboxes CAN be templates, and are allowed in the Template: space. NO policy disallows this. Ian¹³/t 14:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Tell MeOk, tell me with what criteria you guys use to include a category with a userbox, & with what criteria you guys use to exclude a category with a userbox. What I'm saying is that some userboxes will list you in a category, some do not. Tell me how do you guys decide which will and which will not.100110100 09:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Box grouping background colorOver the course of numerous edits to my userpage, I've failed dismally at making the baxground of my userbox grouping yellow. I don't mean the userboxes themselves, but the blue border and the background to the boxes within it. Could somebody please check my userpage and tell me how to do this? Kind regards, Crimsone 06:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Who's counting?As a participant in GUS, I've probably bypassed well over 10,000 userbox redirects, a good chunk of them for "controversial" Religion boxes. During that stimulating and entertaining activity, I was reprimanded for my deeds only a handful of times. Throw in the other GUSifying participants with their bots and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the number of redirected userbox transclusions is pushing into six figures. After all that, I've observed no mass grass-roots rebellion against this activity. The conclusion I draw from this is that userbox location is a non-issue for the vast majority of Wikipedians. They like boxes or they don't, they use them or they don't, but they really don't react much at all when some arcane wikicode gets modified somehow, if they're even aware it happened. On the other hand, these "userbox wars" appear to be a tempest-in-a-teapot, perpetuated by a handful of advocates for the pro-con positions. Because this vocal subgroup never quite seems to reach consensus, and probably never will, no meaningful policy on the issue is forthcoming. My viewpoint at this time is to "try another way." Kelly Martin has a draft proposal in the works for a policy council that would address sticky issues that get bogged down in the usual wikipolicy development processes, such as this. I wholeheartedly endorse the formation of such a council and hope the development of a straightforward userbox policy is an action item on one of their earliest agendas. After all, they couldn't come up with anything worse than what we have now. Could they?! ;-) Rfrisbietalk 22:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Proposal for a Quick SolutionAccording to my understanding, the main complaint by those opposed to Userboxes is that they are in template space. And since they can be transcluded even while not in template space, they should be moved "elsewhere". I think userifying creates issues with WP:OWN, and it also may place a user who is keeping a collection of userfied userboxes to be placed inappropriately in categories to which that person does not belong. Since there is a claim that they are useful to/for WikiProjects, I think placing them in userspace is like placing them into Fibber McGee's Closet, or into a Black hole. In addition, a single userbox may be useful to several different and varied WikiProjects. Note: It has been mentioned that Subst: - ing userboxes can cause it to be more difficult to deal with fair use issues. (Before I go on, for "full disclosure" reasons: I had this idea after seeing an apparent WP:POINT action, and I have not seen anything like this proposal anywhere else.) I think the solution to it all would be to move them all: UBX, policies, proposals, and any other page which deals with the listing, usage, or standardization of them. Move them to subpages of Wikipedia:Userboxes. This would remove all ambiguity of what they are and are not to be used for, and would give them a centralized locatable location. Using the following structure:
I think this should do exactly what is wanted by the supporters of WP:GUS, and will also deal (finally) with the concerns of the opposers of WP:GUS. What do you all think? - jc37 00:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
This may be the biggest driver of the anti-UBX faction, the misconception that anything in template space is "official" or somehow "sanctioned" (by somebody). I don't think I can turn this around by myself but I'll do my bit. Nothing at all in this project is official or should be considered so by any reader. We can't honestly hope that all readers read the General disclaimer but they darn tootin well should. This is a wiki and nobody, from me to you to ArbCom to the Board to Jimbo, should attempt to take responsibility for any content here. Yes, we should all do what we can to make our edits good ones; but so long as anyone can edit this page, we can't guarantee anything. Nothing here carries an official stamp -- nothing at all. Certainly, "officialness" -- to whatever extent it exists at all -- is not divided along namespace lines. The only real quality analogous to "officially sanctioned" is stability -- some pages are edited less often than others and when they are edited, quickly reverted to earlier versions; edits that persist are of a minor nature. You need to have editor experience and be able to read page history to get a good idea of how stable a page has been. And we have all seen pages remain stable for a time, then go through a period of upheaval. Nothing is permanent here; this is a wiki. Most people don't really understand what that implies but the concept is starting to leak out. Wikipedia:Userbox policy excludes a UBX from templatespace only on the technical grounds that it does not conform to proper UBX format. It is dangerous to set any content standard because, were that done, UBX permitted in templatespace would appear "more official" to some eyes -- not because they were in templatespace but because they had passed through community review, if only by default. Another thing that distinguishes some pages is a tag of one kind or another. Some project pages are tagged {{policy}} while others, {{rejected}}. Article pages may also be tagged with {{cleanup}} or {{disputed}}; most such tags end up on corresponding talk pages. Like any other text in the project, this can be edited by anyone and may or may not reflect the true value the page holds in community esteem at any given moment. But it does give a rough idea. UBX, like all templates, should never be tagged on page body. Instead, any tag must go on the corresponding talk page. I would support a blanket UBX tag to be placed on the talk page of every template, disclaiming any project-wide universal support and explaining briefly the user-oriented nature of UBX. The only difference between templatespace and any other namespace is that template space is intended for transclusion. It's a purely technical distinction. Nor do I feel that userspace enjoys much license; every page in userspace is just as publicly available as any other and we all need to keep this in mind. One reason I object so strongly to GUS is that many offensive UBX will be permitted in userspace just because of this misconception that we don't need to take responsibility for it as a community. Having fought for userfication and won, I think a lot of people will not be willing to go into userspace after borderline material we really shouldn't have in the project at all. When admins do speedy user pages, there will be even more contention than we have now. A related, stronger argument against templatespace UBX is that they are not essential to the project -- they are mere user toys, for amusement only; "unencyclopedic". This falls apart, though, when we consider the vast number of pages that support the project even though they are not articles, images, or categories. Policy and process pages are essential to the project even though they are completely unencyclopedic. Most templates are in fact intended for use in projectspace, not articlespace, and serve process-related functions. Declaring a bias, advocating a position, or just making a joke are all essential to the community and community is essential to the project. No doubt at all that we would prefer editors who lack bias, who edit impartially at all times, and are able to work efficiently without humor in their lives. But we are men and women, not robots. As the community has grown in size it has actually regressed in average maturity and commitment to core project values. There is no way to control this influx of new editors without destroying foundation issues. We need to deal with the situation. Communities require binding forces. New, small communities are bound by the meatball:SuperordinateGoal itself; as they grow, this binding force weakens in proportion to size. UBX sprang organically from the community to address this need. It is very important to understand this. UBX were not imposed from the top as a form of branding or ID card. They are not an exotic import from Slashdot. They are not the badges of a small clique of radical users. They are homegrown and very, very popular. This is because they express and resolve a basic conflict between the business of building an encyclopedia and the entirely natural desire of most people to pursue private goals. We must permit UBX -- or failing that, substitute an equivalent device for user expression. They are a safety valve for all kinds of biases. They are a way for users to vent simple frustration. They help us to know who our allies and opponents are -- and like it or not, we cannot simply declare that all users are best buddies, by fiat. Large group politics have come to Wikipedia and there is nothing at all we can do about that without drastically reducing the number of editors and destroying the spirit of the community entirely. We cannot go back to the early days; there is no reverse gear on social progress. We can go forward to a new era that includes large group politics or we can self-destruct. We can fight a vicious war that can only end by alienating a great many users or we can broaden our social paradigm. UBX do a fine job of meeting a very real social need -- a need that must be met in order for the community to cohere and the project to survive. So, like every page, each UBX serves the encyclopedia by helping to maintain the community that creates it. And for the purely technical reason that they are intended for transclusion, UBX should be created in templatespace. John Reid 15:05, 10 September 2006 (UTC) Help controlling ubx positionCan anyone tell me how to keep my Babel template language box from being superimposed above/below other elements on the page? On my talk page, I'd like it to inhabit the same vertical space as the table of contents, i.e. above the discussion posts. I notice that a horizontal bar I inserted on my user page stops short of the language box, but the ones inserted automatically on the talk page by the post heading markup (=Post heading=) cut across the language box. I've tried some of my meager HTML repertoire to no avail. Thanks in advance for any help.--Eric 19:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
BoxTalkI dislike intensely all forms of edit war -- 3RR, slo-mo, tag-team, wheel war, I don't care. Edit warring highlights the breakdown of community and I don't like it. Here and there, I have gone far out of my way to avoid reverting other editors even once. I just don't think it's the way to get things done. That said, I have to draw a line in the sand here -- with much more than a little regret. This page needs some sort of cogent introduction to the newcomer that paints an honest, neutral picture of what is a highly polarized discussion. NewBoxes is not this, at the moment; it pushes GUS in a completely unacceptable fashion without so much as mentioning the Userbox policy that this community is patiently hammering out. Wikipedia talk:Userbox policy/Header, for all its length, does manage to mention and link to both Wikipedia:Userbox policy and WP:GUS as well as a number of pages which a newcomer to the UBX issue really should visit. Now, whether you support GUS, desire to work toward consensus on Wikipedia:Userbox policy, feel that all UBX should be banned, or insist that all must be permitted, please for the love of all the gods do not stand here and set fire to yet another page in this project. I swear that I will not let a biased notice stand at the top of this page. I am confident that I am not alone, since I see I am not the only one to suppport the neutral notice. Cool out. I believe that there is only one way to end the UBX war: Our community must work together to discover a compromise position acceptable to the community as a whole. I find it hard to believe that anyone would disagree but if you do, I still permit you your opinion. I even concede GUS has sufficient numbers of supporters that it is a legitimate position. That is why I do not demand a notice along the lines of:
As you can see, I can be just as biased and pigheaded as the next fellow if I put my mind to it. I, too, can stand in public square and shout that mine is the only opinion that counts, that my position is the only Right one, and insist that everyone does and must agree with me. But I don't. Let's just see if we can't all extend one another the same courtesy? John Reid 05:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
What page? The box above? Of course it does! That's why it's ridiculously biased and should never be placed anywhere. It's not a page. Okay? John Reid 10:10, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
You are naive. How about instead of trying to switch sides on the issue here, you create a concise template that is going to please everyone rather then edit war with an admin. No new user is going to read a 2 page long template about a bunch of jargon that isn't even policy yet. // Pilotguy (Have your say) 16:19, 23 September 2006 (UTC) Design of Boxes w/ Images from the CommonsHi peeps. I'm wondering how to design my userboxes with pictures. I'm not really sure of the process or of the code. Each time I pick up an image from the Commons and try to make a userbox the image won't shrink down and it ends up looking really stupid. Can someone please help me? OneWomanArmy--I was born in the Summer of Love when we took a trip and stepped on the moon 17:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Undelete category Sexualityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/delete?page=Wikipedia:Userboxes/Sexuality No reason for this to be deleted it was a large page and it's just been summarily removed with no explanation whatsoever.. moving to userspace is no excuse to delete the page that tells people what the codes to use the boxes are. Help pleaseSee Template talk:User NHL-Islanders (and put your reply there please). —EdGl 00:08, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Deletion of Userboxes
What do you think of this? (Layout proposal for reducing the legnth of pages)Just an idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%2AKat%2A/template/experiment --*Kat* 04:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC) Are userboxes just a novelty feature? … I don't think so.I know someone has probably already addressed this issue and I have chosen not to read this entire talkpage because it is egregiously long but, I must say that I personally find inappropriate the last sentence of the introduction box on the top of this page which reads:
It reeks of a patronising mephitic fetor. Qui bono?? … Qui malo? There are too many fallacies in its line of reasoning to give specific mention to any one, but, to me the overall message seems to be (essentially),
As for me, I like userboxes: they're portable, straightforward, and often say clearly in a few words (and an image) what would take most people at least a couple of sentences. Since they are not a major highlight of Wikipedia, they should be viewed with less solemnity and circumspection. They may be small and, at times, eccentric, but they can and do help people collaborate more effectively on articles. Plus, pretty much the only places you see them are on people's Userpages; which is where they belong. They work for me.—Strabismus 04:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Hard limit
"Nannies R Us". Wahkeenah 08:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Babel + Userboxes together??Is there a way to get babel and the userboxes in the same box on the left - rather than having 2 different ones? Feel free to subst out User:Crimsone/userbox to your userspace as a skeleton - a person here was kind enough to help me with the same :) --Crimsone 04:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC) Are Userboxes Personal Property?I do not mean that so directly, but a situation arose that brings a question about userboxes. WP is a place where anyone can edit anything that is not protected, but userboxes seem like a slightly different situation because people create them based on their personal interests. The situation is, I slightly edited one and the creator quickly rv'ed it leaving me a polite message why. To him, his edit is the best because it is a direct quote for a movie. My edit, which changed only the first word, seemed more appropriate to me because it flowed with the style of most other userboxes that say "This user is....". It is only one userbox and a small edit. I can let it go instead of trying to edit again out of spite, but I think you see the dilemma. Are both of us correct or is he more correct as the creator? And aren't situations like this the reason Template substitution was created? -- CobraWiki 04:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
The simple answer to your question is, "No." Check out Ownership and editing of pages in the user space, particularly, "As a tradition, Wikipedia offers wide latitude to users to manage their user space as they see fit. However, pages in user space still do belong to the community..." Anyone can edit a userbox in userspace. However, editing by consensus still applies. If you all can't work something out, e.g., agreed-on language or parameters, you still have all those options on how to grow your own. Of course, anyone else can edit that one too! :-) Rfrisbietalk 03:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC) Continued ironyConsidering the arguements about "official" namespaces, and such, I find the existance of this category up for CfD ironic. - jc37 11:38, 4 November 2006 (UTC) YTMND UserboxCan someone please tell me what happened to the userbox "User: YTMND"? It has been deleted but I couldn't find any information regarding the deletion of the box. I looked in multiple talk pages but couldn't find anything. Thanks.--the marble 03:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC) How toHow do you incorporate an image into your own design of userbox? I've tried several different ways and nothing works - it always shows what I typed instead of summoning the image itself. And there's nothing in the instructions that shows an alternative to having text appear. GBC 23:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
HELP ME! PLEASE!Alright, I've made the userboxes. So, say if I make a userbox that says "This User is a Wikipedian", how do I mak it so all you have to do to get it is type {Wikipedian}, then how do I make it so having that userbox will make the bottom of your page say "Category:Wikipedians"? Leave the answer on my talk page please. Thank you. --MasterA113 01:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Religious/Philosophical/Political UserboxesWhat happened to the religious, philosophical, or political userboxes?
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