Wikipedia talk:Userfication

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Contents 1 Should we have a Wikipedia:Userfication policy guideline? 1.1 Support 1.2 Oppose 1.3 Neutral 2 Thoughts 2.1 Appointment of experts 3 article to be userfied 3.1 Irresponsible userfication & deletion 4 Problems with this page 4.1 The new users do not know where to add their comment. 4.2 Cutting & pasting breaches GFDL 5 Userfication of deleted content

[edit] Should we have a Wikipedia:Userfication policy guideline?

[edit] Thoughts

I think this is a good codification of existing practice. My comments:

• We should not have redirects from article space to user space, but moving (AFAIK) automatically creates redirects with no way to turn this off. The instructions should also have the editor mark the old page with {{db|userfied}} and administrators can delete it via WP:CSD R2.
• I don't think this needs to be known as "policy," because everything here is optional and can be carried out through existing policies. "Guideline" might be more appropriate. Maybe there is really no difference.
• I am glad this page doesn't take a stand on userboxes (although it seems motiviated by the current discussion), since I don't think that issue is settled enough for there to be policies being introduced about it. — brighterorange (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• (edit) Also, I don't see when cut'n'paste moves are ever appropriate, but I just may not being creative enough. History is important for the GFDL. — brighterorange (talk) 01:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, this idea is totally unconnected with the userbox situation - I was trying to explain to a newbie this morning that he ought to userfy a page instead of deleting it, but found no policy page (or guideline page) to point him to. I agree completely about deleting the resulting redirects. With respect to cut and paste, the only circumstance where that would really be justified is if you needed to move something to the other party's main user page, but there was some minimal content there already, and the content being moved had been made in a single edit (or I guess a set of edits by one person), so there was no real "edit history" to speak of. BD2412 T 02:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This is not policy material in its own right. It's just a codification of existing practise, and I don't think we need to hard-code it. It's just a useful definition. I cannot imagine we need to poll on the meaning of userfication. -Splash^talk 18:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

We need a policy so that when people disagree with it, we can say "but look most people agree with this". Ashibaka tock 23:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It is impossible to disagree that a page has been userfied! We can't have a policy that mandates userfication, and copyrighted works or attack pages can't be userfied because of Powers higher than any Wikipedia policy. This is just a definition of what we mean by a piece of wikijargon, and it tries to, but does not, create new policy or procedure, nor codify an existing one. -Splash^talk 23:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

What about "not a substitute for regular deletion processes"? I think this is a useful thing to have in policy. This is like a subpage of Wikipedia:User page. Ashibaka tock 19:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

...which is not policy. -Splash^talk 01:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It is however, possible to disagree as to whether a page should have been userfied. For this, we need guidelines. BD2412 T 20:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

We need common sense more than guidelines. As a definition and a description, I think it's fine (even helpful), but as a would-be policy? It's just not policy material. As a policy it is tied up by much more important policies that actually do the job this page repeats. You use the word guideline, though, which I guess is vaguely palatable.... except that the exceptions it describes are policy! -Splash^talk 01:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

How about this: we need a centralized location to integrate all of the existing policies and common sense guidelines that govern the process of userfying stuff. BD2412 T 01:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe we could have a userfy vote page, a bit like AFD, as userfying is removing the article, so similar to AFD --PhiJ 17:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Appointment of experts

It will be a good idea to appoint editors with knowledge of related subjects on which articles are posted. This will prevent irresponsible userfication or deletion of articles by new users.

Rekhaa Kale 12:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] article to be userfied

can i just come out and admit that this process is confusing to me. i found an article that i believe a large portion of should be on the person's user page. the person is a very minor comic writer, but notable enough (i've been told) to have an article. the article itself is very vain and has a lot of superfluous information (i.e. a job he had copy editing, his sister's name, etc) that would be better off on his user page. the main creator/editor of the page is the person himself (check the edit history).

is this a good case for userfication? how would one go about doing it? would someone else want to do it for me because this process is a little more advanced than i'm used to doing on wikipedia. the article is: Ryan Scott Ottney

Thanks

Sparsefarce 00:10, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irresponsible userfication & deletion

It is seen that some editors mercilessly delete the articles by new users without understanding its importance.

Some articles may contain important data, but the presentation may be inappropriate. At such times, instead of saying that it is advertising when actually it is containing authenticity details, is wrong. The editors mat check the given details for checking the authenticity of the article. But this is not done.

Ideally the editors may mail the user personally asking him/her to modify the matter to meet the requirements of the site instead of mercilessly deleting it.

True that this is not a place to write about oneself, but there are people who have made great achievements and others must know about them. Will you userfy the article on the biography of Bill Clinton or George Bush? Certainly not! Then why not check whether the achievements stated are wotth being on the site or not?

Rekhaa Kale 11:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with this page

As I said above, I don't think this should become a guideline. But I also have substantive problems with some of the things the page says. First of all, I think the page should do more to discourage userfication generally. Most userfication is a result of someone creating an encyclopedia page about themselves.. while such entries can be userfied, it may not be a good idea, if they weren't intending to actually join Wikipedia. Second, userfication of an article other than one apparently about the user will likely be regarded as unfriendly. Finally, I totally disagree that userfying a page always requires a deletion process. Ignore all rules and be bold dictate that userfication in obvious cases can just be done, and the issue brought through deletion process if it's contested. Mangojuice^talk 17:00, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• I am agnostic as to your first point, and disagree with the other two. A page can be userfied to a subpage of the users page if it is not about that user. Granted, however, that disruptive hoax material and possible personal attacks should be deleted altogether. On the third point, a biography that provides no indicia of notability is subject to speedy deletion, which is a deletion process - determining that something meets that qualification also justifies userfication. However, if there is any possibility that an article has encyclopedic merit, then it should go through PROD or AFD, as other editors may be able to contribute evidence that the article should remain an article. A userfied page substantially disappears from the map, and others may not know it exists to offer support for its existence as an article. BD2412 T 18:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • What about redirects from articles to articles? Anyone can make one without going through a process, although AfD sometimes results in a redirect. But redirects are removing information from the encyclopedia in some cases. What you're saying seems to apply there as well, so unless you're arguing that no one should ever change an article into a redirect without a deletion process, I think there's something inconsisten. What I'm saying here is, this should be a user behaviour guideline. De facto, anyone can userfy any article at any time. I do think it's worth saying that in some cases deletion process should be used, but what about WP:BOLD? It's probably a good idea for newbies not to do this kind of thing, but if it's clear it's the right thing to do, I say do it. Besides, the purpose of AfD and prod is deletion, and userfying is a side effect. Mangojuice^talk 13:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, suppose I userfy Jimmy Carter to the page of the person who has contributed the most to it, based on my belief that Carter is not notable, having only been a one-term President with low poll numbers and no Supreme Court appointments. Or suppose I userfy The Ramones to User:JoeyRamone? All I'm saying is, content should not be removed from the main article space unless it meets some criteria for material to be removed from the main article space, and we have a whole set of processes in place to determine if such material meets such criteria. BD2412 T 13:49, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Those would be inappropriate. Specifically, that would be disruptive to Wikipedia, and blockable offenses. But let's not tell people not to stuff beans up their noses... I have never seen this kind of thing happen, and never heard of it, and I hope it doesn't start happening. I'm comfortable with saying that articles that don't appear to be about the user who created them should generally not be "unilaterally userfied" but I think that's just common sense. But your example here isn't really about userfying, it's about abusing the move feature. Maybe we do need a policy to say what the move feature is for and what it isn't for... but since it doesn't happen much, I say that's WP:BEANS. Mangojuice^talk 19:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
        • I've seen plenty of page move vandalism in my time, some of it across namespaces, but your underlying point is true. Userfication should primarily be used to correct likely errant attempts to create a user page in article space. BD2412 T 19:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Turns out there actually is an official guideline about moving and merging: WP:MM. I'm going to update it so it talks a little about cross-namespace moving. I'm going to link that one here and vice versa. Mangojuice^talk 18:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Good find. BD2412 T 22:53, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The new users do not know where to add their comment.

It will be a good idea to provide a separate text box to write the comments by the users on the talk page. This will avoid the confusion.

Rekhaa Kale 11:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cutting & pasting breaches GFDL

This page suggests cutting & pasting content to userfy a page that several people have edited. WP:MM says that would breach the GFDL licence and leave Wikipedia open to legal action... I'll change it tomorrow if nobody else does it first. Moyabrit 17:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I added a note, please feel free to edit it more. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it would not touch the GFDL at all if the other edits constituted, for example, addition of templates (such as {{delete}} or {{cleanup}}). But otherwise, it's a good point. If an article should not be in the encyclopedia for lack of notability, and for some reason can not be moved, and a cut and paste would result in later substantive edits not being properly attributed, then the article should simply be deleted. Or, as an alternative, the userfier could cut and paste the first version of the article, not including later edits by other authors. That would bo okay by the GFDL as well. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:14, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

All that is needed is a list of contributors. Cutting and pasting on its own doesn't violate the GFDL - the violation is not also copying the list of authors from the history page. There's no point in trying to decide which authors made significant edits, we might as well just copy them all. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, but if the point of userfying the article is that the original contributor had posted something non-encyclopedic, then really what should go into that original contributor's user space (if anything) is exactly what was originally contributed. For example, if someone adds a cleanup tag and someone else adds a deletion tag, those tags wouldn't stay in the page if it was moved to user space anyway. I would reiterate that the most likely instance for use of this process is where a user has errantly made a personal page about themself in article space. bd2412 T 17:10, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that paragraph was intending to talk about one of two other things. Case 1: a user userfying a copy of a page to work on a draft. Clearly this is okay, and a simple note like "see history of source article blah" will suffice for the GFDL history requirement. Case 2: a user posting something inappropriate over a legitimate article (for instance, a real person named John Adams posting their profile over the article), in which case userfication should just be avoided in favor of a revert. Mangojuice^talk 14:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The real issue is Case 3: an article is deleted per AfD but with the provision that if it is improved a new version can be created in main space. So the user copies the article to user space to improve, and the article in main space is deleted. Now the history of the original is hidden, as the article is deleted. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• If this is true, then Answers.com is in violation of the GFDL license when they port over articles. There is no history of the edits at their website. They also keep copies of deleted Wikipedia content. Can someone point out the part of the GFDL license that requires the edit history to be maintained? This is the first I have heard of it. If its true, then the Wikimedia Foundaton should be informed that Answers.com is in violation of GFDL. Or the second possibility is that this premise, that the edit history must be maintained, is false. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• The GFDL expects a version history to be maintained and available. However, that doesn't mean that all previous versions have to actually be available, but the dates and authors of those versions should be. Answers.com could be more overt about it, but they do link back to the Wikipedia page, so they are indirectly keeping the history linked. See Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License section 4, paragraph I. Mangojuice^talk 17:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Either the interpretation is in error, or Answers.com is violating the license. Here is an article in Answers.com to a deleted article in Wikipedia: [1]. The two possible conclusions are that the current interpretation of GFDL is in error, or Answers.com, in the relationship allowed by the Wikimedia Foundation, is in violation of GFDL. Can you quote me the section of the GFDL license that covers the inclusion of an edit history. You wrote "... the dates and authors of those versions should be [included]." (my emphasis added) Should be?, or must be? what exactly does the license say. Instead of guessing, please show me the section so I can read it for myself. I can't imagine print versions of Wikipedia articles retaining an edit history, its just silly. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, section 4, paragraph I (capital "i") of Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License. But now that I look more closely, I realize that this may only be required when someone modifies something published under the GFDL. Merely copying it may not impose the requirement. Although, arguably, the changes in format and layout make the answers.com versions a modification. Personally, it kind of pisses me off as an editor that answers.com makes it so difficult to learn who wrote the text they are displaying. Mangojuice^talk 17:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Userfication of deleted content

I couldn't find a page on this anywhere to inform newer users how it happens, despite the fact it happens all the time, so I have created a new section on this page, which would be the most appropriate location, I guess. Comments, suggestions, abuse? Neıl ☎ 11:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

No, that's perfect. Thanks! bd2412 T 21:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)