Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 13:27, 17 May 2012

The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Misplaced Pages. Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard for all users to follow. Please review policy editing recommendations before making any substantive change to this page. Always remember to keep cool when editing, and don't panic.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the What Misplaced Pages is not page.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Shortcut WT:NOT

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59Auto-archiving period: 7 days

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the What Misplaced Pages is not page.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59Auto-archiving period: 7 days

Talk:Trollhunter#Move to Trolljegeren?

At the light of Talk:Trollhunter#Requested move, I have started above discussion. I wonder if the previous discussion itself and its closure would violate this policy. Please feel free to discuss. --George Ho (talk) 16:11, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed addition to "Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox or means of promotion"

I propose to add the following subsection to WP:NOT#Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox or means of promotion to close a potential existing loophole:

• User advertising. Individual users may not post advertisements for products or services that they offer. Advertisements for personal gain (whether financial or benefits in kind) posted by users within existing pages, in their own user space or elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, may be removed by other editors. If advertisements occupy entire pages they may be dealt with by either proposed deletion or listing them on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion.

The existing "Advertising" subsection only deals with corporate advertising, i.e. adverts posted on behalf of companies offering products and services, and is ambiguous about whether it covers the issue of user advertisements. (For that reason I suggest retitling it "Corporate advertising", as separate from "User advertising".) It leaves open the possibility that a user could post Craigslist-style adverts for their own products and services within their user space. I think it would be helpful to make it clear that this isn't acceptable practice; certainly long-standing convention on Misplaced Pages has been to consider it unacceptable. Prioryman (talk) 07:48, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I think it might help if you put some examples (excluding Cla68's user page) of the actual problem we are trying to solve here. Kevin (talk) 08:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Would this mean I couldn't say what I do for a living on my user page? Are we trying prevent someone from putting "I write Misplaced Pages articles as an independent contractor. Here is a list of articles to which I have been a major contributor." or "I work for WikiFeatures, a company that writes Misplaced Pages articles." on their user page? That doesn't strike me as an advertisement any more than someone saying they work for IBM or Walmart or that they make theor living as a writer for hire. Jojalozzo 15:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I would be worried that some stringent readers will take this approach, arguing that if advertising is not allowed, stating what you do on WP or what you're willing to help with would be called into the same block of problems as stating that you're a web designer off WP and want to sell your services. Wording can avoid that, but I think most people can recognize true advertising aimed to make money, verses advertising one's WP skillset. --MASEM (t) 15:51, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I think there's an important different between advertising and disclosure. If you say "I work as a web designer off Misplaced Pages, here is my personal website", I think that would be within the limits of acceptability. Plenty of people already say on their user pages what their jobs are and link to their personal websites. Such disclosure can help with transparency in situations where conflicts of interest may arise, for instance if you work off-wiki for McDonalds but edit articles about your competitors at Burger King and Pizza Hut. That is very different from a situation where an editor puts an advertisement for personal gain on his or her user pages or elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, for instance: "I work as a web designer - if you want me to design a website for you I charge only $100 per hour, contact me here" or something like that. The key distinction is that you are not simply providing information about yourself, you are posting a transactional message that is intended to lead to personal monetary gain for yourself. I've reflected this distinction by adding the words "personal gain (whether financial or benefits in kind)" to the second sentence of my proposed addition. Prioryman (talk) 18:08, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, note that the same prohibition (more or less) is being extensively debated via a RFC at Misplaced Pages talk:User pages#Request for comment - Advertising on user pages - it's a guideline rather than a policy there, but the changes would amount to almost exactly the same as the proposed change above. I strongly recommend participating there and/or waiting for the end of that RFC before changing this page, as otherwise we're in danger of having policies which explicitly disagree with each other. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I wasn't aware of that RfC; thanks for flagging it up. Bear in mind that policies take precedence over guidelines. If we're looking at a standard which editors must follow – which the "no advertising" rule has been up to this point – it needs to be encapsulated as a mandatory policy rather than a merely advisory guideline. Prioryman (talk) 23:05, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Mmm - I think that discussion is effectively one about changing policy, and it would be best to alter WP:NOT to conform with whatever it decides - but we should avoid jumping the gun either way, if only to prevent this policy influencing that RFC! Andrew Gray (talk) 18:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Acute usefulness

I know that wikipedia is NOTMANUAL and I agree that it shouldn't be. But I think we should be able to make a few exceptions for the most common urgent emergency situations. I was surprised to find out that our article about Heart attack doesn't even have a "First aid" section, much less a First aid article for it. I found out that there used to be a (badly written) article First Aid for Asthma, which now redirects to Asthma and First Aid for Bleeding, which now redirects to First aid. But in both cases these articles contain no practical first aid information whatsoever.
I cannot imagine that there is no properly sourced material about the common first aid practices for most acute problems like heart attack, epilepsy, asthma and so on. Then why are they not mentioned in a section of our articles (or in a standalone article)? I can imagine a case where a daughter looks up "heart attack" on wikipedia while waiting for the doctor after her father has dropped to the floor. All she finds is a very technical article that says nothing about first aid. By the time she figures out that first aid instructions are on wikihow, daddy has passed away already...
WP has completely useless and long articles like Justin Bieber on Twitter, but most useful information like first aid instructions seems to be banned from its pages. That shouldn't be, there are cases where we should be able to brush aside our "rules" on the basis of "acute usefulness". MakeSense64 (talk) 07:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

An open wiki giving medical advice? Do you know how much legal fallout could result from that if it is wrong? (This is not the first time this has come up, and why I believe even one of the standard disclaimers warns that medical advice that you may happen to find here should be considered non-legit). And besides, if you have a loved one suffering a medical emergency, looking up information on Misplaced Pages is the absolutely wrong approach. That's what 911 (or your country's equivalent) is for; they know the proper advice to give for such. --MASEM (t) 14:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The short answer is liability. We are not competent to give medical advice, emergency or otherwise. Can you imagine the fallout if someone vandalized a page (which happens all the time) and a reader followed that advice but ended up killing the father in your hypothetical? Or if the advice is outdated (the standards for CPR, for example) seem to change constantly) and someone follows an old version? That's not our job and not our risk to take. If you want first aid advice, go to the Red Cross page, your local fire department, or even to the Boy Scouts. That's way outside our scope. Rossami (talk) 14:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Then how does wikiHow avoid that liability: ? Pages can be protected, and at the very least we could include an easily visible external link to a high quality webpage with first aid recommendations for the given illness. People in panic try the first thing that comes to mind, and just going to the Red Cross website doesn't mean you have found first aid advice already. Some will try an encyclopedia/wikipedia, thinking that it will give them at least a good direct link to useful information. But our article doesn't even put a link to first aid advice. That's a shame. MakeSense64 (talk) 14:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

First, WikiHow is not run by the Foundation, so the liability concerns are far different. Secondly, WikiHow has a similar disclaimer in their Terms of Use: We make no guarantee or warranty that the information in wikiHow is accurate, legal, reliable, or safe to practice. Always consult a trained professional before following any of the advice you find in wikiHow. Thirdly, it is a slippery slope that if we include instructions on dealing with medical conditions, that other how-tos would be included to. That's what Wikiversity is for, not Misplaced Pages. --MASEM (t) 15:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

There are at least two good and fully responsible solutions. First, there are those here who could write appropriate and authoritative pages, and take the responsibility for them. WP is just host of the database--the responsibility is that of the authors. second, we can reprint PD pagers from good authorities, such as the National Library of Medicine. Even viewing out responsibility as collective, rather than that of the person who inserts the material, the use of material of that degree of authenticity and authority is hardly open to question. The reason people write and use an encyclopedia is for the purpose of providing and finding information. Restricting it because of borderline fears such asthis is contradictory to our purpose. DGG ( talk ) 08:16, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is inherently pseudonymous. How do you propose to verify the identities and qualifications of your proposed authors? Second, Misplaced Pages is inherently in flux - it's "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Are you going to lock those pages down so they can never be edited again? If not, how do you expect the "authoritative authors" to accept permanent and on-going responsibility? What will you do when the advice changes? Who will be allowed to update it? What will we do when one authority says CPR should be administered at X beats per minute but another says Y? Those same concerns apply to public domain recommendations, by the way.
I sympathize with the point that our mission is to provide information but our fundamental structure as a wiki puts boundaries on what information is or can be appropriate. Rossami (talk) 14:09, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

• The heart attack article just isn't very good; it has too much jargon (myocardial infarction is the nominal title, for example) and doesn't have a section about treatment, let alone first aid. We do have plenty of other articles which do a better job, though - see cardiac arrest and CPR, for example. The main problem with Misplaced Pages as first aid is that it's poorly organised for the purpose because it covers anything and everything and so you may have to hunt a little, as in this case. Warden (talk) 20:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Expand GAMEGUIDE to include all other types of games

As a result of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition monsters, there are some that are taking a word-for-word reading of GAMEGUIDE (which presently only mentions video games), and saying it doesn't apply to more traditional games (in this case, a pen and pencil game). I would argue , as many did in said AFD, that the intent of WP:NOT easily extends to cover all types of games, not just video ones. As such, if people are going to play a IDIDNTHEARTHAT approach, we should explicitly adjust GAMEGUIDE to apply to any type of game - video, board, cards, etc, as well as assuring that the list given is non-inclusive. --MASEM (t) 14:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• I have tried that line of argument at AFDs for articles about chess openings and it was unavailing. See List of chess openings to understand the extent to which the moves and tactics of that game are documented here in fine detail. Those chess opening articles are the direct equivalent of walkthroughs of videogames but they are kept and maintained regardless. The real rule which seems to determine the outcome of such cases is WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Citing of policies such as WP:NOT is just wikilawyering in support of the personal POVs. Warden (talk) 15:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• I will agree that there are some game mechanics that do receive coverage of more than just being a game mechanic. (For example, I cannot imagine an article on chess not explaining the move sets of each piece, given how much literature there is to the topic). At the VG project, we note that there are some specific game elements that do get detailed coverage outside of elements like strategy guides (take, for instance, gravity gun), so GAMEGUIDE is not meant to stop all discussion of specific gameplay mechanics (video game or otherwise), just understanding that going into depth on these is generally not encyclopedic. In the case of your chess openings example, here's a prime case that calls out to using a sister project, maybe Wikiversity, to include that information. The fact that there are numerous chess openings, or that certain notable players have been credited with them - that's encyclopedic. The full list and details? No. (There may be notable chess openings that deserve an article on WP, but I can't say for sure). A more modern example for non-video games is Power Nine, nine specific Magic the Gathering cards that have received considerable attention primarily for creating power decks waaay back in the first releases. This doesn't mean we list every magic card, but can point out specific examples as appropriate. --MASEM (t) 15:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
• Also to add: like all other WP policy, WP:IAR applies. My primary concern is that people say "Oh, it only says video games, there's zero application to this board game". I'd rather see arguments go less wikilawyer and go "Yes, this might be a problem under GAMEGUIDE, but this board game is well covered by sources that this article on its mechanics is likely okay". --MASEM (t) 16:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposal on "Misplaced Pages is Not a Social Network"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

• Conclusion: I've removed the sentence in question since there appears to be a consensus here. — foxj 05:45, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The sentence "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia" is widely ignored in current practice. Should that one sentence be removed from the "Misplaced Pages is Not a Social Network" policy? Pine 10:20, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

• Remove My own opinion is that this sentence should be removed but the rest of the policy should remain as it is. We want people to form collaborative relationships here, but we also don't want people turning their userpages into personal blogs. I think that with the removal of this this one sentence, the policy will have a more appropriate balance. Pine 10:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: Do we have clear examples (diff links, etc) of people misusing said sentence? i.e., is this a theoretical or a practical problem? (Discussion on foundation-l claims it's a practical one, and I'm not saying I disbelieve it, but examples would be apposite.) - David Gerard (talk) 11:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
  • This user includes how to mix them a Martini on their page, not only does this appear purely social rather than encyclopaedia related, but their photograph doesn't even have a Martini in it! --Fæ (talk) 11:40, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
    • If you don't think that's fiercely practical, you've never spent any time in Cleanup - David Gerard (talk) 11:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I'll note also that I'm "undecided" because I remember when that was added, in the first chronic outbreak of userboxes. If it's purely a theoretical problem, I'd be inclined to leave it there; if it's actually being overapplied, that'd be good reason to remove it at this point - David Gerard (talk) 19:54, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Bulbapedia currently limits userpage editing to 3 edits every 24 hours. I don't think it would work out here, though. 68.173.113.106 (talk) 00:25, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
  • While it is only rarely used to admonish users it is very prevalent in project administration discussions. 71.215.74.243 (talk) 00:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Remove one person's idea of what is relevant won't necessarily be the same as another's. In my view the test should be whether the editor is also doing anything useful. Userbox wars and purges of games and "sekrit" pages are themselves more of a drain on the community than any possible benefit of keeping editors' noses to the grindstone. A clear desk policy might make sense for companies that want their staff not to build an emotional attachment to their jobs, but it is counterproductive for a volunteer community. ϢereSpielChequers 04:55, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
• Commment - The spirit of that rule is good, but it needs to be more flexible. Some "social networking" is useful as part of the collaborative process. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:43, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Baseball Bugs, that was sort of what I was thinking. Let me show what the policy would look like after the sentence in question is removed: "Misplaced Pages pages are not: # Personal web pages. If you are looking to make a personal webpage or blog or to post your résumé, please make use of one of the many free providers on the Internet or any hosting included with your Internet account. The focus of user pages should not be social networking, or amusement, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration. Humorous pages that refer to Misplaced Pages in some way may be created in an appropriate namespace, however." I think that is reasonable, because this would allow editors to have some creativity and fun so long as "The focus of user pages should... (provide) a foundation for effective collaboration." Pine 07:05, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
    • A bit wordy, perhaps, but certainly in the right direction. The idea is not really to discourage socializing, but to discourage using wikipedia only or primarily for socializing, vs. actually improving wikipedia for the benefit of the readers. That narrower approach to social networking is what I tend to call "team building". You do it in real life, to establish connections - and likewise here. But if someone wants a "real" social network, facebook is the better option. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:13, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
      • The 3 edits/24hr period won't work if someone spends time and each edit is a stack of changes. I agree that the social interaction helps morale and is a net positive. My recommendation is to slot in "predominantly" which aligns userpage policy with current practice (i.e. no-one really minds if there are bits and pieces all over the pace on a userpage but there is an informal line drawn with some that are almost all off-topic WRT encyclopedia building). Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:03, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
      • Support Pine's rewording, or something similar. Dcoetzee 23:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
        • Just wanted to add my +1 of support for this removal. If folks are concerned enough about it, I would support adding language about how Misplaced Pages is not a social networking site, and thus that use of the account solely as a profile may not be tolerated. Steven Walling • talk 07:18, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Support Pine's rewording, or at least the general idea of it. It reflects current practice, and also current practice as to what is considered acceptable in userpage guidelines. I think that it is somewhat difficult to define what userpages are used for, since different people use them for different purposes. However, it is generally agreed upon that userpages should not be permanent places for article-like pages, which is an implicit acknowledgement that that they should be used for more personal stuff rather than for things providing information unrelated to themselves personally or their activities.--New questions? 03:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Precisely! Support rephrase to clarify that we want to encourage things like WikiProjects and WP:TEAHOUSE even if they arise spontaneously, not discourage user page and talk page socialization unless it is deliberately or disruptively divisive, and only specifically discourage things like superfluous category proliferation. 71.215.74.243 (talk) 00:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll leave the above closed but note that there's nowhere near consensus to remove the line based on the above discussion. If anything the above discussion favors rephrasing the statement, not outright removal. --MASEM (t) 13:16, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

• My own count is about 6 people supporting the removal with zero opposes and a few varied comments, questions, and alternatives with no consensus among them. How is it that you came to such a different conclusion than Foxj regarding the original proposal? Pine 20:23, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I only see two for outright removal, the rest for some type of rephrasing. In such cases, removal from policy pages is not done, but there should be efforts to change the wording to consensus. --MASEM (t) 20:35, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
    • The "rewording" which was agreed to was the removal of that sentence. — foxj 07:34, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
      • One possible rewording was removal, but that wasn't the end of the discussion and certainly there was no consensus for it, at least for a policy page. As noted below, the discussion is better suited for WP:UP to go into details; here needs to remain the summary of the accepted situation. --MASEM (t) 13:30, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
        • Masem, you have not responded as comprehensively as I think is necessary to my question about how you came to such a different conclusion than Foxj. Since Foxj was the closer, it seems to me that the burden of proof is on you to show that the close should have been different. Misplaced Pages wouldn't work if anyone who showed up after a close could disagree with a close and overturn it based on their personal opinion of the close being different, because then every close could be overturned by the next editor who came by. Please provide a count of how you're counting the vote of each editor who commented above. As for the point about where the discussion should have happened, any objection should have been done at the time the RFC was active. That time has passed, and if someone wants something different than it seems to me that they need to start a new RFC on this page rather than try, after the fact, to overturn a discussion that involved many editors based on their different interpretation of policy. Pine 07:29, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
          • Misplaced Pages discussions are !votes, so I'm not going to count. There are two options that were on the table - deletion and rephrasing. The rephrasing argument is a stronger position since that would encourage more discussion to get the phrasing correct (including, perhaps, removal). If anything, this discussion is "no consensus" split on arguments between deletion and phrasing. As this is a policy page, the default action on "no consensus" discussions is to take no action until a consensus can be reached. But I see the rephrasing discussion as favoring rephrasing based on argument strength alone, and thus more discussion should have been made before touching the policy page as well. Thus in either case, nothing should have been done to the policy page. Note that I'm not arguing the point of issue about social network aspects beyond that the better venue is at WP:UP. Just that when it comes to making changes to policy pages, stronger consensus needs to be shown. --MASEM (t) 13:04, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
          • At the risk of piling on, policy debates are not XfD decisions. Unlike deletion decisions (which need explicit closure), policy decisions on a wiki are always up for extension, renewal and reversal. The idea of "closing" a debate is inherently un-wiki. If a decision is made in error (and many are), the wiki-solution is to revert it and keep talking. This is the essence of Bold, revert, discuss. There is no "burden or proof" or need to appeal to a higher authority (or to a subsequent debate). If someone disagrees in good faith, we just continue the discussion. Rossami (talk) 14:58, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
  • While I didn't comment during the now-closed discussion, I see nothing harmed by the removal, and I agree that clause is generally ignored in practice anyways. Jclemens (talk) 20:49, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I missed this conversation the first time around. I'll add an explicit opinion in favor of keeping the sentence. I personally remember both the userbox fiasco and older abuses that led to the need for that clause. Even though we tolerate some personal use, the policy has always been clear that user pages are provided to us for the sole purpose of improving the encyclopedia. Social connections enhance cooperation and do improve the encyclopedia. The implication is that some personal use is allowable but there is a balance inherent in that way of looking at it. A highly productive editor who wants to blow off a little steam gets more leeway than an anonymous user who only edits his/her userpage.
    All that said, this is not the right place for this particular debate. The controlling policy page is Misplaced Pages:User pages. Changes to the allowable uses of a userpage should be debated there. The clause here at WP:NOT is a convenient synopsis of the requirement that is spelled out in greater detail there. The wording here should not be changed until and unless it has already been changed at WP:UP. Rossami (talk) 21:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
  • The NOT#SOCIAL material is blathery enough without that line. Let's see how things work without it. If all hell breaks looks and people start treating userpages like Facebook or LieJournal, then by all means put it back. "I remember why we did this" doesn't mean it was a good idea, yet it is the crux of Rossami and Masem's objections. It's just a particularly off-kilter variant of WP:ILIKEIT. "I remember why" I drank so much I puked on the floor, but that doesn't mean I should do it again. And a lot of things have changed since the days of the trivial userboxes epidemic, Esperanza, and other "let's turn WP into MySpace" crap. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 20:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
    • "I remember why we did this" is not an argument that "I don't like it" but a reminder that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana, Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense, 1905). Regardless, this is not the place to make the requested change to policy. Sort it out on WP:UP first, then this page will naturally follow suit. Rossami (talk) 12:50, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• Putting aside my feelings about proper procedure for the moment, I looked at WP:UP. I can't find a place in the userpage policy that supports the sentence that I proposed for deletion, which seems to me is another reason to delete the sentence if it's not supported by what some of us are saying is the underlying policy. WP:UP says, "Some people add personal information such as contact details (email, instant messaging, etc.), a photograph, their real name, their location, information about their areas of expertise and interest, likes and dislikes, etc.", and "you should avoid substantial content on your user page that is unrelated to Misplaced Pages", and "The Misplaced Pages community is generally tolerant and offers fairly wide latitude in applying these guidelines to regular participants. Particularly, community-building activities that are not strictly "on topic" may be allowed, especially when initiated by committed Wikipedians with good edit histories. At their best, such activities help us to build the community, and this helps to build the encyclopedia. But at the same time, if user page activity becomes disruptive to the community or gets in the way of the task of building an encyclopedia, it must be modified to prevent disruption." So, WP:UP doesn't seem to support the broad assertion in "What Misplaced Pages is not" that "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia", and if anything supports the idea that userpages can contain personal content so long as the content isn't disruptive or so extensive that it looks more like a personal blog. It seems to me that WP:UP as it's currently written would support the deletion of "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia" from the policy on "What Misplaced Pages is not." Pine 05:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

  This conversation got archived but I'm moving it back here because I'm hoping to see a response to my points here. If people don't take issue with my last statement above then I will remove "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia" as I originally proposed, so the statement on WP:NOT will say, "Misplaced Pages pages are not: # Personal web pages. If you are looking to make a personal webpage or blog or to post your résumé, please make use of one of the many free providers on the Internet or any hosting included with your Internet account. The focus of user pages should not be social networking, or amusement, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration. Humorous pages that refer to Misplaced Pages in some way may be created in an appropriate namespace, however." I believe that this is consistent with the underlying policy on userpages, as I said in my last comment. Thanks, Pine 09:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

  Removing the sentence takes away significant context to the NOT statement. What is probably best is to add a pointer to WP:UPYES to that statement which lists the type of content allowed on user pages (eg, "...working on the encyclopedia, such as those outlined at Allowable User Page Content."). That makes the statement more proactive to define what is appropriate, and then using the rest to point out that social networking, etc. aspects are not appropriate. --MASEM (t) 13:12, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

  If you have a specific suggestion for the wording please let me know. I'm very willing to discuss alternative proposals. Pine 19:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Pine, the weight of authority goes the other way. The Pillars inform the Policies which impact the Guidelines. Not the other way around. -- The Red Pen of Doom 19:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

  I believe that I accounted for that. My point above discussed making this guideline more compatible with the underlying policy. Pine 19:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not encyclopedia

Professor John Harnad (who was blocked by Misplaced Pages) summarized his negative view about Misplaced Pages this way:

Misplaced Pages, on the contrary, is the enshrinement of contempt for learning, knowledge and expertise. It is, for many, a diversionary hobby to which they are prepared to devote a great portion of their time, as others do to computer based video games. Unfortunately, it has led also to an inner cult, shrouded in anonymity, with structures and processes of self-regulation that are woefully inadequate. Many of these tools and procedures are reminiscent, in parody, of those of the Inquisition: secret courts, an inner “elite” arbitrarily empowered to censor and exclude all those perceived as a threat to the adopted conventions of the cult; denunciations, character assassination, excommunication. An arbitrarily concocted “rulebook” and language rife with self-referential sanctimoniousness give a superficial illusion of order and good sense, but no such thing exists in practice.

It is truly a “Tyranny of the Ignorant”.