Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Template:User Generation Alpha

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: delete. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template:User Generation Alpha

Our article defines the oldest members of Gen Alpha as having been born in 2010 (or arguably later). Given our Oversight policy against such age disclosures, this userbox should not exist as it just invites people to disclose information about themselves they shouldn't. When the older range of gen Alpha matures into being of an age where self disclosure is not seen as so harmful this teimplate could obviously be re-created. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:56, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Back when I made the article a few years, I never considered this, a huge oversight on my part. I guess I was eager to contribute something to this site, however short-sighted I was. I suppose it is too early for the infobox to exist. I am ok with whatever outcome comes of this discussion. -Shift674-🌀^contribs 21:11, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Barkeep misrepresents policy. There is nothing wrong with minors disclosing that they are minors. The fact of being a minor is not identifying information. The suppression of clear identification of being a minor is a net negative, because it prevents most people from noticing that minors are minors, allowing predators of minors, who tune into more subtle cues, to act with reduced visibility. Children are safest open to widespread public view. Children are not safest when hidden away. SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:15, 3 July 2024 (UTC). Children are not protected in a culture of unverified self-identification as children. Delete. -SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:31, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is established practice for the Oversight team to suppress disclosures of personal information and to suppress disclosures of age by minors. It is a reason in the drop-down menu and of the last 1,000 suppression entries, age-related suppressions take up around 19%. That practice started before my tenure on the Oversight team and will probably continue after my departure. Given the risks faced by minors on the internet and current Oversight team practice, I do not see how it would be responsible to let more people notice that someone is a minor and do not see how retention of this template would work. (Note that this issue came to my attention in my capacity as an Oversighter). Sdrqaz (talk) 19:11, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Think of the children? Erring on the side of overnighting minors’ ill-considered releases of personal data makes sense. Forbidding minors from self identifying as minors does not. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:53, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not all minors are forbidden from self-disclosure or put another way not all self-disclousres from under 18s are oversighted. The exceptions that are made are far more common the closer you get to 18. The oldest a self identified Gen Alpha is going to be at this point is 14 an age for which onwiki self-disclosures are nearly always going to be OS'ed. In fact I am aware of more 14 year-old editors who have been OS'ed blocked in the last year than 14 year-old editors whose self-disclosures were ultimately allowed to stand (the latter category being 1). Barkeep49 (talk) 00:37, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It seems the oversighters have been making this stuff, pseudopolicy, up for years, without reference either to community discussion or child safety evidence. Did oversighters ever have a proper discussion, or did the practice just evolve into existence?

For better child safety, children benefit from looking like children due to bystander security. Grooming doesn’t happen in view of other adults.

I guess there is probably WMF assumed responsibility to protect children from revealing self-identifying information, which is probably only very good, but extrapolating this to mere identification as a minor, otherwise anonymous, goes beyond the optimum. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:18, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with BK49 on this specific case but I do find it strange that we keep finding ourselves trying to make policy fit "oversight practice" rather than the other way around. Where do these rules actually come from? – Joe (talk) 21:24, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Not sure about Joe's idea that this userbox is a child safety tool in the face of predators who can notice children expertly, but it doesn't apparently violate any policy, and anyone is allowed to disclose their age on Wikipedia. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 11:00, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No one is asking the children to "hide away". In fact I want them to edit and do so without issue and having your user page oversighted and having to receive a "don't do that" from an oversighter sure seems like a disinecentive to a child editing. No one needs to know anyone's age on wikipedia to be an editor - there are maybe 5 editors who knows how old I am (though many more could guess my general age). So yes let's have children editors and yes let's protect children editors from choices that they don't have all the information to make and yes let's not create a honeypot for child predators. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:39, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. As others have said, it is long-established that we suppress personal details (that's what this is, it's personal information about the age of a user) where users may not realise that such information is public or don't fully understand the potential consequences of making such a disclosure (for example, minors). This is done in policy under OSPOL#1. A template like this which (currently) can only serve to identify individuals as minors should be deleted since it misleads minors (and clearly others too) into thinking that disclosure of personal information like this is acceptable, and is useless anyway since every single transclusion of this template will be suppressed by the Oversight team when we become aware of it. Keeping it around is at best making more work for others, and at worst exposing personal details potentially forever opening them up to identity theft, stalking, harassment, etc in later life. stwalkerster (talk) 22:16, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To the extent that what you write is reasonable, the answer is to privately give advice to the minor, to possibly request verification of receipt of advice to parents from their guardian. To simply delete the template seems more to satisfy a wish to be able deny responsibility of protection of children. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:22, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Above you suggest that children benefit from looking like children in the presence of adults. This presumes that the grooming is going to happen onwiki which is, in my experience, a faulty assumption. More likely the Wikipedia groomer is going to find their target onwiki and then do the actual work offwiki (such as via email or Discord). This template would make identifying such potential targets easier which is why I am seeking its deletion. I 100% believe you have good intentions and child safety on your mind and think it offensive that you don't extend the same to me. Barkeep49 (talk) 01:12, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Re: where the grooming occurs. I make no such presumption, and of course, a groomer will try to take it offline. This goes to the question of whether minors should be allowed to enable email, or to do so without a guardian’s permission.

Children are very easy to identify, by their edits, by their subject interests. I think you’re wrong about identification. This template may very well be used inaccurately. This template is much more of a problem with respect to finding minors. However, this is only a problem if only groomers are interested in finding minors, if WMF and responsibly community members take no interest in the activities of children. It’s this tendency that 8 have a problem with. Delete all evidence of children and pretend they don’t exist, is what I am accusing you of doing.

I 100% believe you have good intentions too, but I seriously doubt your experience in proactively managing child safety. You are doing it wrong. Deletion of this template creates disingenuous plausible deniability of children in the community. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:44, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Of course minors exist on Wikipedia and I'll make my case for my experience in proactively managing child safety. However, I think your doing so in this instance reeks of lessons forgotten with Essjay and so it's pretty questionable for you to demand I do so. I interact with them all the time in colloborative ways and also have numerous instances of doing so as an oversighter after they have posted too much information about themselves. I have also had extensive conversations with Wikimedia's Trust and Safety team around policy and procedures of child safety.

Leaving that aside - because truthfully I think it's a poor way to reach consensus and so I'm not going to ask you to do what I've just done - what you are saying is not "minors exist and should exist on Wikipedia" which is what I am saying, you are saying "minors exist, should exist, and should be easily identifiable as minors on Wikipedia" (and yes I know you are also arguing they already are easily identifiable which is true in some cases and others in my experience). You are also stating that this can be mitigated through parental verification and approval. The problem is that it doesn't exist and would require large scale improvements from both volunteers and the foundation in order to implement. Instead you would prefer a system where we continue a bat signal to groomers and make additional work for oversighters since, as stw points out, any instance of this template being used has and will for the next several years result in it being oversighted. I don't see how the virtues your claiming - some of which seem conditional on systems which don't exist - outweigh those costs and I hope the closer appropriately weighs participation here based on policy and guidelines as summarized by WP:CHILD Reasonable efforts to discourage children from disclosing any kind of personal identifying information about themselves on Wikipedia, as well as keep any self-disclosed personal identifiable information they published about themselves removed, reported, and hidden from view are appropriate. Deleting this template is a reasonable effort and we should do so. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:05, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How does Essjay connect to this? You thought I was demanding to know your experience with child safety, beyond WP:Oversight? No, I am happy to trust and believe you. My concern is that the basis of the practice to delete these Userboxes seems to derive from old practice with forgotten origins, and it is not evidence based, or based on any child safety theory that I know of, and that on mere public discourse of being a child, the practice has got it wrong.

Regarding the quoted text from WP:CHILD, and indeed all of WP:CHILD, I am completely onboard with that and support it. But mere identification that one is a child is not personal identifying information, it’s extremely general information.

Yes, I wish WMF would be more proactive in providing WP:CHILD type advice to any editor that might be a child.

Do you delete child users’ links to their YouTube channels and other social media. I am surprised that that more risky practice is tolerated more than mere identification as a child. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:44, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per above Babysharkboss2 was here!! ^{Dr. Wu is NOT a Doctor!} 20:41, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Whatever The Rules are, it's not a good idea for a child under 14 to disclose that fact on the internet and this template encourages them to do so. – Joe (talk) 21:28, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Keeping this template won't change what oversighters do, it will lure people into traps. And I started editing Wikipedia when I was a minor, though I'm not one now. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:31, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Children under 14 should not be disclosing themselves to be under 14 on the Internet, and encouraging them to do so, which is what this template does, has no benefit to this community or to the encyclopedia. This discussion is not the right venue to try to change longstanding oversight practices. Mz7 (talk) 04:30, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, User:Mz7, I agree with your first sentence. We do not want to be encouraging young children to disclose that they are young children. I would have a template like this connect to warnings. Maybe that’s too hard? I guess we agree that this template should not remain as is.

But what’s this about “changing longstanding oversight practices”? Is it longstanding oversight practice to MfD these Userboxes? Oversighters only began doing that a few years ago, and MfD is not an oversight action. I remain confused as to why the nom points to WP:OSPOL when that page says nothing about disclosing that one is young.

WP:OSPOL looks perfectly reasonable. What is “oversight practice”? If it is suppressing any self identification of a young person as a young person, I feel that is a less than ideal response. However, I guess an alternative perspective that that Wikipedia does not and should not be particularly inviting to young children to register and make userpages, unless they are mature enough to not behave like children. And the cohort is small and not of great value, as editors, to the project. SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:26, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am glad that you agree that this template should not remain as it is, but I do not see any realistic alternative to deletion here. If we are just going to warn everyone that uses this template that they shouldn't use this template, we shouldn't have the template at all. I do think Barkeep49's OSPOL argument is valid, but the point I was trying to emphasize is that there are valid reasons to delete this template that don't depend on interpreting OSPOL. If you are looking to try to change what oversighters do on a regular basis, you will not accomplish that at an MfD about a userbox.
It has been the practice of oversighters for years—long before I became one—to suppress the ages and dates of birth of young children (or, to be precise, users claiming to be young children) even when it is self-disclosed. Firstly, age is personal information. Age alone is not necessarily personally identifying information, but we have never required personal information to be identifying to qualify for suppression. Different people and different cultures have varying expectations of privacy with respect to their age, but the presumption on Wikipedia should be in favor of privacy. If I met you in person and learned your age, and then later on I revealed your age on-wiki without your permission, I hope we can agree that is outing and would be suppressible. Children often don't have the maturity or foresight to make an informed decision about their privacy, and I am highly skeptical of your view that we are somehow protecting children's privacy by allowing them (or, with this template, indirectly encouraging them) to reveal private information about themselves. Additionally, we have no way of verifying ages—allowing children to reveal their age could also allow trolls and predators to masquerade as children. Mz7 (talk) 04:08, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks for your patience. Your very last point is particularly compelling. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:26, 9 July 2024 (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.