Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates/Archived

-

Userboxes are sometimes deleted by administrators if there are thought to be valid reasons for their removal from Wikipedia. However, some userboxes may be inappropriately deleted. Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates considers appeals to restore userboxes that have been deleted. It also considers disputed decisions made in deletion-related fora. Before using the Review, please read Wikipedia:Deletion policy and Wikipedia:Undeletion policy.

Category:User undeletion lists a number of administrators who are prepared to honour good faith requests for the restoration of deleted content to your user space, for example if you want to work up a more encyclopaedic article. This does not require deletion review, you can ask one of them directly (or post a request at the administrators' noticeboard).

Purpose

Userbox debates Deletion Review is the process to be used by all editors, including administrators, who wish to challenge the outcome of any deletion debate or a speedy deletion unless: They are able to resolve the issue in discussion with the administrator (or other editor) in question (this should be attempted first - courteously invite the deleting admin to take a second look); In the most exceptional cases, posting a message to WP:AN/I may be more appropriate instead. Rapid correctional action can then be taken if the ensuing discussion makes clear it should be. An administrator (or other editor) is correcting a mistake of their own, or has agreed to amend their decision after the kind of discussion mentioned above. Deletion Review is also to be used if significant new information has come to light since a deletion and the information in the deleted article would be useful to write a new article. This process should not be used simply because you disagree with a deletion debate's reasoning — but instead if you think the debate was interpreted incorrectly by the closer or have some information pertaining to the debate that did not receive an airing during the AfD debate (perhaps because the information was not available at that time). This page is about process, not about content, although in some cases it may involve reviewing content.

This process is about userboxes, not about people. If you feel that an administrator is routinely deleting userboxes prematurely, or otherwise abusing their powers, please discuss the matter on the user's talk page, or at Wikipedia talk:Administrators.

If you nominate a page here, be sure to make a note on the administrator's user talk page regarding your nomination. A template is available to make this easier:

{{subst:DRVU note|section heading}} ~~~~

Similarly, if you are a administrator and a page you deleted is subsequently undeleted, please don't take it as an attack.

Please take general discussion to the talk page.

Speedy deletions of templates can be done by administrators under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion if the template falls into this category (often referred to as T1): Templates that are divisive and inflammatory. The following is a proposed T2, but has not become stable: Templates designed for user pages that express personal beliefs, ideologies, ethical convictions, or viewpoints on controversial issues. (as of 15:37, 13 May 2006 (UTC))

24 May 2006

Template:User liberal

lib	This user is a liberal.

This Usebox was deleted by Doc_glasgow. T2 is still contested and untill concensus has been reached we can not delete random useboxes which fall under T2's criteria. It is essential that editors be allowed to show their personal opinions on their userpage in order to make any biases known. --—David618 19:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted, T2. --Cyde↔Weys 19:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, listing does not address policy considerations and the template namespace has nothing to do with someone's personal user page. Put another way, the nominator has not made a case for the decision to be overturned. Mackensen (talk) 19:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• endorse deletion, T2 was correctly applied -- Drini 19:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted t2. We've kept 'Communist' and 'Darwinist' deleted - so why should liberal be different? --Doc ^ask? 19:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Of course we can delete userboxes. --Tony Sidaway 20:05, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. I see no correlation between the existence of this template and the ability to "show one's personal opinions on one's userpage". Misza13 ^{T C} 20:11, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion - Correct application of T2. It turns out there are 101 ways to reveal ones bias on one's personal page without using a colorful sticker to do it, which makes it look more like advertising for one's bias, or showing that one is here as a representative of one's bias instead of as an encyclopedist. The "making biases known" argument is disingenuous, because userboxes are neither the only way, nor a very good way, to do that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Per T2, Doc, Misza13, Mackensen, and especially GTBacchus... Keep Deleted ++Lar: t/c 20:20, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Request Can we see the content to which T2 was applied here? --AySz88^-^ 04:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Undelete T2 is contested, and this template does not meet any deletion or speedy deletion criteria. It should be restored (as should the Communist and Darwinist boxes, btw). --Fudgenudger 05:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I think that putting your info into a nice little infobox is a better idea. --mboverload@ 07:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

  A better idea than what? Why? -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:36, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

May 15, 2006

Template:User scientology

Original deleted template:

S	This user is a Scientologist.

Proposed template for undeletion:

S	This user is interested in Scientology.

Tony Sidaway deleted this page based on the new in-discussion T2 deletion criterion. I propose that, regardless of whether T2 is or becomes established policy or not, this template be undeleted so that its original, belief-based contents ("This user is a scientologist.") can be replaced with new, specialty/interest-based contents ("This user is interested in Scientology."), so that, rather than dividing users based on ideology, it brings together users with a shared involvement or interest in an article topic. The reason I can't simply create a new userbox under the old name is because the page is protected, and I would greatly prefer that the template be undeleted so that the edit history is accessible (I can see no value in hiding it from non-admins) and the old style and layout of the userbox can be continued even while the text is changed. (Note that if T2 is not accepted policy, I would propose that a new userbox, {{user scientologist}}, be created for the old contents of this box.) -Silence 23:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete and rewrite to express an interest/expertise rather than a belief. (This will also make the template much more widely-used than it was: it only had one or two users before, but I expect it'll end up with dozens once it's opened up to include non-Scientologists who are interested or involved in this encyclopedic topic.) -Silence 23:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - I actually like Silence's idea. Unfortunately, not everyone who expresses a religious POV is neccessarily interested in editing such articles. So I think it would be better to delete all existing religious userboxes, and then create new templates for editing interest in religion - I certainly would find any such templates unobjectionable. --Doc ^ask? 23:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree that not everyone who expresses a religious POV is interested or willing to edit the articles in question, but I think that the vast majority are at least "interested in X", and those who aren't can easily remove the userbox in question after it's been moved and rewritten. However, although I don't think it applies to this specific template (only about one user was using it in its old form, and its actual name is suggestive of an "interest" template, not a "practitioner" one, so rewriting it would be very easy to do), your point is a valid one for at least some belief-based templates: the racism userboxes, for example, probably couldn't be rewritten to "This user is interested in racism." without getting complaints, so it may be necessary to simply delete those under T2. For most of the religion-based ones, though, I think that relatively few users would object to simply renaming them: anyone who uses {{user alchemist}}, for example, probably won't care much if "This user is an alchemist." is changed to "This user is interested in alchemy." However, if you think that it's better to be safe than sorry in terms of changing the text of userboxes, I propose that we do the following: subst all userboxes in their old text, then move and reword them. Anyone who doesn't like the substed version can then freely switch to the new, interest-based box, and as a bonus we don't lose edit histories, layouts, or talk pages in the transition, and cause a minimum of disruption or controversy. Plus it's simply faster to subst and then move a template than to start a whole new template from scratch, and one of the biggest concerns about userboxes is that they draw too much time away from working on the encyclopedia, so a simple and quick solution is a very good thing. What do you think about that possibility? -Silence 23:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Another advantage of the subst-and-move/rewrite version of my proposal, incidentally, is that it will at no point involve a template-deletion, meaning that users will be unable to bring the transferred box up at this DRV page (they'll have to discuss it on the relevant Talk pages instead) and flood us with more debates if we do decide to mass-subst-and-move most of the boxes on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion. :) That's surely an appealing bonus, Doc, since you, Cyde, and many others have been complaining so much about the time and effort wasted by having to deal with so many userbox deletion reviews. Accordingly, the most efficient way to solve this mess is surely to eliminate the POVed templates without involving deletion in the process at all! A further benefit of the subst-and-move/rewrite (as opposed to "subst-and-delete") is that this renders the process transparent and viewable to non-admins, so there will be less ill-will or hostile accusations of "admin abuse" involved, and the change overall will seem much less dramatic and excessive than a mass-deletion of userboxes would, even while it still successfully neutralizes the expression of POVs from transcluded user-templates. Win-win, don't you think? -Silence 00:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per above. There is nothing wrong with expressing an interest. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 23:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - T1&T2. --Cyde Weys 23:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2. If you want to say you're interested in Scientology, why would you want to transclude this template, even if it was changed as Silence suggests? What if someone changed it back? Suddenly you're no longer interested in Scientology but a Scientologist yourself. We know quite well there are enough people to start a revert war. Just write it down, or if you find it so hard to put it in context, create your own userbox. Know what - since it takes an entire, wearisome 2 minutes to create a custom userbox with the special generic template supplied at WP:BOX, here you go: User:Samuel Blanning/User scientologist. Subst that and you're done. I'll delete it the second I see someone transclude it. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:38, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  This is an unrealistic and trivial concern. Such a change would be reverted within minutes; you might as well argue that Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology is a bad idea because a Scientologist could try to edit the text to make it a pro-Scientology WikiProject rather than just one that's about Scientology. I very much doubt that such a thing would ever happen (Scientologists have shown very little interest in userboxes, as shown by how very few have ever used it in the past: they tend to find it easier to further their agenda when they aren't so explicit about their beliefs), and even if it did once or twice, it'd be an incredibly minor issue and would cause no lasting damage to anything. I think you're imagining a problem where one doesn't exist here. A template for users interested in Scientology is no better or worse than the templates we already have for users interested in politics, users interested in assorted musical instruments, users interested in history, etc., and no one has seriously proposed deleting those. Although I'm sure your complaint is in perfectly good faith, and I very much appreciate you taking the time to create a userspace page for users to subst: the code from, I think your zeal to destroy these boxes is causing you to dismiss an effective and simple compromise before it's been given a chance to work or not work. -Silence 23:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  I don't consider the possibility that a page on a wiki might be edited to be unrealistic and trivial. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 10:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  Two fallacies: strawman, and appeal to ridicule ("if evolution is true, that means my grandmother's a monkey!"). Rewording and mangling someone's argument to make it seem like something it's not is not counterarguing against it, it's just rhetoric. By your logic, we wouldn't have any templates, because it's possible for every template to be edited (unless it is protected, which is just as easy to do for this template as for any other, if your notion ever really does become a problem in the future, which any reasonable user can see it almost certainly won't). The hole in your conception is that you don't seem capable of acknowledging what a trivial and transient nuisance such vandalism is, how absurdly easy it is to remedy, and how incredibly unlikely it is ever to occur, much less to occur in significant enough quantities to become a meaningful annoyance (in fact, if a Scientologist ever does try to change the template back to "This user is a Scientologist.", it's almost certain to be a direct result of your suggestion that they can do so; an examplary WP:BEANS demonstration). "We shouldn't have a useful template for X topic because someone could edit it someday to say something it shouldn't" is amazingly flawed and unconvincing reasoning. -Silence 14:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  Two fallacies in a single sentence that most would consider uncontroversial. I feel like I should get a prize, or at least a booming Unreal Tournament "DOUBLE FALLACY!" voiceover. Anyway, your argument rests on the claim that changing this template to say 'This user is a Scientologist' would be vandalism of the same scale as changing it to say "This user is a tool" and thus reverted without question. It's quite obviously not. It could legitimately say either "This user is a Scientologist" or "This user is interested in Scientology" - we know that's true because it used to be the former and you're suggesting the latter. And yet they're two completely different things, and anyone who used it could suddenly find their userpages changed to something completely different from what they wanted to say. And if it's not meant to ever be changed, why does it need to be a template? P.S. I also like your claim that I'm WP:BEANSing: "This will never happen, but if it does, it's your fault, Blanning". --Sam Blanning^(talk) 14:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  "Two fallacies in a single sentence that most would consider uncontroversial." - Please read logical fallacy, since you're clearly unfamiliar with what a fallacy is. A fallacy is not necessarily untrue: you could use an ad hominem fallacy to dismiss my arguments, for example, and even if the ad hominem was accurate, it would be irrelevant, because propositions are not judged based on the merits of the proposer. The core of a fallacious argument is not that it's necessarily untrue, but that it's a distraction from the issue that was actually being discussed: by distorting beyond recognition the argument I'd actually made, rather than simply responding to my statements, you changed the debate to an entirely unrelated subject, and I had the option either of letting you do so or of pointing out the fallacy and thus asking you to respond directly to what I'd said; I chose the latter. I apologize if I was unclear in this in my previous post.

  "Anyway, your argument rests on the claim that changing this template to say 'This user is a Scientologist' would be vandalism of the same scale as changing it to say "This user is a tool" and thus reverted without question." - Actually, my argument does not rest on that at all. It merely rests on the notion that any interested users will have it on their watchlist; vandalism does not necessarily have to be dramatic to be reverted quickly, as anyone familiar with Wikipedia is surely aware. And I, certainly, will be keeping an eye on the template once it's undeleted, to revert any malicious edits to it immediately (though I doubt any significant ones will ever occur, as I noted above already; none have ever occurred in the past, so why should they in the future?). Your fears are thus misplaced, and even were they , would be a reason not to forbid users from expressing this specific interest on this specific userbox, but rather reason to protect the page once it's recreated to avoid such an eventuality (were your fears justified, that is). Either way, the problem is (A) a very slim possibility, and (B) a ridiculously trivial problem even if that possibility ever is fulfilled. It is therefore unreasonable to ban a userbox such as this from existing based on such speculative grounds. Though I appreciate your concerns, they are clearly exaggerated a thousand times out of proportion here, and this argument doesn't really have any special relevance to this template, as there is no more chance of it being targeted than of any other box (including babelboxes), and certainly less chance of such vandalism being troublesome to revert than for many other, less-mainstream userboxes.

  "we know that's true because it used to be the former and you're suggesting the latter." - It used to be the former solely because of how disorganized many userboxes' names are. The correct formating for the old version of the userbox would have been {{user scientologist}}, in keeping with the other religious boxes. The fact that this one was in use at all is just a historical quirk, not a meaningful distinction between this and any other box.

  "And yet they're two completely different things, and anyone who used it could suddenly find their userpages changed to something completely different from what they wanted to say." - Get your facts straight. Next to nobody uses this, and next to nobody ever has. This is one of the most obscure and underused religious userboxes on all of Wikipedia (especially remarkable considering how old it is). Undeleting it so it can be reworded to an appropriate, non-T2 version (which will also inevitably be dozens of times more popular than the old, less-useful POV-expressing version) poses no significant risk whatsoever. You are so devoted to your bizarre hypothetical future scenario that you're completely ignoring the actual circumstances of the page in question.

  ""This will never happen, but if it does, it's your fault, Blanning"." - This is something of a misrepresentation. I correctly pointed out that the most likely reason such a thing would ever happen in the future, if it were to happen at all, would be because of your suggestion (since it's such an unusual and unlikely thing to ever happen at all for any reason, considering how incredibly underused this template was in its "This user is a Scientologist." form, which you don't seem to grasp: most users won't even realize it ever had such a form, once it's reworded!) This is not meant to put any present or future blame on you for anything, merely to point out, correctly, that, as with the "beans" analogy, it's near-certain that noone would have done what you're describing if we hadn't wasted this time discussing it; now it's still extremely unlikely, but if it does occur, it'll be pretty obvious that it was inspired by this inane discussion. However, my real argument, in full, was more "this is extremely unlikely to ever happen, and if it does, it'll be so trivial and easy to fix that it won't even be a blip on the radar". Which is true. Your worry really is unsubstantiated by any evidence that such a thing would actually happen, much less by evidence that it would pose the grave, life-ruining threat you seem to be imagining. This is such a silly, quibbling, and unlikely eventuality that I'm amazed we're even discussing it. April Fool's Day is long gone, right? Baffling. -Silence 22:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted per T2 and per above Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2 and use it as a Userbox in User space, however you choose to word it. - Nhprman 23:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2. Enjoy the power of creating wiki markup on your very own user page, which no one will interfere with. There's no good reason for these to stay as templates. Nandesuka 00:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  It clutters and disorganizes the page's code horribly, wastes much more time and effort copy-pasting than a template (thus taking away editors' valuable time from editing the encyclopedia), and has no benefits over the simple and convenient mechanism of userspace templates. If you personally prefer not to use templates on your user page, you are free to do so; forbidding everyone else to do so, however, is unjustifiable by policy or by common sense. Plus it's actually beneficial to let different users who are interested in Scientology contact one another: the problem is with Scientologists gathering, not users interested in Scientology gathering, and this is a very convenient, simple, layed-back way to facilitate such interest-based communication without requiring the more formal, obligation-implying measure of joining a WikiProject. -Silence 05:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  If your userpage is cluttered by markup, either you should consider organising your userpage in subpages, or you've got too much markup and not enough content. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 10:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  More judgmental, do-exactly-what-I-say-and-lay-your-page-out-exactly-as-I-wish userpage-mandating. Usertemplates have a long, long history and cause no server issues, have no inherent problems with letting users contact one another, and are valuable tools for efficiently adding significant, compacted information (like web browser, editing interests, and languages spoken) in a specific style and format, for users who prefer to use them than to use the raw code. It should be left up to the users' choice, not forced on them my unnecessary stylistic omniconformity. Ultimately, forcing people to deal with the code will cause many of them to waste more time with userboxes, and thus spending less time on the encyclopedia; it is in everyone's best interests to keep things simple, or at least to give people the option of doing so. Moreover, userboxes are not currently against policy, so even if it is your opinion that they should all be scourged from the face of the planet, it is inappropriate to entirely disregard current policy and process on a DRV by voting based on what you wish the state of affairs was. -Silence 14:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted divisive.--MONGO 02:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  "This user is interested in Scientology." is divisive? In the way a Babelbox is divisive, I suppose... -Silence 05:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted and spend the time you would have used debating this and write a fuller, well rounded description of your interest in Scientology on your userpage. Wouldn't that be more useful? Rx StrangeLove 05:02, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  My proposal above is specifically designed to help us avoid wasting time on userboxes. By simply altering most userboxes (like this one) to express an interest rather than a POV, we can satisfy the wishes of both sides effectively, while avoiding endless DRV nonsense and factionalizing. This is the userbox DRV to end (almost) all userbox DRVs, if it can only get some support so we can get the "move templates from beliefs to interests" idea rolling and avoid another war over this crap. Are we so in love with this silly conflict that we instinctively reject any attempt to resolve things peacefully? -Silence 05:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  As long as there's transclusion going on you'll get objections. Mackensen has the right idea, I don't think you're going far enough. I think we should all get behind that and be done with it. I also think you should stop questioning every entry here. Rx StrangeLove 15:10, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted how would this help the encyclopedia? --Tbeatty 05:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  By helping users who are interested in the many Scientology-related articles on Wikipedia state their interest in a simple, easy way. -Silence 06:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  Join Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology. If you feel the desperate need, see if the other people there would like to have a user box like {{WikiProject member/Scientology}}… HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 08:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  I already pointed out above that there is a major difference between joining a WikiProject, which entails responsibility towards that project's specific goals and aims, and adding an interest-related userbox to your userpage, which only denotes interest or involvement in an encyclopedic topic: much more casual, and thus much more appealing to users who don't want to get tied down by individual WikiProjects, but do want to express their interest or expertise in certain areas of Wikipedia. Plus, obviously, many WikiProjects find userboxes extremely valuable tools for identifying members at a glance, so this could just as easily become a userbox used by that project (and, in fact, surely will, as soon as it's undeleted). I don't see a "desperate need", but there's also no desperate need for Babelboxes: they're just a valuable utility for Wikipedia, like interest-based userboxes (such as {{user politics}}, {{user baroque}}, and {{user architecture}}). I don't see the benefit of forbidding users from having a template specifying an interest in a specific major religion with dozens and dozens of important Wikipedia articles devoted to it. There's obviously nothing wrong with {{user religion interest}}, so why is there something wrong with corresponding userboxes for individual religions? Arbitrarily forbidding them expressing a certain major and significant interest in userbox form, and essentially forcing people to use a specific method if they want to contact other users with an interest, seems rather absurd, and certainly counterproductive with respect to Wikipedia's interests. Giving users more options is a Good Thing. -Silence 08:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  I was unaware that joining a WikiProject entails "responsibility towards that project's specific goals and aims"!!! The project I have the most experience with, WP:Beatles, has a core of dedicated users and a larger number of people who just seem interested in the topic and edit as the spirit moves them and there's nothing at all wrong with that. So I'm not following that argument too well. ++Lar: t/c 17:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  And I'm sure not all of those users have signed up at the project, much less all of the users who commonly edit articles related to The Beatles! I was not trying to imply that any one WikiProject or other is at all restrictive in its goals, merely pointing out that some users prefer to sign up at WikiProjects, and others prefer to express relevant interests using userboxes. Forbidding one or the other, and especially arbitrarily forbidding a specific interest-related userbox for a randomly-selected religion, is clearly not remotely helpful to anyone (and is, in fact, harmful). There is no policy justification for banning the use of messages along the lines of "This user is interested in the encyclopedic topic Scientology." or anything of the sort, especially when the template hasn't gone through TfD (or even been given a chance to exist at all, even is a test run!). I'm not arguing against WikiProjects, I'm arguing for letting the users decide how they prefer to help Wikipedia! More options means more activity and interest from users with different tendencies and preferences, which ultimately, in the long run, means much more valuable editing. Why is that simple idea apparently so repulsive to so many users here?

  The complete unwillingness to compromise, discuss the relevant propositions (chiefly "subst + move/reword" as an alternative to "subst + delete" for certain templates), or try new solutions out to at least find out if there's a better way, being expressed here is horrifying. Are we so stuck in the mud at this point that we shoot at any hand that tries to pull us out of it? Replacing belief-expressing userboxes with interest/expertise-expressing ones is an extremely reasonable proposal that could have immense value for Wikipedia, both in converting userboxes of mediocre relevance to ones of high relevant for Wikipedia, and in diffusing a huge number of potential conflicts and disputes that will arise over merely deleting such templates without weighing the other options. The only explanation I can see for such unwillingness even to discuss that proposal is that too many users are wrapped up in battling the "enemy" to evem remember that peace is more important than absolute victory, as that's what will let us, all of us, return to editing the encyclopedia as quickly as possible with as little hostility and resentment as possible. That's all I'm arguing for. -Silence 22:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy delete as patent nonsense. JUST KIDDING ... undelete as an improper speedy. Admins should enforce policy, not invent what they would like for it to be. BigDT 05:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'm fairly disappointed that you, and several other users above, seem not to be paying any attention at all to the specific argument above for how to handle all these userboxes, but just voting as a knee-jerk reaction the same way you vote for all religion-related userboxes. No wonder we're having such a communication breakdown on these debates, if people are just autovoting for everything based on their hot-button issues, not on the specific situation or possibilities.... Oy. -Silence 08:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  My vote has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't utter. I meant exactly what I said (all joking aside) in this vote. If I were basing my vote on religion, I certainly wouldn't be voting to keep scientology, atheist, or varies sex. As I said in my vote on this and on ever other DRV, my vote is because it was an improper speedy. This deletion, Template:User Church of Christ, Template:User sumofpi, Template:User atheist, Template:User Christian, and Template:User varied sex - every single one of them - were improper speedies. The ONLY question that matters is whether or not the speedy was proper. It is not a knee-jerk vote on a hot button issue. It is a vote against out-of-process deletes that by all rights SHOULD have been speedy undeletes. This is hardly even debatable. If something doesn't fit the WP:CSD, how can it be speedied? If the speedy was improper, the only recourse I see under the rules is to undelete. "We don't like the policy" is not a reason for ignoring it. BigDT 12:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  "My vote has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't utter." - And nowhere did I say that your vote was based on religion. Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't utter. The thing is, sumofpi and varied sex were improper speedies because they don't fall under T1 or T2, but atheist and CoC and Christian and scientology (and Zoroastrian and sikh, which haven't been nominated here yet) were improper speedies for non-policy-related-matters: because they should have been resolved through renaming and rewording, rather than immediately going to the last resort of speedy-deletion. And they still should: {{user atheist}} should be moved to {{user atheism}}, "This user is interested in atheism." If T2 is here for keeps, then we should vote in the appropriate manner to enforce it, but we also shouldn't get so trigger-happy that we don't consider any viable options except speedy-deleting! -Silence 14:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  "voting as a knee-jerk reaction the same way you vote for all religion-related userboxes" - I interpreted this to mean, "you are voting this way because it is about religion." If you say that this was not the message you were trying to convey, I will WP:AGF. If T2 becomes the law of the land, then obviously, everything having to do with religion gets speedied. As for changing the content of Christian, atheist, etc, I don't like that one bit. Make a new one that says, "this user is interested in Christianity" - that's fine. I can't speak for everyone who has the former {{user Christian}} on their page, but I would think that many/most would have little interest in one that just expresses an interest, rather than a membership. Take it out of the context of religion for a moment. "This user is a Senator". "This user is interested in the Senate". They express totally different messages. It may be that both are true ... but you can't just assume that they are both true and put words in everyone's mouth. I put the userbox on my page as an expression of belief, not as an expression of editing interest. It happens to be an editing interest, but that doesn't make the two equivalent. If T2 becomes law, I'd rather subst/speedy all religion boxes than turn them into something they don't necessarilly mean. BigDT 03:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  I apologize for being unclear in my initial comment, I didn't mean to imply that the religious nature was playing a role in people's votes, merely pointing out that the same people who always vote "delete" on this type of userbox are voting delete here, and the same people who always vote "keep" on this type of userbox are voting keep here, which suggested to me that users were ignoring the actual suggestion I made for this box. The comments confirmed it: only one or two users seemed at all aware of what I was suggesting, and even those misunderstood certain aspects of it. For example, you've missed the aspect of my suggestion where we subst all these templates before moving and rewriting them (in other words, "subst-move-and-rewrite" rather than the laborious "subst-delete-and-DRV"), thus ensuring that the original users keep their version, while we simultaneously fix the problem with that version for future users, all without any messy deletions and the fights they inevitably generate. Simple, subtle, effective. The pro-userboxers get their substed T2 versions and their templateified non-T2 versions, and the anti-userboxers get to eliminate all POV-expressing user-templates in a non-offensive and easy way that will ensure the quickest and smoothest transition period, thus allowing us all to get back to working on the encyclopedia. So, to state yet again the sequence of events (example template: {{user muslim}}): (1) subst {{user muslim}} to all the users' pages; (2) move {{user muslim}} to {{user islam}}; {3) change text from "This user is a Muslim." to "This user is interested in Islam."; (4) profit! -Silence 20:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted. —Phil | Talk 08:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - although I've no objection to a 'this user edits Scientology-related articles' neing created as an alternative. --Doc ^ask? 12:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  That's exactly what I created this vote for: to make such a template, something impossible to do at the most consistent and intuitive name available ({{user scientology}}) unless the template's undelete-protected. And if we're going to do that, we might as well just undelete the template itself and then make the change, since it hardly makes a difference one way or the other if the POV-expressing version isn't the current one, and salvaging the edit history is a very worthy thing to do in the long run. Though if for some reason that's completely unacceptable, at least unprotecting it would be sufficient for making the new template, and would be satisfactory in the broader sense. The main reason I brought this to vote wasn't to see how many people like or don't like T2 (such a banal and irrelevant matter is already demonstrated by other DRVs): it was to get an idea of whether people would be interested in getting rid of many of the POVed userboxes through subtler and more diplomatic means than deletion where possible, like rewrites and page-moves, since I've suggested this in several places so far but gotten little response. So far, that attempt at opinion-gauging has been unsuccessful, as most peole don't seem willing or able to judge the specific situation at hand and say what they think about the "opinion -> interest" move option. :/ Thanks for voicing your mind on the matter, at least, doc, even though I don't fully understand your vote. -Silence 14:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete Scientology seems to me often more like a business than a religion. Homestarmy 12:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  That isn't really a relevant issue here. -Silence 14:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  Well it is to me in terms of me deciding what my vote is :/.

• Keep deleted for obvious reasons. - Mailer Diablo 17:05, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted in parallel with all the other religion/belief userboxes that also need to go or stay gone. ++Lar: t/c 17:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• SUPER Strong keep deleted as discussed - Glen ^T_C (Stollery) 17:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted Although it would be nice to know why the hell this whackjob is messing with the Psychiatry page, just no. --mboverload@ 18:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC) Long history of deceptio
• Undelete, by standards of Wikipedia:Userbox_policy. I am rather disgusted that the votes focus entirely on the subject matter. This should not be the case. It doesn't really matter whether the subject matter is scientology or the scientific method. What should matter to us are the standards that we universally use to judge the appropriateness of userboxes..... oh, wait a minute. There's the big problem. We don't have accepted standards on this yet. That, of course, leaves people to vote with their gut. Hence the guy who voted undelete because he or she did not like the Church of Scientology. Thank you much for the vote, I think it's the right decision, but I disagree with your reason behind it.

  And, unlike some people (let's not be coy, I'm talking about Cyde), I don't think the ends justify the means, no matter how correct the ends may be. This entire userbox mess is a prime example of the necessity of playing on an even foundation, an even playing field. What we really need is order. That is why I strongly suggest that you take your decisions on votes for deletion or undeletion of userbox templates based not upon individual feelings (e.g., "I'm afraid templates are going to take us over! TOO DIVISIVE. DELETE." or "I smoke weed, so I should support the FREEDOM OF SPEECH of this pro-drug template! UNDELETE.") but upon a standard policy. Imagine if we had the same situation, where everyone is coming from a different direction, with NPOV. Or notability. Every single AfD vote, people would be coming from different ideas as to what is notable. (Come to think of it, sometimes people do, at that, but they get sorted out...)

  Now, one important thing. Yes, I know there isn't OFFICIALLY a policy on this but this doesn't prevent you from using it. When the userbox policy went to the polls it got 61%, so it's not just some random idea out of nowhere. Most support it. It's not official policy at this time because it didn't achieve a supermajority, and we really need to get something that is official. But, as long as you are going to vote by some criteria, for Wikipedia's sake, please, do it by an orderly criteria such as the candidate official policy. You can see it at Wikipedia:Userbox_policy. I hope we can make it actual official policy soon (or, some other policy, after discussion). This is very important, as it is causing a total lack of order that is very harmful to us. Follow Wikipedia:Userbox policy! D. G. 07:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete even though this is an almost useless userbox forced by T2, it doesn't meet T2 (or T1) standards, and thus should be send to TfD. TheJabberwʘck 18:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Why does it seem like close to 100% of the "delete" and "undelete" voters alike didn't bother reading the initial reasoning for the undelete? Nowhere have I contested that "This user is a Scientologist." falls under T2: the reason this should be undeleted is so that a new, much more valuable (as shown by the fact that almost no users ever put the original form of this template on their userpages) template can be created in place of the original, while preserving the original name and edit history. Both sides of this debate seem to be too much on autopilot to really consider the circumstances here.
• The reason this, {{user atheist}}, {{user Christian}}, {{user sikh}}, {{user Zoroastrian}}, etc. should be undeleted isn't because they're OK in their current formats (they aren't, if T2 is policy): it's because they can extremely easily be converted to acceptable versions, thus diffusing the problem and slicing smoothly through the tangled Gordian's knot of this dispute. Rather than wasting more time on DRV debates like this, why not simply remove the unacceptable elements from templates like these and convert a troublesome problem into a useful tool, all while avoiding deletion-generated hostilities? That is what I'm arguing for, and why I proposed this DRV: so we can stop wasting time on this userbox hatin' and return to editing the encyclopedia, transitioning into a T2-adherent set of userboxes as smoothly and easily as possible. Are the pro- and anti-userboxers too consumed by this debate to care anymore about striving for peace and compromise? -Silence 18:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - if someone wants to create the above "This user is interested in scientology", there is nothing whatsoever stopping them from doing that. The focus of this DRV should be soley whether the deletion of the template that actually existed was appropriate, purely because the two templates are not mutually exclusive. You can create "This user is interested in scientology" right now, today, so there doesn't need to be a vote/consensus/expression of opinion/whatever you want to call what we are doing here on it. BigDT 18:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  You are incorrect, it's impossible to create a new template with the same name at Template:User_scientology: the page is protected. The same applies to {{user christian}}, {{user sikh}}, {{user atheist}}, {{user Zoroastrian}}, {{user Church of Christ}}, and, come to think of it, {{user creationist}} and {{user evolution}}, which could also be converted into very valuable interest/specialty-expressing templates. (And, as is the case with the scientology template, I'd expect that most users who are interested in creationism on Wikipedia, and work regularly on that topic, aren't actually creationists.) Furthermore, as I mentioned previously, it would be very helpful to be able to keep the old edit histories around (i.e. accessible to non-admins), hence the benefit of an undelete here, and an undelete-and-move for the other templates I just mentioned (in addition to the benefit that it will make it impossible for us to waste more time with DRVs of these in the future, will keep the Talk pages cohesive, and will consume less time than a simple subst-and-delete). -Silence 19:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  Compromise Suggestion I apologize - I misread your point and purpose then ... how about this as a solution, (1) request that this DRV be ended as WP:SNOW. It isn't really going to ever accomplish anything because the only question answered in a DRVU is whether the template that used to exist should be undeleted. (2) Create a new template somewhere else containing the text that you would like. (3) Use {{Editprotected}} on the talk page of Template:User scientology and request that an administrator unprotect it and redirect it to your new template.

  I very much appreciate the helpful suggestions, but I don't like this specific suggestion at all. It sounds like a monstrous waste of time, incredibly unnecessary, and honestly just plain silly in the level of bureaucratic wrangling and redirecting required. What's so intolerable about the 20 seconds required to undelete the template, alter the text slightly, and move on with our lives? That suggestion itself was a major compromise. Yours just seems bizarre: I see no reason to believe WP:SNOW applies here, this template is meant to answer the question of whether the template that used to exist should be undeleted (the only difference is the reason it should be undeleted: so it can be edited into a more useful template, not so it can be kept in its unacceptable form), creating a new template elsewhere is wasteful of Wikipedia resources (and making brand-new userboxes at this point is discouraged anyway), and {{editprotected}} won't restore the edit history, though if this DRV fails (though I see no reason why it should; no good rationale's been proposed yet for not undeleting this so it can be converted into an acceptable and valiable userbox), I'll certainly use {{editprotected}} so the new template can at least be created, even if the history's lost. C'mon, I thought the main rationale anti-userboxers were using for all their "creative" DRV and TfD interpretations was that result, not process, is importnat? If that's the case, then why are those exact same people suddenly refusing to consider the result (and the quickest way to reach that result) when the circumstances change slightly? -Silence 19:51, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted, T1. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Consensus seems to be emerging to disallow such religion templates in template space now, but let's allow people to place this on their userpages in raw code only. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, T2 isn't even a solid policy yet. How can it be enforced? JohnnyBGood t c 00:53, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

  It's become policy because it reflects a pre-existing practice that fulfils a need. That need was previously being met by a contrived reading of T1. Having a clear T2, as we do now, is a much better solution than stretching the words of T1 beyond their natural meaning. You'll find that a lot of admins will enforce T2, even people like me who were uncomfortable about the way the words of T1 were previously being stretched. Metamagician3000 09:22, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted policy is decriptive, not proscriptive. -- Drini 21:04, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. The only reason this was brought here it's because Tony Sidaway deleted it. It's a bad faith nomination with no real arguments and thus should be closed. -- Drini 21:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

  This claim is grossly inaccurate, and rather bizarre (why would I care who deleted it? I have no issue with Tony Sidaway). You clearly have not read any of the discussion involved in this template's nomination at all (much like most of the other voters here). Please review Wikipedia:Assume good faith and remember to treat your fellow editors in a respectful and polite manner, and also remember that a healthy debate requires that all participants respond to one anothers' points, and do not merely dismiss arguments based on ad hominem claims. (In reality, the reason this template was nominated for undeletion is because a template for "This user is interested in Scientology." would clearly be very useful and appropriate for Wikipedia, and having such a template at this specific name makes by far the most sense, and is by far the most consistent with the dozens of other userboxes which have now been changed per my above proposal at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion. The fact that this vote has failed to generate any real discussion of the issue it was nominated for is indicative of an unwillingness by the editors here to discuss or reason about the relevant issues; it will now be necessary to wait until the environment has changed to a healthier and more open-minded one before this template can be renominated for undeletion, unfortunately.) Thank you for your vote, and have a nice day. -Silence 21:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

  Huh? Why do you think that? Yet another lame sig I came up with ^{T | @ | C} 23:15, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted per accepted intepretation of T1. Cynical 15:22, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per nom & reword. An interest in Scientology is not inflammatory or divisive to me, and I can't see it being taken as such by others.--Ssbohio 00:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn and reword, deletion is not the only course of action and I don't think is the best one for templates like these. --AySz88^-^ 17:42, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. You don't need this undeleted to create a legitimate version of this template; just re-create something worthwhile at the same name. If we accept that the template as it used to stand was unacceptable, what possible reason is there for wanting undeletion first? fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 21:56, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

  Actually, no, you can't do that - the page has a {{deletedpage}} and is protected. --AySz88^-^ 02:05, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

  It doesn't need to be undeleted to fix that, just unprotected. There's no reason to undelete this template in order to replace it with a legitimate one. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 04:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

  The benefit of unprotection is that the edit history, within which there was absolutely nothing so unacceptable that it can't even be permitted to be viewed as a past edit, can be viewed by users to see the template's history. If it makes you feel better to fit unprotect this template and replace it with the current version, then undelete the old edits so they can be viewed again, that's fine too; it doesn't make a difference to me. But if for some reason (noone's yet provided a convincing one) it's unacceptable to let people view these old edits, then I'll be satisfied, as I've said several times above, with at least the bare-minimum change: unprotection so a new template can be created here. -Silence 04:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

  I am willing to unprotect the template right now, if I'm assured that no-one will try to take advantage of this to recreate an unacceptable template. I am not willing to undelete a template that was quite rightfully deleted when I'm not convinced there's a good reason to do so. My talk page is over there somewhere -----> fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 08:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete. All or nothing policy is needed or this one by one battle will go on forever. --StuffOfInterest 12:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. I think the form "This user is interested in Scientology" is acceptable. If it reverts to its original form I'd say then it should be speedied and no second chance. concur with GTBacchus that attempts to turn this into a speediable belief template could be treated as vandalism. --Tony Sidaway 16:28, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete as an interest box, not a belief box. That's a critical difference, and helps maintain the atmosphere of an encyclopedia, not a clubhouse. If it reverts (spontaneously?) to its original form I'd say it should be dealt with as simple vandalism and/or disruption; i.e., not speedied. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete This whole crusade against ideologies has gotten way out of hand. Salvage it as an interest if nothing else. CelestialRender 23:45, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

  "Crusade against ideologies"? I know the anti-userbox position has been explained better than that. We're trying to keep an encyclopedia from giving every appearance of a political rally. When you start looking like a political rally, more and more activists start showing up and feeling welcome. They're not. Activists would love to control Wikipedia, because we are becoming more and more trusted as a reliable source of truth. Remember what Jimbo said: "Userboxes of a political or, more broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project. They are attractive to the wrong kinds of people, and they give visitors the wrong idea of what it means to be a Wikipedian." Read between the lines - there really are "wrong kinds of people" for this project. It really does mean something to be a Wikipedian. It doesn't mean advertising and representing for your biases. Even if you don't agree, please try to assume good faith, and avoid characterizing the good faith efforts of others as a crusade against ideologies. The only ideology I'm against is the one holding that Wikipedia is a free webhost. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:45, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

• CommentSorry this isn't threaded right, but I have no clue on that formatting yet. I'm trying to AGF but it's getting difficult due to the fact that this whole userbox war has been started...in order that userboxes won't divide us. I hardly see how someone expressing their views on their user page makes Wikipedia look like a political rally. The pages are still far less biased than half of the textbooks I've read, and I think that speaks for itself. I just think we should live and let live and stop treading on each other's toes over something as silly as userboxes. CelestialRender 15:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:User Church of Christ

Tony Sidaway deleted this page. Undelete! Mr Bisciut 22:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• 19:40, 12 May 2006 Tony Sidaway deleted "Template:User Church of Christ" (WP:CSD#Templates)

• Undelete just like all of the others. Until a community consensus is reached and the policy changed, it is not up to administrators to enforce a non-existent policy. BigDT 22:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• My vote: undelete this along with the two listed on this page ({{user christian}} and {{user atheist}}) and the other religion templates recently deleted ({{user sikh}}, {{user Zoroastrian}} and {{user scientology}}), before we get (falsely) accused of bigotry: there's no need to stir up ill-will by deleting arbitrary specific religions' userboxes. It should either be all or nothing, regardless of the solution. It seems to me that the ideal way to implement T2 (assuming it's accepted policy) while wasting as little time and effort as possible and causing as few wars and conflicts over it as possible, is to simply move most belief-based templates to interest-based ones. In other words, if T2 is established policy (obviously T1 doesn't apply here), rather than stirring up trouble with mass-deletions (Improv's strategy from a while back, which failed) or random deletions (the current strategy, which is also failing), change the text to express an interest, involvement or specialty in the topic the userbox deals with. For example, change {{user muslim}} ("This user is a Muslim") to {{user islam}} ("This user is interested in Islam"), as what articles you're willing or able to edit is much more relevant to Wikipedia than what religion you follow; there's no need to subdivide Muslim editors of Islam-related articles from non-Muslim editors of Islam-related articles. Likewise, undelete this so it can be changed to an interest-based one that doesn't exclude people who don't belong to that specific Church but are knowledgeable or otherwise involved in the topic, and undelete and move {{user sikh}} to {{user sikhism}}, {{user Zoroastrian}} to {{user zoroastrianism}}, and simply change the text in {{user scientology}} to "This user is interested in Scientology." (Surely someone Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology would appreciate!) A simple move is much faster than having to create brand-new templates, and preserves many templates' edit histories, talk pages, and layouts efficiently. And, most appealingly, it's a quick and easy solution that will resolve people's worries about POV-expressing templates without generating undue hostility or censorship-paranoia. -Silence 22:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, T1&T2. And it is going to be all or nothing, just give us a little more time. It would be all or nothing a lot sooner if every little thing wasn't being brought to DRVU, actually. --Cyde Weys 22:43, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Maybe if the discussion on the CSD talk page was completed with reasonable arguments that separate vote-stacking and userboxes for instance this may be easier. Perhaps putting more work into WP:MACK would be a solution. Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Do whatever happens to {{User christian}} and {{User atheist}} and would it kill anyone to table/put a moriatorium on new T2 deletions until the first one is off DRVU? Kotepho 22:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Admins seem to be more afraid of being told not to wheel war than being bold in reacting to this controversy. Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted and Userfy - along with ALL other Religion templates, so they can be used on User pages, just not stored in Template space. Nhprman 23:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Why is Template space so special that it can't be used for Religion templates? Are they really harming Wikipedia? Or are they just annoying admins? Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted This can be hardcoded if anyone needs it --Doc ^ask? 23:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  You mean someone needs to have HTML knowledge to make it up. And how is it suddenly going to be reasonable to have this statement on their page just because the mechanism of putting it there changes? Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete per BigDT. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 23:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2, see the Scientology userbox discussion for my concerns about Silence's idea. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:38, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2 and the above Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted divisive.--MONGO 02:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  What about inflammatory? Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete T2 is pretty new, come on now. Besides, this time it's not even about a religion, but merely a denomination. Homestarmy 12:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted and write something on your userpage describing your interest in this topic instead of arguing here about it. Rx StrangeLove 18:25, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - T1/2. Metamagician3000 07:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  T2 is still proposed criteria that is basically being held on the page while a consensus is created. T1 defines that it must be divisive and inflammatory, how is it both? Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

  I respect your opinion but I disagree. T2 is good policy because it gives effect to an existing practice for which there was a need. The practice was previously given a basis in policy by a contrived reading of T1. The reason that a few of us pushed for the new T2 was to put the practice on a proper basis - have somewhere in the policies where it could find a proper home for all to see. But please understand that Wikipedia policies are not law. The various policies and so on give practical guidance, but they don't enshrine rights. If a practice goes beyond the written policy for justifiable reasons, that causes some discomfort and inconsistency, but they may best be addressed on some occasions by modifying the wording of the policy to reflect the practice. I've come to the view that this has been one such occasion. After all these months, it was time to make some concerted effort to get controversial userboxes out of template space. That need justifies the practice, and that justifies formalising it as T2, or an addition to T1, or whatever. I'm not the only one who will enforce T2 even while having been uncomfortable in the past about stretching the words of T1. Metamagician3000 09:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted per T2. Can always be restored when a better policy is implemented. TheJabberwʘck 18:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  T2 is not policy just because it is on the CSD page. It has been rushed into use by a few admins, and its constant referencing here wont help in settling the difficulties with it. Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted divisive. - Mailer Diablo 00:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

  What about inflammatory, where is the statement in it intended to inflame anything? Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. Classic T1. (would probably be called a T2 now) --Tony Sidaway 03:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. How is a statement of belief divisive and inflammatory. Seems like people think that T1 only needs one criteria, in which case any categorisation comes under divisive and hence all templates based on categories can be chosen. I am not trying to set up a straw man, I am just stating that to be fair, having a bunch of admins going gun-ho to delete using a newly created criteria before it settles down will not help at all. The worst that could happen is that wikipedia gets a permanent name as being controlled by rogue admins, and the overall quality of the encyclopedia will decrease. Ansell Review my progress! 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, no reason to delete. Stifle (talk) 18:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, meets WP:UBX, Wikipedia:Userbox policy and T1. T2 is not valid at this time.JohnnyBGood t c 21:25, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userbox policy is a misnomer - it isn't policy - and has no hope of ever being so. WP:CSD however is policy. --Doc ^ask? 15:44, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete. Hezzy 01:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. All or nothing policy is needed or this one by one battle will go on forever. --StuffOfInterest 12:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - valid application of T2. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:28, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete There obviously is no consensus here...just a group of people trying to push their views on what is and is not appropriate, and a fine example of "making a point" at the expense of the Wikipedia community. Consider: What's more divisive, the userboxes or the war over them? CelestialRender 23:48, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

  The userboxes - and until you understand why we're saying that, I guess you'll find this movement to delete them inexplicable. Please assume good faith, and consider that we might have a point that you haven't seen yet. If I weren't convinced that Wikipedia's future is at stake here, I would not bother messing around with it, I assure you. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment It's not just the war that I disagree with, but the way it's being fought. For instance, a couple of days ago when a template won its TfD and was still subst and deleted...I think that the opposition to userboxes is just getting overzealous in its pursuit of what I have yet to see as any sort of real threat. If you have some great example that shows the point against them, I'd love a link, but so far all I've seen is claims that they're unnecessary and unencyclopedic..which is true of lots of things on the Wikipedia. Just because we're writing an encyclopedia doesn't mean we can't have personalities too.

Template:User iamafish-en, Template:User iamalemming-en, Template:User iamamonarch-en and Template:User iamanaeroplane-en

File:CohoSalmon.jpeg

This user is a fish, or at least thinks so.

This user is a lemming, or at least thinks so.

File:British Royal Family.jpg

This user is a monarch, or a megalomaniac.

File:FA-22 Raptor.jpg

This user is an aeroplane, and can be annoying. No offence to pilots.

All were deleted just 2 days and 4 hours after the nom by the nominator. I suggest relisting. --Rory096 21:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Utter crap - keep deleting - and if anyone really want the code we can put it on their page. --Doc ^ask? 21:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Even if it should be deleted, we should be going through process to do it (and it probably would have been deleted if it had). --Rory096 21:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Take some time to read WP:SNOW and WP:POINT. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 21:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Along the same lines, it would be good to read Process is important and Reduce confusion by following policy, as they share some wisdom on the value of policy & process, especially in areas of controversy.--Ssbohio 02:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per compromise above. Let me remind everyone that the templates themselves were only deleted after they were substituted onto all userpages that had included them. These templates are now a non-issue, as even if they are undeleted, they will just simply be orphaned unencyclopedic templates. --Cyde Weys 21:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • So if templates are substed before being deleted out of process it's fine? That seems silly to me. --Rory096 21:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Like I suggested, take some time to read WP:SNOW and WP:POINT. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 21:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
      • WP:POINT? Like TfDing dozens of userboxen with the same nom and then closing the debates yourself? --Rory096 22:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
        • Please read WP:POINT again. What you are describing is NOT WP:POINT. --Cyde Weys 22:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
          • Well, then I'm not sure what he's referring to. --Rory096 22:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Subst and delete worked well for MarkSweep. Kotepho 22:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Keep Deleted and Subst'd so users can continue to use them in User space. Nhprman 23:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment -- can we see what the templates being discused are? --T-rex 14:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• I thought a policy had been put in place to prevent new user templates from being created (in which case keep deleted), if however I am mistaken and that is not policy then undelete and relist --T-rex 19:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete -- utterly stupid, but not meriting a speedy. And certainly NOT meriting a deletion by the nominator--absolutely unacceptable. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 00:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and list at TfD Do not merit criteria for speedy deletion. JoshuaZ 00:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, return to TFD - they are stupid, but stupid isn't a speedyable offense. BigDT 03:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, clearly patent nonsense and meaningless. Doesn't pass Wikipedia:Userbox policy. D. G. 07:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
  • The userbox policy is only proposed, and isn't a CSD either. --Rory096 21:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Patent nonsense is a general site-wide Wikipedia deletion policy. --Cyde↔Weys 15:46, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Patent nonsense refers to jibbererish like "489hhfb8+jc8.9ejr$1" or "Ikki-ikki-ikki PaTanG!", not<s\> or 'confused content' that 'can't be made sense of' I.e. "2+2=11". Not so much things that may or may not be funny Mike McGregor (Can) 12:31, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• undelete improper deletion. these never met T1 or the T2 under discussion. Mike McGregor (Can) 15:32, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per Matt. TheJabberwʘck 17:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete Seems that they don't meet speedy criteria :/. Homestarmy 19:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I have replaced this discussion per Wikipedia:Undeletion policy, which clearly says "A page listed for undeletion should remain on DRV for at least five days." As this was listed on the 15th, and today is the 18th, that period has not yet expired. --Rory096 22:38, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and let the TFD run its course. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:24, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per the others - deletion by nominator is not appropriate IMHO, although the nominator seems to think everyone does it. Which, as of late might have some truth to it... *sigh* Yet another lame sig I came up with ^{T | @ | C} 08:37, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete тəzєті 13:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• No harm either way - userboxen seem a little pointless but not an insult or an attack on anything -- Tawker 14:00, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, Cyde not to have a cookie tonight.. The Land 13:02, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Deleted How can a person become an inanimate thing? :) Funnybunny (^talk/_{Counter Vandalism Unit}) 19:07, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Total nonsense. WarpstarRider 21:39, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. All or nothing policy is needed or this one by one battle will go on forever. --StuffOfInterest 12:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted as unencyclopedic foolishness, with no prejudice against users putting the code on their pages, if they're so inclined, since it's neither divisive nor inflammatory. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:24, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. There was no consensus to delete these. Lemmings and fish must not have been as scary to Cyde as pirates and ninjas, but that doesn't mean they should have been deleted. -MrFizyx 21:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Newsflash: we're here to write an encyclopedia. Garrett^Talk 22:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Newsflash: so are people who disagree with you. -MrFizyx 15:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete Once again, it's personal space and there's nothing wrong with a bit of unoffensive Monty Python style humour. Are we going to start having daily votes to delete templates just because a certain individual doesn't find them funny?--Folksong 23:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Undelete. Let's not try to apply policy you think should be there but have been unable to pass. Obviously neither of these can fit either T1 or T2, unencyclopedic is not a valid speedy criteria for templates. Speedy undelete is necessary, put it through TfD if you want and try to get a real consensus instead of underhanded back-stabbing. Someone needs to do something about the admins who are harming the project by using their privilages to carry out personal crusades. Loom91 16:03, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Undelete same as Loom91. It seems a ton of admins have no respect for process from what little I've seen around here. CelestialRender 00:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete Process is important and reduce confusion by following policy. Respect the process by letting it run its course, and respect that consensus on userboxes has not emerged.--Ssbohio 02:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:User sumofpi and Template:User Sumofpi2

I apologize if I did not do this correctly - this is my first time raising a deletion review.

I refer to Wp:tfd#Template:User_sumofpi and [[1]].

For reference, here is the closing administrator's summary:

The result of the debate was speedy keep the content. As comments overwhelmingly addressed the content of the box rather the status which it occupies, I'm closing this as a subst the content and delete the actual template. No actual content is lost in the process, and the removal of said code to a user's page places it beyond the bailiwick of TfD and CSD.

In the case of the former, there were 24 keep votes and a whopping FOUR delete votes. Most people who expressed any other meaningful sentiments at all clearly understood that they were voting to keep the template itself, not just the content. In the case of the latter, 21 people voted to keep it. Six voted to userfy or delete it. Again, those who expressed an opinion from which an understanding can be derived seemed to understand that they were voting to keep the template itself, not just the content.

I would ask that the anti-Userbox administrators respect the TFD process and delete or keep according to consensus, not according to their personal views on userboxes BigDT 20:15, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• And the template is being kept on the user's pages where they wanted it. No content is being deleted. I observed the avalanche of keeps and acted appropriately. Process has been followed throughout. Mackensen (talk) 20:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • In point of fact, the template is being deleted, with only the code being kept, copied however many times to users' pages. The nom was in templates for deletion, and the consensus was to keep. Bare logic would dictate that consensus was to keep the template.--Ssbohio 02:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Wow, are we just totally ignoring votes now? It's getting harder and harder to assume good faith the more I read this page. CelestialRender 00:02, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - This isn't a vote. If those 24 people saying keep didn't address any actual issues of why this needs to remain a userbox, and they didn't, then the template is substituted and deleted. --Cyde Weys 20:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Excellent job. endorse close. --Tony Sidaway 20:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• People get to keep their decorations - but we get them out of the template space - excellent compromise endorse --Doc ^ask? 20:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• If you guys consider that to be a "compromise", why are we wasting our time on TFD discussing them? Whether the consensus is delete or keep, you will do the same thing. BigDT 20:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  It's hardly a waste. We went to TfD to see what people wanted. It's clear they want these boxes on their pages. So they have boxes on their pages, and we've followed process to the letter. No more quiet deletions. No more boxes strangled in the dark. Now everyone's userpages can look just as they did before, with no objection from any administrator because the boxes are no longer in the template namespace. Mackensen (talk) 20:32, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  • From the TfD debate & the summary posted here, the clear consensus, to the point of supermajority, was to keep the template. The template was deleted. Arguing that the code was kept, so the deletion of the template was ok, is arguing a side issue. The template itself garnered a sizable majority to keep.
• Undelete I have to say that since the decision was to keep the template, it should have been kept. If people wanted it to be subst'ed and deleted, they would have voted that way. —MiraLuka 20:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Isn't the net result the same? Mackensen (talk) 20:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  No, it is not the same. In one scenario, the one chosen by the people at TfD, the template stays. What actually happened was that the template was deleted. —MiraLuka 20:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Please step outside this narrowness for a second. The template is on people's pages. It has stayed there. The instance in the Template space is gone. What's wrong with this outcome? Mackensen (talk) 20:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  What's wrong with the outcome is that it doesn't respect the consensus developed in TfD. Having a userbox template & having raw code on each user's page may make no difference to you, but, to quote Wordsworth, "but oh, the difference to me." If the consensus was to subst & delete, then subst & delete would have been the right thing to do. That wasn't the consensus, and deletion wasn't the right thing to do, on that basis.--Ssbohio 02:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• I offer as evidence of the actual consensus, the vote counts themselves:
  • • Subst and Delete (2) - Doc, Nhprman
    • Delete (3) - Steinbach, ShiningEyes, Cyde (inferred as nominator)
    • Keep, unambiguously meaning keep the template itself (12) - BigDT, Kris18, Wandering Star, Anonymous_Anonymous, Oni Ookami Alfador, Harvestdancer, Grafikim, Hezzy, NetStormer, Ibaranoff24, The Giant Puffin
    • Keep, not spelling out what they mean (11) - Homestarmy, Thistheman, Paragon12321, getcrunkjuice, Korean alpha for knowledge, Friendly Neighbor, ILovePlankton, T-rex, Edgi, Will, MrFizyx
    • Keep, unambiguously meaning keep the content, but NOT the template (1) - Septentrionalis

  Adding up those who clearly wanted to wipe out the template, that's 6. 12 people unambiguously wanted to keep the template itself. That's 12-6 in favor of keeping the template. Even if you assume that every single one of the people who didn't explicitly state what they meant by keep really meant delete (which would be a horrible assumption to make, but I mention it only for completeness), that's 12-17, which falls short of a 60% consensus. In short, I can see no justification whatsoever based on that TFD for substituting and deleting the template. BigDT 20:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  And my voice is miscounted here; see below. Septentrionalis 02:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• TFD is not a Vote. Now, stop counting and think a second at the current situation. Everyone has their box. No one's expression has been hindered. The box is not in template space anymore, which means I and all the other evil sysops no longer care whatsoever about it, and will fight to the death to keep that code on that user's page. We've got user pages too, after all. This is a clearly a good result. Mackensen (talk) 20:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  Good result or not, this is not the result chosen at TfD. —MiraLuka 20:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  If a good result occurs then we should keep it. I interpreted the TfD this way. Now, stepping outside process-boundness for a moment, is this in any way a bad result? Mackensen (talk) 21:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  I subst'ed my userboxes a long time ago. So, no, in my personal opinion, this is not a bad result. However, and I don't know how many ways I can say this, this is not the result chosen at TfD, and the opinions expressed there are the ones that matter in this instance. What's the point of putting template up at TfD if the decisions made there are going to be ignored anyway? —MiraLuka 21:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  I could ask why bother bringing it to TfD when the users ignore the voting criteria and policy, but that would be impolite. Mackensen (talk) 21:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Mackensen, there is one big difference once all userboxes are substed - they are no longer on the list of userboxes for those of us who enjoy having userboxes on our pages to look through. There are possible compromises. For example, I have taken all of the non-controversial religion userboxes and placed them along with their {{userbox}} code on a subpage in my userspace - User:BigDT/Religious_User_Boxes. I would have no problem whatsoever with doing this with every single userbox (not on my own userpage, obviously, but the current userbox menu at wp:userboxes could be changed). We could completely do away with individual userbox templates and instead of offering templates like {{user methodist}}, we'd offer a big userbox codeblock that you could copy and paste on your page. I don't have a real problem with that at all. I also wouldn't have a problem with making substing mandatory. Just like some of the user warning templates include a message forcing you to subst them, that could be done with userboxes. There are only two concerns I have: (1) that a global menu of userboxes continue to be available somewhere and (2) that administrators enforce, not impose policy - if the consensus is against your personal views, push for the policy to be changed, but don't ignore the consensus. BigDT 21:11, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • My view on the matter is that it needs to be settled in a way that both "factions" can accept. My own personal views don't enter into this. I believe the code was subst'd into the lists as well; if it wasn't, please show me where and I'll address that. Mackensen (talk) 21:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Please see Wikipedia:Userboxes/Humor and scroll down to the "Mathematics and Science" area. The sums of pi boxes were the fourth and fifth in that section. The code section could have something like I have in User:BigDT/Religious_User_Boxes. This would probably be a compromise that everyone could live with. The code is still there for anyone who wants it and there are no templates, except for the generic userbox template itself. BigDT 21:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
        • Done. Mackensen (talk) 21:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
          • Mackensen, I have added the code for those userboxes to the page in code boxes. It doesn't look spectacular, but something for users to easily copy/paste needs to be there, otherwise, they would have to edit the page and sort through table code to figure out what exactly they need to copy/paste. If there are other ways to do it (like a textarea or something), I'm open to that - I'm simply doing this as a suggested method ... there just needs to be some equivalent of the old template code there. BigDT 21:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and Slap Mackensen with a trout, regarding my undelete vote, whoever closed those was obviously ignoring both the Majority (correction Supermajority) vote, and the consensus of the community, sometimes its OK to ignore one or thye other, but never both. As for slapping Mackensen with a trout well, I just think he needs to be slapped with a trout. -- Dragoonmac - ^{If there was a problem y}_{o I'll solve it} 21:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse Deletion. These were not "votes". Wikipedia is not a Democracy, nor an experiment in anarchy. The comments for these discussions went about like this (actual comments): "Strong Keep per above "keep" votes. Strong Keep Oh but it's funny. Keep since it's an absolutely neutral userbox. Strong Keep and change to Pi to being equal to exactlly 3. Keep. Stop deleting userboxes." Sorry, but these comments did not address deletion criteria. Mackensen is right about the discretion of admins. Deleting these out of Template space and Subst'ing them does NOT destroy them or eliminate them from User pages where they are currently. I don't see a problem with what was done. Deleting these from Template space and preserving them in User space means they will never be up for deletion again. It's too bad people don't realize the positives here. I see no reason why a list of Subst'd Userboxes can't be listed somewhere. But it should not be used as a back door to social networking.- Nhprman 22:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I listed 12 votes above that were unambiguously some form of "don't delete the template itself". Picking out a few silly ones doesn't invalidate the serious ones. The "compromise" (above) may wind up being a reasonable one, but that's beside the point. Pages/templates/whatever should not be deleted when they are not somewhere in the CSD and their deletion goes against a clear consensus on *fd. For this "compromise" to be implemented, there should be a consensus. It is not up to a small group of administrators to enforce their views against established policy and the consensus. BigDT 22:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete because the consensus was obviously keep the template. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 23:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. If people want the templates substed and deleted, they can say that, but there seems to be a consensus to keep here. Should not have been deleted, definitely should not have been speedy deleted. Clarinetplayer 23:49, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse closure. Mackensen's point about the general thrust of the keep side's comments (being towards keeping the content, but not apparently caring about whether it remains in the Template: namespace) is a good one, and borne out by my own reading of the TfD. Remember, people, TfD is not a vote. A whole bunch of people showed up and decided they didn't need to provide any sort of reasoning for their "votes", because all they need to do is cast a ballot, right? Mackensen, if anything, showed excellent judgment in deciding to go with a compromise that he thought would satisfy all participants, rather than the other alternative open to him — which was discounting the views of everyone who showed up only to say "you can't tell us what to do, Cyde, you dick!". Everyone complaining about the tally needs to learn what the *fD pages are for. And then to go away, and not approach those pages again until they can prove they've been subject to several intensive sessions with a cluebat. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 01:00, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn: My voice on this was not to "keep the content and delete the template"; if I had meant that, I would have said subst as I did elsewhere. There is an unusually strong case to keep the template; and I voted accordingly. The argument that this could be used for socialization is unusually weak (the history of Pi and Talk:Pi should provide the same social group); the argument that it adds no value to the encyclopedia is false. Septentrionalis 02:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Fair enough. This is what I'm talking about: if you believe Mackensen misread the TfD discussion, that's one thing, and completely separate to how many "votes" were cast (as a frequent xfD closer, I make a point of never knowing how the tally stacks up). I'm a bit confused about this bit, though: you think this template adds value to the encyclopaedia? Do you mind elaborating, at all? Cheers, fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 03:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Not much value; but one of the purposes of userpages is to hold odd facts, like multiple digits of pi. Septentrionalis 03:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Indeed? I suspect we can delete at least a couple of paragraphs from Pi then. I can see it now ... Main article: {{User Pi}}. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 04:14, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
        • No, at most half a line, and I do not propose that :-> Septentrionalis 21:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete A supermajority vote to keep and it STILL gets deleted. Is that what Wikipedia is really about. A few people get there way and those who wanted to keep the template have there voices ingored. Sorry but I feel that is just wrong Aeon 03:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • TfD is not a vote. If you think a "supermajority" matters a damn on xfD, you are not qualified to express an opinion on DRV. You can "feel" whatever you like on this issue, but your recommendations are ill-informed at best. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 03:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Do you contend that there was a consensus to delete, then? Septentrionalis 04:02, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Go read what I wrote. You probably won't have to scroll very far, it's only a few lines up; I read your view before commenting, after all. It begins "Mackensen's point about the general thrust ...", and continues on for a short but rather wordy paragraph. You're free to draw your own conclusions from reading the discussion (evidently, you already have), but the raw tally is irrelevant. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 04:14, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
        • I won't join in criticizing your prose style; but I did read your comment, and none of those words answer "Was there a consensus to delete?" The raw tally should be adjusted in various ways (and more such adjustment is probably the real solution to votestacking); but the job of the closer is to justify such adjustments. Septentrionalis 21:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Ok explain then why there was a vote in the first place? Why then have a Vote for Deletion if it is not a vote? Aeon 06:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Uhh, we don't. There was no vote. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 09:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
    • fuddlemark's comment above about some editors being "not qualified to express an opinion" strikes me as the problem in an nutshell. SOme people here have the view that the TfD debate creates the consensus for what to do with a nominated template & the admins carry that consensus out, while the other group sees the TfD process as calling for deletion unless there's a good reason not to. In a larger sense, we have to decide which of these views is the intended purpose of TfD. I favor the first view, but the second view has merit as well.--Ssbohio 02:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete it is a pity. Based off of some of the admin explanations above I was expecting a really sharp admin descision based upon some flaky votes where people wanted to keep the content instead of the template itself. Sadly, this is not the case and nearly everyone in the debate expressed a strong desire to keep the content in the template namespace and it winds up appearing to be wikipedia politics. sigh. Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 04:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn While it is true that TfD is not a vote, there is no reason to discount opinions because "comments...addressed the content...rather the (Template namespace) status which it occupies", especially since such comments seem to imply that those people do not distinguish between Template-space text meant for userspace and text on userspace itself. In other words, such opinons don't agree with with the sentiment that similar userboxes don't belong in Template space, as they obviously don't make the distinction. --AySz88^-^ 04:32, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn. I had hoped that I had found consensus. It seems not. No reason for others to suffer from my judgement on this one. Mackensen (talk) 12:14, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • It is a useful and interesting idea; but it is a policy suggestion, or a contribution to the TfD discussion, not a closure. Septentrionalis 21:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse closure. Sorry, Mackensen, I have to disagree...you did the right thing the first time around. :) --InkSplotch^(talk) 12:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete the templates were fine the first time :/. Homestarmy 12:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete -- to support the TFD decision --T-rex 14:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted Closure made perfect sense given that we had two groups talking past each other and this was a reasonable way of making both groups happy. Please remember that TfD, AfD, etc. are not votes. JoshuaZ 00:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
  • However, TfD is about consensus. Since the nomination was to delete a template & the consensus was to keep that template, then the consensus to keep the template should have been respected. Process is important. --Ssbohio 02:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn - Deletion review discussions are supposed to focus on whether the action taken was consistent with deletion policy. Deleting a template following a supermajority consensus to keep is obviously not consistent with deletion policy. When someone nominates 'Infobox platypuses' for deletion and there is a clear consensus to keep we don't subst all uses of the template and then delete it anyway. To do so here is improper. Further, we haven't instituted a policy of restoring complicated wiki-markup to all pages... because that would be ugly and confusing - yet here it is suggested that 'ugly and confusing' is 'good'. Why? Because it annoys and confuses people? Obviously that'd be a bad reason. Because it 'removes the content from Template space'? An equally bad reason... the content belongs in Template space. Relocating complicated markup off the page was the primary reason the Template: namespace was created. If you wish to redefine the template namespace such that it is meant for 'material to be displayed on multiple pages except in the User: namespace' then I'd suggest working on such a proposal. However, that is currently not the case and making copies of the wiki-markup on each page by substitution is not the same as keeping the template. TFD discussions have always been held over whether to keep the templates. Not the contents of the templates. Try applying this 'Delete the template as a foregone conclusion but maybe subst the content' principle to other templates which achieve a 'keep' consensus to see just how utterly unjustified it is. --CBDunkerson 12:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• keep<s\> err... Undelete: Consensus was to keep the template, (as the keep consensus came at "templates for deletion")Mike McGregor (Can) 15:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per process and consensus. TheJabberwʘck 18:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete There is NO valid reason to ignore consensus in this one. If anything, this userbox is educational. --D-Day^{(Wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?}) 16:06, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. PerD-dayHezzy 01:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. All or nothing policy is needed or this one by one battle will go on forever. --StuffOfInterest 12:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Hear, hear! The disagreement over the future of userboxes looks set to become a war of attrition over in TfD The same general set of opinions on each side are marshalling up for each TfD nom. Why do hundreds of times what we should do once?--Ssbohio 02:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn/Undelete. I really don't like the fact that a handful or users have decided that my keep vote was made in ignorance. Nor do I like the apparent assumption that I don't understand the real issues. Building consensus must be done by showing respect for and being willing to learn from and educate those with opposing views. It is not done by throwing away the results when you disagree with the outcome. -MrFizyx 23:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. An administrator is a janitor whose sole purpose is to see that the community's will get carried out, not replace consensus with his personal views. Loom91 15:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per consensus reached in TfD. Further, the mass nomination of userboxes in TfD seems to me to be worse for the project than their continued existence. Last night, I edited articles, for the first time in a few days. It felt good to do something positive rather than trying to stop or reverse deletion/destruction elsewhere in the project. These interminable debates over individual userboxes sap energy from what we're here for. THat, I think, all sides can agree on. I wish I could just go down tools on the userbox TfD's, but I feel compelled to stand up for process as long as there is deletionist sentiment to continue bringing userboxes to TfD that otherwise meet policy. I can understand T1 noms, possibly even T2 (though it's hardly settled policy according to WP:CSD), but we've got userboxes (which only ever are seen in user space) being nominated because they aren't encyclopedic, for example. Excepting deletions that are clearly within policy, like copyvio's and T1's, my strong suspicion is that until userbox policy achieves consensus, "userboxes should neither be created nor destroyed." I call this the Law of Conservation of Boxes.--Ssbohio 02:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete When people say KEEP they don't mean DELETE. Yes, that is what happened. They were deleted. Look Mr Adams, I killed your daughter, but I made a clone of her without legs so it's all well and good! Jesus --mboverload@ 00:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

May 12, 2006

Template:User atheist

AtheistThis user is an Atheist.

Mackensen deleted this page. And while I have read Jimbo's statements on the userbox situation, I feel not only is he wrong, but deleting the template is harming Wikipedia. In the words of Grue: "... banning expressing people's opinions would actively harm building a neutral and objective encyclopedia."

Here's my personal reasoning: pages under the Wikipedia namespace (such as Wikipedia:Deletion_review, etc.) don't need to be NPOV, according to what I've read around the site. Why, then, do pages within the User namespace need to be NPOV? Deleting userboxes on the sole reasoning of political correctness harms the individuality of Wikipedians. Therefore I believe it should be undeleted. ^The True _Sora 18:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• User namespaces don't need to be NPOV. The template is in the Template namespace. The two are not the same. And while Grue may be right, getting this stuff out the template namespace is in no way "banning...opinions". Keep deleted, of course. I can make the code available if someone wants to subst the raw code onto their page. Mackensen (talk) 18:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • That userboxes exist in Template namespace is a matter of system architecture. This userbox should never be seen outside of user namespace, so the relevence of where the userbox code is stored would seem to be deprecated. NPOV is about the encyclopedia we produce.--Ssbohio 03:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support deletion per CSD:T1. Keep Deleted. For the record I have had this one subst'd on my page for some time. ++Lar: t/c 18:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Everyking 18:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Why? Mackensen (talk) 18:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. T1. --Tony Sidaway 18:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Is it suddenly not polite to be able to state your religious beliefs. Is the template that infuriating to you that you think it is divisive and inflammatory? It seems to me that this template is a simple statement of ones belief without any statement which would agravate any situation, unless you come to the wiki with a sense that neutral means leaving your whole life experience behind. The text is even NPOV in the way it states its point. Ansell Review my progress! 04:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment — It would be very helpful and diminish conflict, if this template remains deleted, if someone would use a bot or whatever to subst' it onto the user pages in which it was previously transcluded. That way users who haven't been following the userbox debates as closely as the people on this page won't feel that the template removal is an attack on their beliefs (or lack thereof). In fact, I strongly feel that this should be standard operating procedure for deleted userboxes. (I'd do it myself, but I don't know how to make a bot or whatever you'd use for a repetitive task like this.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Actually, I believe Cyde had proposed doing this last week, but the idea was rejected. I think it's a lovely idea myself. Mackensen (talk) 19:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'll do it if the template is kept deleted or if I get around to it before then. Kotepho 19:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete. We should not continue going down the road which leads towards censorship of userspace. Friendly Neighbour 19:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Absolutely right. How is Template:User atheist in the user space? Mackensen (talk) 19:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Most of the debate is now about the userspace. Therefore, I expect a Step Two: forbidding "POV" in userespace. And that would be plain political censorship to me. Friendly Neighbour 06:14, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  This template is only being transcluded into userspace; other transclusions (except perhaps a Wikispace list) would be improper. In that sense, it is only in user space. (I do not make this argument, I explain it; but I wish both sides in this would try to recognize that the other has legitimate concerns.) Septentrionalis 15:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete I don't think the userbox is particularly devisive or contravertisal. The wording is fine, "X is an Atheist" is neutral enough phrasing, even for article space. However, this may be moot, as you may or may not be aware, someone just nominataed *all* the religious templates for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 May 12#Userboxes in Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion. Regards, MartinRe 19:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Please note that T1 was recently revised. Although I had no input in this revision, I support it. The revised wording is this: "User templates that express personal beliefs, ideologies, ethical convictions, or viewpoints on controversial issues, or any other templates which are otherwise divisive or inflammatory." -- Mackensen (talk) 19:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I am aware of T1's revision, which is why I said I though the template wasn't particularly devisive or controversial, and hence does not fall under the T1, even revised. I think you're intrepreting T1 far too broadly, with a broad intrepretion you could equally justify delete the babel boxes, as they "divide" users into speaker and non speakers of a language, and so are devisive (as well as language being a controversial topic to some). I think the speedy deletion of neutrally worded boxes such as this, to be more devisive than the original template ever could be. Regards, MartinRe 20:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete per above.  Grue  19:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete Obviously. --MediaMangler 19:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  What's obvious about undeleting it? Mackensen (talk) 19:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete naturally. Larix 19:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, inappropriate speedy, meets no portion of criterion T1. Angr (t • c) 19:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Actually, it does. Please read the speedy criteria. Mackensen (talk) 19:37, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'm guessing Angr is giving a good-faith interpretation of the prohibitions in T1. I think the best presumption to go with is that Angr read T1 & made a judgment rather than judged in ignorance of T1.--Ssbohio 03:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep deleted per CSD T1. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete -lethe ^{talk +} 19:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete until Template:User Buddhist, Template:User Muslim, Template:User Jewish, and every other religion-based user template is deleted. Let's be consistent in our crusading at the very least. — BrianSmithson 20:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'd be happy to speedy them all. Do you actually have an opinion on this one? Mackensen (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  My opinion is that all or none of the religion-based templates should be deleted. I'm pretty anti-userbox, though I have a couple of Babel ones on my userpage, but it's highly annoying to selectively enforce a new "policy". — BrianSmithson 20:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Rather than speedying them all, why not create a class action TfD? Be better than having 20 different deletion reviews, right? -lethe ^{talk +} 20:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete, no more reason for speedying this template than for approximately 2538 others (give or take 1000). Deleting all of them is one thing, going at it one by one is arbitrary, not to say POV. IronChris | (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'd be happy to speedy them all. Do you actually have an opinion on this one? Mackensen (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. There appear to be many people voting here who want all the religious boxes deleted. Such a course would be inline with T1, with Jimbo's utterings on the matter, and would be fair to boot. Mackensen (talk) 20:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Wouldn't fair includerespecting the perspective of those who want to keep userboxes showing their personal beliefs? I hope we can work out a compromise on userboxes that's respectful of the deeply-held convictions of all sides.--Ssbohio 03:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, nothing decisive or controversial about this. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 20:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete - The conversation on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion makes me feel that T1 lacks consensus and should not even be a criteria for deletion, much less for speedy deletion. This particular user box is not divisive or inflamatory. GRBerry 20:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Subst and keep Deleted - look Jimbo discourages the use of such things - having in the template space does the opposite. If folk feel they must have this on their pages, they can copy the code from another. Otherwise, they can just type 'I am an atheist'. Actually, whilst humbly declaring your POV, so others can point out if your bias slips into you editing, may be a helpful thing - proudly sporting uniform bumperstickers is not. --Doc ^ask? 20:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, even though T1 is applicable here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a battleground for social, moral, or religious issues. Userbox templates and user templates group Wikipedians into competing factions. This infrastructure has been used in the past to abuse our decision-making policies by vote-stacking. If you really feel it is necessary to proclaim your religion on your userpage, you can do it, but you don't need a template to do so. --Cyde Weys 21:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. I'm this close to writing an automated KD voting program. Misza13 ^{T C} 21:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• undelete What is the problem with users stating their opinions on the matter of belief? In years to come, academics analysing WP will want to know about the make-up of the beliefs of the contributors. Knowing the numbers of people who were athiest, agnostic, Christian, Islamic, etc will be vital, to allow academics to analyse how beliefs impacted on editing. As an academic I have to say removing templates like this is the equivalent of destroying an archive. It is crazy, ill thought-out and misses the bigger picture. The issue is not the beliefs of users but their ability to be NPOV. Some of the best NPOVcontributors on religious papers happen to hold clear personal definitions on religious matters. Why shouldn't that be openly stated? Do we want people to hide their views but still be influenced by them anyway? Surely being open about beliefs would be more healthy. FearÉIREANN \^(caint) 21:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Stressing beliefs and opinions of users undermines the ability to be NPOV, and distracts many users into thinking this site is primarily for social networking. Recent history has shown that introducing strongly-held beliefs into WP (especially in the form of templated Userboxes) has not been healthy at all. Nhprman 22:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  No it doesn't. Everybody's edits are impacted upon by their beliefs. You can go into denial and pretend that doesn't happen or you can be honest and let people admit what their beliefs are. The most dangerous POV-warriors are those in denial about their viewpoints. Those who can categorise and define their beliefs, as psychiatrists repeat over and over again, are more likely to be able to be neutral because, having had to define their beliefs they are the ones most likely to think, in this case for example, "I am an athiest. Is that colouring my editing of Mother Teresa of Calcutta?" The main POV warriors are those who delude themselves into thinking they are neutral and end up blinded to their own beliefs and the impact they have on their editing. Your comments above show the problem that causes. You hold a view. You belief it is NPOV. But your edits suggest a distinct POV, one that repeats your view as a mantra you believe is neutral but on the evidence of your comments isn't. Psychiatrists and psychologists stress the fact that the best way to achieve neutrality is to analyse and define your views and then compensate for the bias you realise you have. Userboxes achieve that. Pretending you don't have a view, which is what the policy of deleting templates is all about, produces self-dillusion, not neutrality or objectivity. FearÉIREANN \^(caint) 00:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Let's keep the self-analysis of people's biases in editors' own heads. We don't need to be starting fights here that have existed outside of Wikipedia. No one should care about whether an editor is Catholic or Protestant or athiest or Buddhist here. An editor's edits should be enough to know whether they are biased, and each edit should speak for itself, without the announced bias sowing suspicion in other's heads. The "expose your biases" argument is a recipe for conflict, as we've seen already on WP. - Nhprman 03:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  Nhprman, I agree, and I'd add that the more users are encouraged to engage Wikipedia at the level of their political and religious beliefs, the further we move from the ideal of what it is to write an encyclopedia - a neutral, authoritative resource that is utterly above partisanship. If we're not above politics, we're crap, and we suck like the rest of the internet. Since Wikipedia wants to be an authoritative source of information, every special interest group would kill to control what we say. The job of an encyclopedist is to defend against those forces, not represent for them. I'm proud to check my personal beliefs at the door here, and if we aren't teaching new users that ideal, then we need to figure out how to. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  Well said. Nhprman 03:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  How does pretending we have no outside opinions or views provide for a better product? I have biases. I want my fellow editors to know not only that I have a position on an issue, but, as a corollary, that I have spent time & effort coming to that view & therefore have valuable insight to offer on the topic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ssbohio (talk • contribs) 03:35, May 24, 2006 (UTC).

  Pretending not to have bias is not what's being suggested. I don't pretend to not have beliefs and opinions, I just don't consider advertising them on my personal space to be part of my role as a Wikipedian, any more than announcing my political beliefs is part of my job. If you ask me what I think about this or that, I'll tell you, but that's not what I'm here for, and applying bumperstickers gives the impression that I'm editing Wikipedia as a Bigendian. Like Jimbo said: "They are attractive to the wrong kinds of people, and they give visitors the wrong idea of what it means to be a Wikipedian." The problem is not having bias, nor admitting that you have bias - the problem is waving colorful flags around and giving the impression that Wikipedia is somehow about flag-waving. -GTBacchus^(talk) 13:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• Delete along with all other religion-related Userboxes. Divisive, inflammatory and has nothing whatsoever to do with editing a NPOV encyclopedia. Nhprman 22:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy keep deleted due to reasoning not being based on any grounds for overturning deletion. "While I have read Jimbo's statements on the userbox situation, I feel not only is he wrong" - sorry, Jimbo happens to own this site. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Not in point of fact however, absent pronounced policy from the Foundation board or their representatives. Jimbo has phrased this not as policy, but as an opinion. I value his opinion. Look at the great thing that he created & that we all contribute to. I'd love it if we picked up his advice to change the culture one user at a time & ran with it, rather than trying to force the issue.--Ssbohio 03:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, T1, unencyclopedic, not what public transclusion is here for. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  What exactly is the policy on public transclusion? Not just your POV. Ansell Review my progress! 08:15, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'm not aware there is one. Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits and Wikipedia:Template substitution are both good reads, but neither "lays down the law". I guess that means the policy is... what we decide it ought to be right now. I suggest we decide that public transclusion is not for advertisements of personal belief (or lack thereof). -GTBacchus^(talk) 15:41, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete Why was T1 revised to kill off all religious or whatever userboxes? Homestarmy 00:22, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, under CSD T1. These sort of userboxes do not belong in the Template namespace. -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 01:08, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment T1 has now been divided: T1 is the old T1, T2 is the expanded version. Let's keep it that way.Septentrionalis 01:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete and list on TfD. Uning the new distinction, this is not (the old) T1. T2 is not supported by consensus (or by Jimbo) and should not be used until it is. Septentrionalis 01:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  The first is debatable; the second assertion surprises me. Go back and read what Jimbo has said on the matter. Mackensen (talk) 03:41, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

  The first is debateable, and I agree that this is a close call; but that's why we're debating this. What Jimbo has said is at WP:JOU. I see no evidence that Jimbo cares what mechanism we use. Septentrionalis 13:32, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deleted Unencyclopedic. --Tbeatty 02:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per new TX. Metamagician3000 03:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted, meets the speedy deletion criterion for templates. Christopher Parham (talk) 08:34, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Full and frank disclosure is a key element to help work toward balance in editing articles. Repressing acknowledgement of POVs is systematic bias. Rfrisbie^talk 16:36, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Then, if "Templates designed for user pages that express personal beliefs, ideologies, ethical convictions, or viewpoints on controversial issues." becomes policy, move this template to {{user atheism}} (the template currently there is an obscure and poorly-designed one that we don't need and can be moved to atheism2 or similar if necessary) and change the contents to "This user is interested in atheism.", since atheism is a valid philosophical position and cultural movement and a major subject of religious and theological study, and thus a valid interest-expressing userbox (and significant interests are clearly highly relevant to Wikipedia even if beliefs aren't) just as much as "This user is interested in theism." (or simply "This user is interested in God.") would be. And there's no need to scrap perfectly good edit histories and userbox layouts (thus wasting everyone's time even more on this crap, which is surely something noone wants) for such a move, so deletion is clearly unnecessary even if the new T1 designation becomes accepted. If the new T1 designation isn't accepted, then undelete and, if someone thinks this userbox is unacceptable, nominate it at TfD for discussing deletion, because it clearly isn't "inflammatory", which is a requirement for current T1 speedy-deletion. -Silence 16:55, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Do with this one whatever is done with Template:User Christian - If you vote for or against one, you ought to have the same position on the other, as well as on one administrator's war against religious userboxes BigDT 17:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted If the boss says so, do it. I'm afraid this is too controversial. subst. --Pilot|guy 21:27, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Could someone explain to me how calling yourself an atheist, Christian, or a member of any other religious persuasion falls into the category of "Templates that are divisive and inflammatory"? This deletion, and that of the Christian userbox below, are both being defended as in line with CSD:T1. A userbox that says, "this user isn't going to hell, like the rest of you pathetic heathen are" is inflammatory. A userbox that says, "this user is a [insert denomination here]" is not. If these two userboxes were not "divisive and inflammatory", they should not have been speedied and thus, anyone who is unbiased would have to agree that they should be restored and given their day on TfD. BigDT 00:30, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Deleted As Alan Partridge once said...."Classic T1" In any case, they do us no good and can be harmful. As said above, we're supposed to be a neutral, authoritative resource for people to use. Our customers are people who are not involved in policy debates and have no backround on issues ongoing between editors. Folks reading an article about Christians or religion or whatever are 2 clicks away from some editor with a silly "I am a atheist" bumpersticker on their userpage. What are they going to think? How many of them are going to wonder exactly how neutral and authoritative we are when they see editors proclaiming a POV loudly and proudly on their userpage? Userboxes do nothing to help us build Wikipedia and they can be harmful. They aren't going to spend time reading these debates reading that somehow displaying a POV somehow guards against writing a POV...they'd think that's crazy and they'd be right. Rx StrangeLove 02:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment -- I have queried the developers, and there is no such thing as userspace categories or userspace templates. All categories and templates are "omni-space", they are used in all namespaces defined in a *pedia. Please do not confuse syntax (Category followed by colon and Template followed by colon) with policy. Bits are bits are bits. --William Allen Simpson 06:43, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Well put. If it's not seen in the article space, it is not required to meet the same standards as an article.--Ssbohio 03:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete -- experts in religious beliefs and ethnicities help build the *pedia. --William Allen Simpson 06:43, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete What reason do we have to censor people based on their religious beliefs. Using CSD T1 as a reason is not the best option as it is currently being discussed on the CSD talk page. Also, the article namespace IMO is the only space which requires NPOV. Templates, although used in the article space, are in no way restricted to it. Ansell 06:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete You all seem to be complete hypocrits. We can have user wiccan and user satanist and we can't have user atheist? We can have user Catholic and not atheist? What the fuck is going on here? --mboverload@ 08:14, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  All those others need to be removed as well - removed from template space only. You'll still be able to use them in userspace. Metamagician3000 12:32, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Templates are part of "omni-space". Templates are merely transclusions. If there are objections to substance contained in templates, then the same substance should be removed from User:space. If there is no objection to substance, then there is no reason to remove the transclusion of that substance. Bits are bits are bits. --William Allen Simpson 15:15, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Missing the point. The discussion is over where the Userboxes are housed on the server. Frankly, the issue of their substance is an important one, but secondary to their past misuse as Templates - an issue which can't be ignored or covered up. Nhprman 20:32, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  Maybe I don't understand, but being so picky about Template space seems unreasonable to me; it's not like Template space is meant for public viewing. --AySz88^-^ 22:35, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

  You're right, it's not meant for public viewing, and that's the point. It's meant for tools that are used within articles. This and other boxes don't fit that criteria, and can be (and has been) misused by a few users. This Deletion from template space simply changes where these things are housed. Nhprman 23:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete -- this template is only used in user space --T-rex 15:19, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted --pgk^(talk) 16:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per WP:CSD and current practice. Nandesuka 17:09, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per above. - Mailer Diablo 17:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. Userboxes detailing biases can only benefit Wikipedia. Sarge Baldy 20:02, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn to TfD, definately not T1. --AySz88^-^ 22:35, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• undelete per Mailer Diablo. Bastique▼^parlervoir 23:58, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong undelete. I can't see how this is any more divisive or controversial than a userbox stating, for instance, that the user can speak Spanish at an advanced level. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 02:39, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Methinks you live in a parallel universe where John Lennon sang a song called The Way It Is. --Cyde Weys 03:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too (John Lennon, Imagine) I thought this appropriate, given Cyde's allusion to the song & our discussion of religion in userboxes.--Ssbohio 03:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete. What is so completely illogical about keeping userboxes? User pages are not part of the encyclopedia, they're personal expression. By this logic user pages should be barred from having any offensive text too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darobsta (talk • contribs)
• Strong undelete what's wrong with expressing this particular opinion? Atheist template is no more divisive than User:Male, no more inflammatory than User:Muslim. --Constanz - Talk 11:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

  What's wrong with expressing an opinion with EXACTLY the same box with EXACTLY the same wording, only NOT as a Templated Userbox, but as a Userfied/Subst'd box in User space? Deleting the template means that subjective opinions about the divisiveness of a box DISAPPEAR, and if they are Substituted, they remain on the User pages they are currently on, and can be put on new users' pages at their discretion, with NO threat of deletion ever again. What is wrong with THAT? - Nhprman 23:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete. Attempted T1 scope creep. Hasn't this happened on this template before? How many times do we have to repeat the same process? --StuffOfInterest 11:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Wait for the TfD discussion on religion userboxes to end Will (^E_@) T 19:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong undelete. Per all above. Ian13/talk 20:12, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted divisive--MONGO 02:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per the above. Gyre 07:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong undelete this debate is far more "divisive" than the atheist userbox! frymaster 16:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• An ubvious undelete - there is over 40 different userboxes for Christianity alone, a single one for atheism is not much to ask for (altough with {{user atheism}} it makes two). It's also hard to say it's "inflamatory" since there are userboxes like "This user believes in God." (two of them actually, three if you count {{user theist2}}) // Liftarn 13:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted per T2. Can always be restored when a better policy is implemented. TheJabberwʘck 18:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, meets Wikipedia:Userbox policy and doesn't meet T1. T2 is not valid at this time. JohnnyBGood t c 18:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Regarding Grue's words: "... banning expressing people's opinions would actively harm building a neutral and objective encyclopedia." that could be fulfilled by the user writing "I'm an atheist" on his/her page. What's on discussion this is the existence of a template. -- Drini 21:09, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

comment Then none of the templates would serve any purpose whatsoever. mirageinred 21:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete per above.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:11, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete not offensive. I dislike atheists, but this is in no way a T1. The Gerg 16:21, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

  Nobody said it was offensive. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:36, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Undelete. Userpages do not need an NPOV.Hezzy 01:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Undelete not offensive at all, and I don't see why this was deleted in the first place. It's for self-expression anyway. Why do people want this to be deleted? It's not like people don't use this template. mirageinred 21:10, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

  I'm pretty sure nobody has claimed that it's offensive. We want it deleted because it's an improper use of Template space giving a false impression that it's appropriate to edit Wikipedia as a representative of this or that special interest group. As Jimbo said, "Userboxes of a political or, more broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project. They are attractive to the wrong kinds of people, and they give visitors the wrong idea of what it means to be a Wikipedian." -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:36, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Undelete As Voltaire once stated: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." As a Christian Wikipedian, I see nothing offensive about the template, and I am afraid that if this template is deleted, then others containing anything remotely religious will be deleted until the rueful day comes when we have to make our userpages and then the Wikipedia politically correct lest they "remotely offend anybody."--Folksong 22:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

  This argument would make any sense at all if someone were trying to keep people from declaring that they're atheists. Since that's not happening, ummm.... -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:36, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Undelete. Not in any way divisive, inflammatory or remotely harmful to the Wikipedia project. Deleting userboxes is causing incomparably more harm than the perceived evils of keeping them. Loom91 15:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Undelete. If the "This user is a Christian" box gets to stay, then so should this. Just because a userbox does not align with someone's point of view doesn't mean it deserves to get deleted. Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 01:04, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete Not in article space, not violative of T1, and not likely to cause the imminent death of the Wikipedia.--Ssbohio 03:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete It's a declaration of oppinion. If this was deleted so would all religous user boxes. Kyle sb 10:48, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

May 11, 2006

Archived discussions

See /Archive, /Archive 2, /Archive 3

• Template:User liberty (result kd, unanimous, WP:SNOW)
• Template:User chav & Template:User notchav (result kd, unanimous, WP:SNOW)
• Template:User Christian restored by 27-36 majority, will be relisted at TfD in pre-edit war form. 17:41, 20 May 2006 (UTC) Review
• Template:User hate (result kept deleted. WP:SNOW. Only nominator for review wanted it undeleted).
• Template:User Wikicheese-ologist (result kept deleted)
• Template:User ProIsrael: (result keep deleted, WP:SNOW)
• Template:User varied sex: (result kept deleted, closed as frivolous challenge)
• Template:User Triceratops Accident (result kept deleted)
• Template:User antiuserboxdeletion (result kept deleted)
• Template:User Darwinist(result kept deleted)
• Template:User Communist (result kept deleted)
• Template:User No Marxism (result kept deleted)
• Template:User infidel undeleted.
• Template:User Sock Puppet and Template:User Puppet Master ... it's complicated discussion
• Template:User against Saud (result almost unanimous keep deleted)
• Template:User_Unamerican and others (result nomination delisted early; template kept deleted)
• Template:User transhumanist and Template:User anti-transhumanist (result kept deleted)
• Template:User boylover and Template:User girllover (result kept deleted).
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Userboxes/Alerts (result kept deleted)
• Template:User admins ignoring policy (result kept deleted)
• Template:User Unamerican and others (result kept deleted)
• Template:User vomit (result kept deleted)
• Template:User Objectivism / Template:User No Objectivism (result: both kept deleted)
• Template:User_Thermostat_Bicker (Archive#Template:User_Thermostat_Bicker: undeleted and relisted on TfD)
• Template:User marriage man-woman (result: kept deleted)
• Template:User Same Sex Marriage (result: kept deleted)
• Template:User independent Iraq (result: kept deleted)
• Template:User antiparty (result: kept deleted)
• Template:User review (result: kept deleted)
• Template:User Copyright Nazi (result: kept deleted)
• User:nathanrdotcom/Userboxes/ABF (result: undeleted)
• Template: User evol-X (result: kept deleted)
• Template: User feminist (result: undeleted)
• Template:User userbox insurgent (result: nomination delisted early without explanation; template kept deleted)
• Template:User userbox revolution (result: nomination delisted early without explanation; template kept deleted)
• Template:User marriage man-woman (result: no majority to endorse deletion, no supermajority to overturn; I'm re-creating and taking it to TFD)
• Template:User opposes ubx screwing (result: kept deleted as protected page)
• Template:User USA Police State (result)
• Template:User No Meat (result: recreated as redirect)
• George W. Bush templates
• Pseudo-templates Userbox:Anti ACLU, Userbox:Anti UN (result)