Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Design Committee

User pages are no big deal...fancy user pages are no big deal. The problem here is that this project makes a fancy user page a goal onto itself. This project encourages multiple users working on a single user page and creates user page specialists. This isn’t a good use of Wikipedia editing time.

It gives the wrong message to new users as to what it means to be a Wikipedian and encourages them to spend time making large and complicated user pages. I know it gets over used but we're here to do an encyclopedia, there is no other reason to be here. That doesn't mean that we can't amuse ourselves and have fun/interesting user pages but we shouldn't be spending time making projects that do not focus on that goal. And if this is about helping users with coding and markup there are plenty of ways to get it…and plenty of avenues to ask for help. There is no reason to duplicate a help system that’s already in place.

There’s also no need for another bureaucracy creating processes that have nothing to do with writing the encyclopedia. It’s just another committee with founders, requests and assignments…. it’s not a real project….there are no parentages or descendant WikiProjects…no participant list or scope.

Comment There is a participant list if you would look. Thetruthbelow 05:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Making user pages a goal onto themselves fragments the single reason why we’re here. New users shouldn’t be using their formative time working on their user page and established users can use the existing help resources. Rx StrangeLove 03:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete for What Wikipedia Is Not. This kind of project gives people entirely the wrong idea about what Wikipedia is about. --Tony Sidaway 04:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, WP:NOT myspace. If people want a userpage in a hurry, there's always "#REDIRECT [[User_talk:{{subst:PAGENAME}}]]". [ælfəks] 04:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some users would consider that vandalism, or at least impersonation. Titoxd^(?!?) 05:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong KeepHelps users with the technical side of Wikipedia that they can use later, also involves them with the Wikipedia Community. Thetruthbelow 04:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  See Wikipedia:User page. What more guidance does anyone need? The user page is not a home page, and the purpose of the community is not to subvert the purpose of this website but solely to support it. --Tony Sidaway 04:52, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - Everything on WP is linked to the encyclopedia. Having nice userpages supports the community and makes editors like the place and stay. If everybody had plain text userpages that said "Hi. I am Bob. The end", then people would get bored and not edit articles. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with users staying because it is a community, and they are happy to edit articles. Who would want to wake up every morning and Start fixing spelling errors again and again and again..... like a bot. If there is no community, people don't want to stay --GeorgeMoney 04:53, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Goodness, how on earth did we get to one million articles without a committee to help us design our user pages? No, your rationale doesn't wash. This is just another attempt to undermine Wikipedia is not a free host, blog, webspace provider or social networking site--Tony Sidaway 05:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  I think that this illustrates perfectly the disconnect we’re having. Nice user pages shouldn’t be why people get satisfaction and stay here. Writing an encyclopedia is the reason people are here and that should be why they stay. If people get bored because they don’t have a nice user page and leave, they weren’t here for the right reason in the first place. Rx StrangeLove 05:14, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Indeed, they can go off and have nice userpages somewhere else. Wikia beckons if they want wikis and community. myspace if they like html and clubbiness. --Tony Sidaway 05:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. In spite of all the rhetoric I've heard at the DRV, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the project. Claiming WP:NOT about something does not make it necessarily so. While having a fancy userpage should not be the main focus of a user's Wikipedia experience, having a "pretty" one might make an editor more comfortable or may make him feel more established. Also, Wikipedia is a community, and editors who are not happy won't contribute content to the encyclopedia, and are more likely to be problematic. Peripheral pages like these don't contribute to the body of text directly, but they do exactly that in an indirect manner. If something, the amount of time wasted on trying to tell users how not to "waste" their time could be better spent in writing those articles the delete side is so worried about. Actions like the ones that happened today subvert the community, which in turn, does not help supporting the encyclopedia. Titoxd 05:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Any project that promotes user pages as a Wikipedian purpose is a de facto subversion of the community and must die. This is an encyclopedia with a community, this must not be forgotten. --Tony Sidaway 05:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]