Forum:Userspace edits

Hey there.

I've noted a lot of users, particularly Prenesh25, have been dedicating their time on Minecraft Wiki towards the edit of their userspace and not much towards wiki activity. That's fine and all, but I feel like this obsession for userspace edits is quite too far. That said, there are valid reasons to have quite a large number of userspace edits, particularly if they are sandbox pages meant to eventually be used on the wiki proper (see my sandbox pages for example).

As such, I would like to propose a new policy in regards to userspace edits.

• Avoid making excessive userspace edits that do not serve the wiki. This does not include userspace edits that are intended for the wiki (e.g. sandbox pages).

This is partially inspired by the policies set by Super Mario Wiki, but I feel like it's necessary given the recent activity of users just merely editing their userspace and nothing else.

Thoughts or any other ideas to bring up? -- PanchamBro (talk • contributions) 09:04, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Strong Support - Dedicating all your edits to your own userspace doesn't benefit the wiki at all and thus, you being an editor does not make sense as well. I would also like to tell anyone who sees this comment to know that if you want to make a huge userspace, create the code somewhere else (for eg. Microsoft Word, Google Docs etc.) and then after you are done, paste the entire code in the wiki in one or few edits. - 👁 Image
StizzurpXDD^(talk) 09:23, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose - I find it hard to support a proposal that hasn't given any reason for its own implementation. The only thing that feels like an argument here is "this obsession for userspace edits is quite too far" but that's vague and isn't really providing a point. But despite there being little to no argument for this proposal, I'll give one against.

I understand why some people think what users like Prenesh do is strange and shouldn't be allowed, but I am really stumped to find a true tangible harmful negative to what they're doing. It doesn't feel like they should be allowed to do that, but if you sit and think about it, what is the harm actually? And probably more importantly, what is the positive of disallowing it? If you go to a user like Prenesh and say "hey, all that stuff on your userspace? Banned and deleted, sorry!" what is that user going to do? I think realistically that user would leave the wiki, and if we want to be even more pessimistic about it, they go to the Fandom wiki. And yes losing that user is a bad thing despite the majority of their edits being userspace because it's basically guaranteed that the user is also doing a couple of mainspace edits, 24 of Prenesh's 84 edits are mainspace edits for example. So considering the, in my opinion, very likely possibility that we completely lose these users as a result of the proposal, what is the positive? I really don't know what the positive could be, because I'm rather certain that this opposition to abundant userspace edits isn't born of any great argument but instead an instinctual feeling that it must be incorrect. We aren't MarioWiki, we aren't Inkipedia, we don't deal with hundreds of users using this wiki as their playground, I can only think of two users from here off the top of my head that have used this wiki in that way.

Overall, I think we should be striving to be as welcoming and warm as possible to new users, in the hopes that they become a more active member of the community and make more contributions. I revived the welcome template with that goal, for example. This proposal serves only to discourage and block out certain specific editors, who are often new editors, impose limits on what you can do on your userspace (the space that you're meant to be able to do anything on), while having so tangible positive at the same time. And therefore the proposal goes against what I think we should be striving for.

On a more personal random closing note...I just like these user pages. Basic user pages are so boring (I suppose I'm guilty), I love these weird user pages like the one that Prenesh has, I'd sooner encourage them than discourage them. I'll probably find myself reading all their user subpages when I stumble upon them someday, they're silly and fun, why delete them all? - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
10:15, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

No one has proposed or said to delete any pages created by Prenesh25 (as of today), it is just a point that if someone's edits does not benefit/contribute to the wiki (kind of) discards the point of that user being an editor. I also like these insanely big userpages with fun things to see but the point is, that dedicating almost all your edits to this a 'constructive' thing to do? Because it doesn't benefit the wiki in any aspect. - 👁 Image
StizzurpXDD^(talk) 10:31, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Then what's actually being proposed here? Are the pages deleted, is the user prevented from making any more but the current ones stay, do we tell them "hey we'd rather you didn't do that" but don't actually enforce it? I forgot to mention it in my first comment but the proposal is also vague in how this would be enforced or even implemented.

Also, the user pages don't benefit the wiki yes, but they don't harm it, and the wiki is harmed by removing or discouraging them. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
10:37, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

If removing such pages isn't proposed, then what is? There is no "editor" group nor definition on the wiki. -- 👁 Image
MarkusRost (talk) 12:09, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Slight oppose. As a patroller on Chinese Minecraft Wiki, I do block users who make more than 100 edits while more than 70% of them are in user namespace. The reason why we limit these edits is that patrollers have to patrol all of edits made by non-autopatrollers, so this will increase the burden on patrollers. However, on English Minecraft Wiki, not every edit has to be patrolled, so I don't see any harm editing user pages. --👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 10:39, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose: no legal certainty for what is "excessive" will discourage good-faith editors out of concern that whatever they will do, will be found "excessive". The impact of the problem is limited to a minor annoyance to recent changes reviewers, if even that; they'll probably also be the ones enforcing the policy, if anyone will even enforce it at all, so it appears to be a policy done out of a minor convenience to some users at the expense of others. The phenomenon of extensive (I'm not saying problem or excessive to avoid loaded value judgements) user-space editing is perennial and not recent. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 10:41, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Strong Oppose - I fail to see the harm in userspace edits. In fact, they seem like a good place to get familiar with MediaWiki before making larger edits in mainspace. I would argue that it benefits the wiki when editors (especially new editors) have a place to experiment. If this rule had existed when I started editing, it would have discouraged me from contributing. (Even though those edits are not the intended target of this rule, a new user could still get discouraged from experimenting by this rule) -- jacobsjo (talk) 10:58, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Strong Oppose per Harristic -- 👁 Image
MarkusRost (talk) 12:05, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose — The suggested policy is vague, prevents no meaningful harm (at worst, “excessive” userspace editing only diverts attention from editing articles, which is not the same as intentionally vandalizing articles or making them worse), and goes against the wiki's volunteer nature: if accepted, we'd be basically forcing users to make a certain amount of mainspace edits per each userspace edit. — BabylonAS 12:29, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Very strong oppose; I'd veto if I could. A userpage should be for the user to enjoy as much freedom on as they want, including in terms of edit frequency, (though adhering to the wiki rules in place). I see zero, null, nada harm in a user spending more time editing their userpage than mainspace. I see equally no harm in them being """""obsessed""""" (intentionally exaggerated the quotation marks) with userspace edits. If that's how they want to spend their time on the wiki, then that should be respected equally as much as someone who edits mainspace articles. DarkShadowTNT (talk) 12:37, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose Just introducing this rule because you're annoyed with some users seems a bit over the top. And as you noted there are legitimate reasons for why users edit their userspace a lot. Sandboxes are one of them, but creating and designing your own profile is fine too, as long as they're not abusing the wiki as a file hosting service (which is already covered in our rules). Add to that that by editing one's userspace, you earn experience in wiki editing which is useful for non-userspace too. | violine1101 ^(talk) 12:57, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Strong Oppose That's just a complete nonsense. User pages were created for users to express themselves, without any limitations (except maybe spam and advertisements). Additionally, people use their user page sandboxes to learn wiki syntax (which may or may not be thought as "serving the wiki"), so are we gonna ban that? Furthermore, we use the user ns to document stuff we cannot put elsewhere (ex. list of all Minecraft-related wikis in existence), which will also get removed. And most importantly, if we actually limit user's freedom of speech, they have a higher chance of leaving this wiki. --TreeIsLife (talk) 13:20, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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 Strong oppose. This proposal seems to originate solely from personal preference, the edits are not disruptive to the wiki. It feels like limiting user rights juste for the sake of limiting them. –MetalManeMc, 👁 Image
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Wiki admin (Talk to me!👁 Image
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 Strong oppose per pretty much everything above. I will add that I feel like we don't have a problem with too many userspace edits and that I dislike taking way freedoms for such small issues.--Olivia (talk) 14:19, 11 May 2024 (UTC)