UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/Userspace Redirects

Copied from main page This has been an on-off issue for a while, and while it's never been overly serious, it should probably actually be hashed out in a reasonable manner. I'd rather see a consensus decision on what exceptions to make rather than propose a set entirely myself and put that to voting, but my gut would say that redirects to anything which objectively serves the community should be allowed, and nothing else. That means that guides, maps, scripts, research and the like would be allowed, but anything which is questionable in regards to POV shouldn't - no redirecting someone's character name to a userpage where information can't be edited except by the owner, etc. I'd also say that the existence of a redirect should be allowed by exception, not by right - if a page is brought up for deletion on valid regards, it should not be enough to simply defend it with "but I say it serves the community" without being backed up by actual community support. Examples of what I would consider valid would be pages such as User:Aichon/Userscripts, User:Rosslessness/The Difference, or User:Grim s/Grims guide to staying alive.

I would suggest

That we simply move any pages of objective community interest to the community mainspace.--Yonnua Koponen ^{T G P} ^^^ 21:17, 8 July 2011 (BST)

And if the owner doesn't want their page moved? 21:44, 8 July 2011 (BST)

Copy paste. -- Thadeous Oakley Talk 21:45, 8 July 2011 (BST)

Moving stuff out of owners namespaces is something I'd really like to avoid. Grim's being a case in Point. It's depriving them of ownership. I'd hate to Have User:Rosslessness/Hmm outside of my own control. The policy should be whether or not to remove the scheduled on user area redirects. --Rosslessness 22:07, 8 July 2011 (BST)

If the author didn't want their work to be edited by others, we should respect that, as editing dilutes their copyright and would remove their author-edit-only rights. I've been doing some research into copyright – especially as it applies to wikis – and we really need to hash that out, too. (I've also been crazy busy IRL, in case you were wondering.)
Edit conflict: And I see Ross is of like mind. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 22:10, 8 July 2011 (BST)

I wouldn't lift the scheduled entirely, though. I'd just change it from being exhaustive to having a few exceptions. 22:12, 8 July 2011 (BST)

Well personally, I don't think we should allow redirects to userspace, for the sole reason that they are so readily subject to change.--Yonnua Koponen ^{T G P} ^^^ 22:13, 8 July 2011 (BST)

I don't follow you. I wouldn't consider userspace pages to be any more subject to unexpected change than any main space page, if that's what you mean. 22:15, 8 July 2011 (BST)

It's just that a user can change a userspace page at will without repercussions, whereas a mainspace page can be edited by any member of the community, so we won't end up with situations where a user's page is redirected to, and then the page suddenly gets replaced with a character page, or anything like that.--Yonnua Koponen ^{T G P} ^^^ 22:38, 8 July 2011 (BST)

Then we just get rid of the redirect as irrelevant and delete it as C3. 22:39, 8 July 2011 (BST)

I see no point though in pages being deleted and undeleted at the will of the user in question. Say Aichon replaces his "Barrista" page with one about his "Doug Collins" character. We delete the redirect. He then returns it to its original form. It's no less in need of a redirect than it was the first time, so surely we should recreate the redirect? Seems illogical to me.--Yonnua Koponen ^{T G P} ^^^ 22:41, 8 July 2011 (BST)

Almost as illogical as a sensible user replacing a page the community use and value with an already-existing vanity page from elsewhere in his userspace. I think I have some straws in my kitchen if you need more to grasp at. 22:45, 8 July 2011 (BST)

I think A more pressing issue is idiots clicking the link and editing the page in question not realising its a users page. Perhaps a scheduled protection as part of the redirect process? --Rosslessness 22:48, 8 July 2011 (BST)

This is a good idea. 22:50, 8 July 2011 (BST)

Sounds better. However, one thing I really would want to be added to this policy, and that's the making an exemption for main userpages. Meaning, a guide should always be on a subuserpage, and never the main one. -- Thadeous Oakley Talk 22:57, 8 July 2011 (BST)

Thad makes a good point that it has to be a user's subpage not main page. I personally don't see why it matters where a page's location is as long as the information is useful and relevant to the whole community, but I'm easy to get along with. It would have to be case specific and Ross's idea of putting the up for vote in a sense allows a good path to decide what deserves a redirect. Problem solved :P        23:16, 8 July 2011 (BST)

The thing is we have plenty of pages that are owned by users in the mainspace and are very much personal products of those users, and generally go untouched by the rest of the community. We've actually rarely had an issue like the one you're mentioning there. -- ϑ^anceϑ^anceℜ^evolution 03:01, 9 July 2011 (BST)

Harm Principle

It should be no surprise by now that my suggestion is a more… inclusionist one.

I propose keeping any redirect that serves a useful purpose. I also support aggressively turning any redirect into a disambig page should there be even a hint that the page name could be better used in that way.

As an example, I propose the page Revenant. I created it as a redirect; it got deleted. I created it as a disambiguation page including several groups and a link to my own userspace page; the link got removed. WHat purpose does this serve other than making it more difficult to find the only Revenant on this wiki that actually matters?

Before you ask, both those groups are long-inactive, but I'd never support deleting them in order to reinforce my own claim. As a Philosophe Knights Librarian, I find the destruction of knowledge and desecration of history repugnant, regardless of whether it would serve me or not.)

Some wikis, such as the now-deceased Encyclopædia Dramatica, had templates designed to note that a user shared the same name as a page. You see, ED was all about the users and the drama associated with them. Urban Dead is a game where every character is human-controlled. Don't fool yourselves, the (wo)man behind the curtain 'is important!

TL;DR

Keep any userspace, redirect that's at all useful, but aggressively re-evaluate and disambiguate.

That's my AUD5¢. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 22:18, 8 July 2011 (BST)

TLDR, you want a userspace redirect.--Yonnua Koponen ^{T G P} ^^^ 22:42, 8 July 2011 (BST)

Something relevant. I might be inclined to agree. With Revenant. I think the clutter argument is silly, the amount of pages the wiki has doesn't have to do with the ability/inability to find stuff. It's not like you need to wade through the trash. But I'm curious what someone would say if they were against this, most comments say it should be as so, but there's little to nothing of a reason why. I'm not sure, however, how useful userpage redirects actually are, particularly with the UHUB. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 01:00, 9 July 2011 (BST)

Meh

Put them up for requests on an individual basis, hell, let the crats decide. We've got nothing to do anyway. --Rosslessness 22:24, 8 July 2011 (BST)

This.--Yonnua Koponen ^{T G P} ^^^ 22:58, 8 July 2011 (BST)

A/D/S

Don't make a policy for this. Revoke or modify it at A/D/S. no point in bogging up the policy list with stuff that belongs elsewhere.... -- ϑ^anceϑ^anceℜ^evolution 02:55, 9 July 2011 (BST)

Your mom has AIDS. If you're gonna move it to a/ds then i'd suggest the discussion page first. Already several non-sysop users have commented on this issue and that page is protected. ~ _{04:23, 9 July 2011 (UTC)}

No it's not. Unless I got a promotion in the past 10 minutes... Either way, A/PD is higher visiblity, it's easier to attract enough people for a broader consensus here than on A/D/S, which, frankly, I had forgotten even existed. 04:40, 9 July 2011 (BST)