SmashWiki talk:Deletion policy/User pages

Part 2 (IP userpages): No argument here, an enforced unwritten rule (at least, I think it's currently unwritten).

Part 1 (now-unregistered userpages of deadweight users): Ehhhhhhhhh. Not a bad idea, but I don't really see a net positive here.

• Gain: Less user pages.
• Loss: Work weeding such pages out and deleting them.

Doesn't really accomplish anything in my opinion. Toomai Glittershine The Awesome 00:02, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

Part 2 (IP userpages): No argument here, an enforced unwritten rule (at least, I think it's currently unwritten).

• User:24.59.198.18 (advertising for a tournament)
• User:67.10.177.73 (User:Blue Ninjakoopa after he was blocked)

There are over 20 such user pages in Category:Candidates for deletion. We might never find all the user pages of unregistered users. We might not even go beyond those 20+ that have already been marked for deletion. But we can at least simplify the userspace of those 20+ pages that are already marked for deletion. Mousehunter321 (talk · contributions) 12:57, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

And what does 20 less pages out of 11,700 buy us? Toomai Glittershine The Obfuscating 13:03, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

Implying that all we have 11,700 user pages of unregistered users without useful contributions? Mousehunter321 (talk · contributions) 13:12, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

No, implying that in the big picture this seems rather evanescent. Toomai Glittershine The Honcho 13:19, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

If the cost is almost zero, does the benefit not outweigh it? Even if you don't agree with the whole policy, the least we can do is enforce the IP rule. Mousehunter321 (talk · contributions) 13:25, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

The IP rule is enforced whenever I see one, and I don't go searching for old ones that slipped through cracks years ago because it's not exactly high on the priority list. (I'm not deleting your examples right now because you're using them as examples; they'll go away once this discussion is over.)

Yes, the cost is cheap. But any benefit is at best equally cheap. Anyway I'm going to sit out this discussion for a bit so we can get other peoples' opinions. Toomai Glittershine Da Bomb 15:13, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

From what I understand, old userpages of users who did nothing weren't deleted, because deleting them actually does nothing to alleviate space. However, there's no benefit to keeping such pages around, and one benefit, albeit minor, that I do see from deleting them, would be to make searching the userspace slightly more efficient.

Overall, this is a situation where there's little to no harm in keeping these pages around, but little to no benefit in doing something about it. Despite that, I support deleting old userpages of users who didn't contribute, as well as userpages of registered users who went inactive without contributing anything to the Wiki. Besides the minor help in searching it'll bring, it'll show that to have and maintain a userspace on this Wiki, you are expected to actually help the Wiki.

In fact, I would propose deleting protected userpages three months after the protection, if the user didn't work to get the protection undone. As I noticed, nearly every time a userpage gets protected, the users do little to nothing to get the page unprotected, and end up leaving the Wiki. Why keep these pages around if the users were too lazy to earn the privilege to keep them? Having a policy of deleting in such circumstances would encourage users who want to keep them to help the Wiki, get rid of userpages no one would bother reading anyway outside the user who created them, and clear up the list of protected pages.

Also, this should be added to our current userpage policy SW:USER, rather than being its own policy. Omega Tyrant 15:48, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

As I held (and probably still do, given how long I was the only admin) the record for most protected user pages, I would like to chime in that there is often some reason to keep the user pages around even after the contributor leaves. First, they often serve to document the history behind some of these rather "unique" situations. Second, we have had instances of us (justifiably) removing a user page and the user in question going ballistic on other wikis/websites. Obviously, our new location makes this less of an issues, but... That said, we obviously need to remove offensive pages, and three months of inactivity should prove plenty long except in completely ridiculous situations. Did y'all miss me? Clarinet Hawk (talk · contributions) 21:38, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

I would like to bring attention to this. As seen here, the user publicly announces they're leaving the Wiki when their user page is locked, like they were actually important to the Wiki. This brings unnecessary attention upon themselves, shows that they were using this Wiki as a personal profile and to advertise their stuff, and disrespects the Wiki and its policies. Why should the user be rewarded for this by getting to keep their user page?

For your first point, I would agree with keeping user pages around in unique situations, where their user page was of some significance to the user's contributions to the Wiki (such as in the case of SmashPeter), or significant in documenting the user's behavior on the Wiki (the aforementioned SmashPeter example works here too). However, the majority of cases would be hardly unique, as they are nearly always users who joined, created a generic profile-like user page advertising outside Wiki stuff, and just edited their user page and the Smash Arena (along with nonconstructive talk page posts). In fact, looking through the current user page protection list, only Zeldasmash's would fit one of the aforementioned unique situations. As for the second point, while that's a possibility, I don't see how that should deter us from deleting the protected user pages. If the user makes a scene and refuses to be reasonable, they could be blocked for disruption, and the users will always get a warning prior to their user page being deleted. And them acting off on sites outside this Wiki has never deterred us from blocking users (so it shouldn't deter us here from deleting their userpages they made no effort to keep). Omega Tyrant 15:37, 13 April 2012 (EDT)

I actually intended this to an update of the deletion policy rather than a new policy altogether. Toomai, is there some way to prevent users from creating userpages until they make an edit to the mainspace? MarioWiki uses something called autoconfirmation, so that users must make at least 10 mainspace edits and wait a week before creating a userpage. Mousehunter321 (talk · contributions) 16:54, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

Yes, we have autoconfirmed rights. You should see Wars Wiki's autoconfirmed needs :P

Anyways, I think it is good idea for users to only be able to make userpages if they are autoconfirmed. I don't feel the need to comment on the userpage deletions, as I couldn't care less either way, and I can't get very involved with the deletion process. Toast ltimatum 16:58, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

This should be added to the userpage policy, not to the deletion policy. As for the autoconfirmed thing that MarioWiki does, I would support what we do now, with userpage deletion, rather than implement what they do. Just doing 10 edits doesn't show the user is going to actually try to contribute. It would also encourage users to inflate their edit count through multiple unnecessary edits to the same page. And implemented such would punish the users who actually plan to help the Wiki. Omega Tyrant 17:00, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

So it is all agree that we delete the userpages of those users who did very little to contribute Smashwiki as a punishment? ..... The Spectre 18:00, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

I will accept this deletion policy update as written in full if you never bring up the concept of using userpage deletion as a threat to contribute again. Toomai Glittershine The Yoshi 18:03, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

Let's keep the discussion about deleting userpages to motivate people to contribute separate from this discussion. The proposed deletion of userpages this policy would implement only applies to userpages of nonregistered users. If someone would wish to consider the deletion of the userpages of registered users, they can do so in another policy proposal. Mousehunter321 (talk · contributions) 22:55, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

Do you have an actual argument against deleting the userpages of users who don't contribute? Omega Tyrant 23:20, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

So all of the userpages of the non registered users are going to be deleted. Now is everybody okay with this then? ..... The Spectre 23:28, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

Discussion on IRC for archival purposes. Mousehunter321 (talk · contributions) 01:09, 4 April 2012 (EDT)

Bump for Toomai, or any other admin to pass this. Mousehunter321 (talk · contributions) 18:37, 9 April 2012 (EDT)

Alright I'll pass this now. Toomai Glittershine The Inconceivable 22:46, 9 April 2012 (EDT)