Wikipedia talk:Userboxes/Politics

?

If it is necessary, the article currently existing at the location of the new name is seriously lacking, and certain ideology & social issues such as drugs and abortion go beyond politics. ætərnal ðrAعon → 09:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I made an alternate capitalist userbox that's more colorful. I realize there's already a capitalist UBX, (several actually) but I wasn't sure if it's in good taste to create another one. Chenzo23 21:51, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion:

VLWCThis user is a member of the vast left-wing conspiracy.VLWC

Trekphiler (talk) 11:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

You don't need approval to add a userbox to the page. - Mike Beckham (talk) 11:18, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

These are highly biased and should be deleted in my opinion. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 09:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Borrowed the use of the above as I liked it (Template:Vast_Left_Wing_Conspiracy), and made Template:Might_Support_Conservative, Template:Might_User_Canadian_NDP for personal use, but also for others who want it. I haven't put it up anywhere. I'm not sure where would be best, as I respect that others don't have the same beliefs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Naturalnumber (talk • contribs) 00:02, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Nazis

Distinct lack of... =P Larklight (talk) 22:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Why, did you want to create one? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 21:11, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userboxes/Politics

Cross-posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Userboxes.

All political userboxes are in clear violation of multiple Wikipedia policies:

• Wikipedia:User page#What may I not have on my user page
• Wikipedia:Userboxes#Content restrictions
• Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a soapbox
• Wikipedia:Conflict of interest
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a social networking site

And, of course, any political ramblings on userpages or talk pages.

I don't care if they're liberal or conservative, they have no place in Wikipedia. I'm very politically opinionated, but I recognize that Wikipedia isn't the place for propaganda (in the past I have had political content in my user space, but it's not there anymore).

That means, I don't care about what you think of any the following:

• Religion
• The death penalty
• Abortion
• Family values
• LGBT issues
• The cause of climate change
• George W. Bush
• The United States presidential election, 2008
• etc. etc.

What I'm saying is, don't be provocative. It's fine to make a statement: "I am straight"/"I am gay" (but not a directly political statement: "I am a Democrat"/"I am a Republican"). But it's not okay to say "I believe a marriage should consist of only a man and a woman".

So what am I saying?

I'm saying get rid of every single political userbox. I was tempted to speedy every political userbox, but I thought I ought to discuss it first.

This is really important. Political statements distract from the task at hand: writing a great encyclopedia, and they can infuriate users.

--Josh Atkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 20:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

What really distract us all from the task at hand are discussions like the one you started. The discussion that is not going to lead anywhere, just waste a lot of everyone's time, like dozens of identical discussions before. BTW, Wikipedia:Conflict of interest would not go away if editors would be silent about their beliefs. Netrat (talk) 16:24, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that's pretty absurd. Imagine if every encyclopedia was run this way: no contributions allowed from anybody involved in politics whatsoever, since of course, that's infuriating, right? Only contributions allowed by people who have not voiced one iota of opinions. -- LightSpectra (talk) 20:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

No, that's not what I said (sorry if it seemed like that). That's absolutely absurd, of course. What I actually said was that I think that there are some UBXs that are so inherently provocative that they have no place here. And I listed policies. FWIW, I've Mfed several userboxes that used to be on my user page. That I still totally with the content of, and stand by what they say. What I don't stand by is the fact that they exist here on Wikipedia. --Josh Atkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 17:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

You think that having a userbox that promotes a certain controversial belief is bad for WikiLove, more or less. I have three counter-arguments to that point: (1) If the user was known contextually to hold a certain belief, it would be no different; thus userboxes are simply fun indicators, and removing them would be pointless. (2) They're an excellent check on NPOV; if a user makes an edit that you find to be unusual, you can easily skim through his userboxes to check if there's any apparent bias. (3) I have many "infuriating" boxes on my userpage, yet I have experienced nothing but the utmost politeness from the many users whom I have debated with. -- LightSpectra (talk) 17:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

If you really believe some UBXs are provocative, why don't you just ignore them? Why do you feed provocators instead? Netrat (talk) 16:24, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If someone believes that certian views and ideologies should never be expressed on WP user pages, then how that someone is going to keep NPOV and cooperate with other editors? Netrat (talk) 16:24, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we need a second page

The userboxes at the bottom of the page will not appear because there's apparently too many userboxes in this article. Can we split Userboxes/Politics into two different pages (i.e. Politics [1] and Politics [2]), or should we try to disperse some of these boxes into other articles? -- LightSpectra (talk) 16:59, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

We could remove some unneeded ones from the list to make more space, for example there are 5 userboxes for supporting Karl Marx. And ones which say almost identical things, such as "This user prefers that the death penalty be used far more often." and "This user believes that the death penalty should be imposed and used more frequently !". Also we could remove some of the stupid ones like "This user thinks Vladimir Putin is badass." Dzhugashvili (talk) 17:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Seems like a temporary solution. Even if we filtered out all the duplicate userboxes, that still means that the page would only have room for ~10-20 more. But new userboxes are made every day. What's wrong with splitting it into two pages? -- LightSpectra (talk) 20:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• I've moved the userboxes for individual country politics to Wikipedia:Userboxes/Politics by country. This should give us a reasonable amount of leeway on both pages. There may be some templates which ought to be moved from one page to the other; please feel free to do so in accordance with your best judgment. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Edits

• Move the U.N. userboxes to this page
• Move the independence/unification movements to politics by country
• Move the monarchy userboxes pertaining to specific countries to politics by country
• Unite all of the anarchy userboxes into one section

Any objections? -- LightSpectra (talk) 07:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Too long

I am having trouble browsing this page. Even on 3.8GHz with 4GB DDR2 RAM on ADSL2+, this page is a complete drag in Firefox. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 02:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

introduction

I really don't like having "one day encompassing, hopefully, the entire contingent of Wikipedia editors" note in "Although you are not required to follow this recommendation, if you do follow, you will be part of a large group of people (one day encompassing, hopefully, the entire contingent of Wikipedia editors) that renounced posting similar content on their userpages for the sake of building a better environment." section of introduction. It sounds very biased, emotional and unencyclopedic, something that should be avoided for Wikipedia policies - or anything that pretends to look like one, or become a Wikipedia policy later. Moreover, this pretends to sound like an opinion from overhelming majority of WP editors, which is most probably false. "One day encompassing, hopefully, the entire contingent of Wikipedia editors", how do you like it? Some people - including myself - hope that someday all Wikipedia editors would stop worring about what other people believe in and would get back to what we are here for: writing articles. So this is not any hope, and should not be presented like the only one. Netrat (talk) 16:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely. In fact, I find the whole idea of the huge yellow disclaimer at the top somewhat silly. Jaimeastorga2000 (talk) 06:23, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The disclaimer is there as a nod to WP:UP#NOT—an actual guideline (which means it is not "pretending" to be anything that it already is not) and something, hopefully, everyone will have enough sense to follow one day (or at least read thoroughly). Besides, if you are here to write articles, what the heck are you doing browsing and complaining about the page containing nothing but opinionated piles of crap?  :) Go write something already and stop worrying about the big yellow blot which targets an entirely different contingent of people!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:02, April 8, 2009 (UTC)

Was there ever consensus for the addition, or did somebody just take it upon himself/herself to add their interpretation of how WP:UP#NOT applies to this page near the top in big bold letters? I don't get it. If there is consensus that Userboxes/Politics is a bad thing, why is it still here? And if not, what's that disclaimer doing at the top, speaking as if for everyone? I say remove, at the very least, the portion Netrat decried, and at best the entire thing. Jaimeastorga2000 (talk) 21:54, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of consensus, we have on one hand the WP:UP#NOT guideline, which states that "polemical statements unrelated to Wikipedia" do not belong on userpages, and on the other hand we have WP:Userboxes/Politics, which is nothing but a collection of polemical statements and statements of opinion, not a single one of which is related to content creation. Yet try to delete this pile of garbage, and certain people start yelling about their right for self-expression being stiffled and about how the little cute userboxes can hardly do any harm. Does this answer your question of why this page is still here? The big unsightly yellow blot on this page is just a reminder that this page goes directly against a well-established guideline (which did have consensus, or it wouldn't have become a guideline), and since previous attempts to get rid of this pitiful self-expression collection were not successful, we still have a problem as we are preaching one thing but practicing a direct opposite.

This said, you are welcome to escalate this thread to village pump as the two (three) of us can hardly decide what to do with this; it would be much more beneficial to get broader input. One thing for sure, something needs to be done—either this page needs to be deleted, or WP:UP#NOT needs to be tweaked somehow to allow for this kind of "content" to exist.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:42, April 9, 2009 (UTC)

I am not arguing that there is a lack of consensus on WP:UP#NOT; there evidently is. However, there is no consensus that the way WP:UP#NOT applies to this page is to add a huge yellow blob as a disclaimer. I, for one, point out that the page refers to "Extensive discussion not related to Wikipedia," "Excessive personal information (more than a couple of pages) unrelated to Wikipedia," and "Extensive personal opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia, wiki philosophy, collaboration, free content, the Creative Commons, etc" as examples of what to avoid in a user page, and suggest that there is no way a few boxes on the right side of the screen can count as "excessive" or "extensive." However, this is really besides the point. The point is, users have different opinions of how WP:UP#NOT applies to this page; you think it should be nuked, I think it should remain just the way other userbox pages are, someone evidently thought it should have a huge yellow disclaimer at the top, and we don't yet know what other users think. Hence there is no consensus, at least not that I can see on this page.

I tried to go to the village pump (first time doing so), but I wasn't able to find the topic related to this issue in the table of contents. Could you please point me to where it is? In the meantime, I am going to edit out the "hope" bit from the disclaimer. I would delete the whole thing, but it might lead to an edit war, and I would rather it be removed after consensus has shown it to be undesirable, so I am leaving it alone for now. Jaimeastorga2000 (talk) 21:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

First off, regarding the "excessive" part—I was not referring to any of the clauses you cited. The one I specifically referred to was #9, which does not mention the words "excessive"/"extensive" but rather recommends against using polemical statements (any polemical statements) unrelated to Wikipedia. Not all of the userboxes listed on this page are equally polemical, but a good chunk of them are pretty questionable, and every single one has nothing to do with the actual content creation.

Anyhoo, like we apparently agree, it would be best to move this to the Village Pump. To answer your VP question—WP:VPP seems to me the best place for that discussion; we are, after all, going to discuss applicability of an existing guideline to this page.

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure (and because I forgot to mention it earlier; sorry)—it was me who added the blob to this page; based on the results of this discussion. Between my opinion that this page grossly violates WP:UP#NOT and the alternate opinion that its existence is no big deal, the yellow banner seemed like a reasonable compromise at the time.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:47, April 10, 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry, I was on a rather long wikibreak. The version right now is all right according to my judgement. Dc76\^talk 12:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not against the idea in principle of having a dicouraging note on the page. However, I think there are good reasons for thinking that the box that is there should be taken down for the time being. I think the whole tone of the thing should be more along the lines: "you might like to consider" rather than "we recommend that".

• It gives the impression of an official or semi-offical WP recommendation, whereas in fact, there has been (as far as I can see) no discussion amongst editors at all about the idea of putting it there.
• It is both too specific and too vague about what sort of userboxes are to be discouraged ("pro-fascist, far-left or far-right"). Does this include American Libertarians or not? Does it mean that userboxes about the Middle East conflict are OK? What about stating your position on abortion? What if you sincerely believe that Maoism is not a far-left position? What if you live in a disputed territory - are you allowed a userbox that states where you live? It's all very complicated and requires discussion, IMO.
• Wherever there is a policy, guidleline or "recommendation", it goes against the interests of maintaing confidences in WP's processes if there is no clear rationale to refer to. Although this is unlikely to reach the status of policy, maybe linking to a WP essay would be the appropriate thing to do.
• Lastly, I don't think anything along this lines should be done without first being presented as a proposal.

Thanks. --FormerIP (talk) 15:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Once again, the box is there because of WP:USERPAGE, which is a Wikipedia guideline, hence the "we recommend" wording. We don't want people to "consider" our guidelines; we want to recommend that they are followed. In that sense, it is very much official—it is a logical continuation of what WP:USERPAGE says. If we start ignoring our own guidelines, then what's next? "Please consider following WP:NPOV in articles or, if you don't, it's OK anyway"?

"Pro-fascist, far-left or far-right" are just some examples of the most polemical views and, hence, of the most problematic boxes. Any other polemical userboxes, such as those you listed, are also discouraged by WP:USERPAGE. There are, of course, always grey areas, but in the spirit of WP:USERPAGE, if a userbox can be interpreted as "polemical" by a group of editors (any group of editors!), then it most likely does not belong on a userpage and should go.

As for the link to an essay, the box already links to a guideline (which, you should agree, has a greater standing than any essay), so I don't quite understand what your concern is.

Lastly, as the banner is there to remind editors about the standing guideline, which, unfortunately, gets ignored all too often, no "proposal" or "discussion" is really necessary. The very existence of this userbox collection encourages blatant violation of WP:USERPAGE and silently endorses such violations. Placing the banner is the least we can do to start curing that problem.

Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:16, June 25, 2009 (UTC)

Except the box doesn't exactly represent WP:USERPAGE, it represents aninterpretation of it which clearly does not enjoy universal support (as is shown by the discussion above). A notice reminding people verbatim and without commentary what the guideline is would be abslutely fine. But the box as it is appears to be trying to inform people how they ought to interpret it, and not only that, it narrows things down to three types of userbox - presumably these are the ones you personally would wish to see banished (don't get me wrong, I don't think it is exactly clever to have a swastika on your userpage, I just don't think the judgement about what three types of userbox should be particularly warned against is any single editor's to make).

You say that "Any other polemical userboxes, such as those you listed, are also discouraged by WP:USERPAGE" - so why doesn't your yellow box reflect this?

I understand your POV regarding political userboxes, and I sympathise with it. But individual editors should not be deciding what is best for everyone without asking around first. --FormerIP (talk) 16:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Tell you what. First off, you are correct that the banner represents an interpretation of a guideline. Yours truly, who is one of the administrators of this fine English Wikipedia, interpreted WP:USERPAGE in such a way as to consider this userbox collection to be in violation of that guideline and deemed that the very least that could be done about that would be placing a banner on top, informing editors of the perceived violation (FYI, it was not me who actually designed and worded the banner, and we both agreed that the wording could still be improved—care to work on that?). Mind you, if I had more free time, I would be nominating each and every userbox from this collection for deletion; unfortunately my free time reserves only allow for expression in form of a toothless banner.

Now, is it at all possible that this administrator is in error and has mis-read WP:USERPAGE completely? Although I strongly believe that my interpretation is correct, it does not preclude a chance that it is not, or that the outcome of this interpretation (i.e., the banner itself) is less than ideal. With that in mind, I invite you to open a new thread at WP:AN, asking to comment on the situation in general, on the banner in particular, and on my position if necessary. I personally believe that the more people get exposed to the problem we have (the problem being this collection allegedly contradicting WP:USERPAGE ), the better. Perhaps we'll even finally manage to get all these silly userboxen deleted (one can dream...) or weeded, or at least WP:USERPAGE itself would be clarified to define just what exactly "polemical content" is. I, in turn, consent to abide by the outcome of that thread, whatever it is, providing more than two other administrators take interest. If you agree, please let me know when you open the thread. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:47, June 25, 2009 (UTC)

I don't really think it's up to me to organise an audience to discuss your idea. The idea itself may or may not have merit, but it's up to you to go through a process of determining that before you insert it. This is not like article content. You are not entitled to be WP:BOLD. You should intiate an open discussion first. In any event, you should follow Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(infoboxes) and create it as a template.

And there's really no need to invite me to open a thread "on your position". This isn't high-stakes poker. If I were in your position, though, I would ask other admins for their view.

The infobox is misleading. Please remove it. --FormerIP (talk) 22:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I have already explained—the banner is there because this is the smallest possible thing that can be done to inform the public about the breach of WP:USERPAGE. I am acting in my administrative quality by putting the banner there; the decision is based on my interpretation of the guideline. If you believe my interpretation of the guideline to be incorrect, please open a WP:AN thread to contest this administrative decision of mine. It is the responsibility of the public (such as yourself) to bring administrative actions to light when one believes they are undue or invalid. In my partial defense, the banner was an outcome of a previous discussion with the users who, at the time, took interest in this issue, and it represented a fairly obvious consensus. I have thus no interest in re-opening this issue myself (it's an enormous waste of time to question oneself publically every time someone shows up just to ramble with no intent to act). If you believe the consensus has changed, then, again, I urge you to open a new WP:AN thread to collect fresh input. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 01:22, June 26, 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I have followed your suggestion and posted at WP:AN. --FormerIP (talk) 12:33, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. By the way, regarding submitting an RfC instead of discussing it on WP:AN—you are welcome to open an RfC as well, since the matter at hand concerns interpretation of the guidelines. In my opinion, the more eyes review this situation, the better. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:03, June 26, 2009 (UTC)

Hi Ezhiki. Following the discussion over there, I have changed the wording to something that I feel is more neutral. If you disagree with it, bearing in mind the comments made on the noticeboard, I'd be greatful if you could make your comments here rather than just reverting. Many thanks.--FormerIP (talk) 22:01, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

PS I ask you to consider that, though my version is less strongly worded, I think it is marginally more likely to be effective, for that very reason. ie I think people are more likely to respond positively to being politely asked. Thanks. --FormerIP (talk) 22:50, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

FormerIP asked, why do I think the word 'editorial' should be underlined? Because I think this is the central issue for which this box is asking not to put political userboxes in userpages: because of the belief that userpages should reflect editors, not individuals. I am writing these comments as your fellow editor, not as I, the individual. I am not interested to talk with you, the individual, but I am very interested to collaborate with you the editor. Dc76\^talk 00:34, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dc76. Sometimes underlining something can have different implications. In this case, we have a two-word phrase: "editorial environment". By emphasising "editorial", most readers would think this meant not "editorial" as opposed to "indvidual", but "edtiorial environment" as opposed to other types of enviroment.

For example, if I said "Winston Churchill was a great wartime leader", most people would think I was implying that he was a great wartime leader but not necessarily a great peacetime leader. They would not think that I was implying that the notion of "wartime" was particularly important.

So, I think that underlining "editorial" would give a different imperssion to what you intended. People would be likely to think "okay, the editorial environment is improved, but perhaps the environment is diminished in other ways.

In other words, this is a linguistic issue, rather than a general issue about content.

Hope it makes sense. --FormerIP (talk) 00:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, what you say makes perfect sense. But how do you suggest to make it more clear: to underline editorial environment, or to rephrase it so that the reader can see the contrast between "editor" and "individual", i.e. to use the noun "editor", not the adjective "editorial", or you have something else in mind? Dc76\^talk 02:29, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

How about adding between the 2 paragraphs another sentence "When placing political boxes on your userpage, please ponder if they reflect the opinions of you as an editor, or of you as an individual in general." To shorten the text, we can remove "Please bear in mind, though, that there are some strongly held views on the matter." because that is already clear from the rest of the text. And no underlying of anything. Dc76\^talk 02:35, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Think you are right about keeping things short - if it becomes a mini-essay, people just won't read it. I have no objection to removing the "Please bear in mind..." bit.

I think the word "ponder" may be too lyrical in this conext (ie not the right tone). How about: "Please remember that the purpose of userboxes is to tell people about yourself as a Wikipedian, not as a human being in general"? --FormerIP (talk) 22:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Perfect. The word "ponder" is one of my favorites. :) I began using it more often after watching a Japanese movie which had a song containing this word (in English translation). Obviously, the rest of the world does not have to insert it everywhere as I do. :) I introduced your sentence, but I also added "(an editor of an encyclopedia)". If it reads obfuscating, feel free to insert the word "obfuscate" instead. :) Have a nice day. Dc76\^talk 19:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Dennis

I need userbox with Kucinich on it, for example text "This user considers Dennis Kucinich his favorite member of the US Congress" and then his photo there. Please make it for me :)--Rastko Pocesta (talk) 16:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Please--A pace-loving commie liberal :) 14:54, 2 August 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rastko Pocesta (talk • contribs)

Do we really need the warning?

The big warning at the beginning of the page seems too obtrusive to me. —K. the Surveyor (talk) 02:44, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Off-limits politics

Are there any political beliefs that are inappropriate to express in a userbox? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 01:53, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

• That would be against Wikipedian guidelines by censoring a philosophy, limiting our breadth and depth. If someone wants to create a userbox stating their belief they should be able to, no matter what the belief is. Stidmatt (talk) 05:11, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

display is borked

Something is wrong with the sections "Media", "Internationalism, Nationalism, Globalization", "United Nations (UN)", "Governance", and "War & Peace" but I can't spot what it might be. Help? ⇔ ChristTrekker 14:24, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Think I found it. If I edit the full page, I see "Warning: Template include size is too large. Some templates will not be included." I think that the page just needs to be split, somehow. ⇔ ChristTrekker 14:32, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

These Userboxes help Wikipedia

I think we should have people be able to have userboxes that tell us what their beliefs are. That way after seeing unsourced edits we can see what they believe, which is useful to me when viewing malicious edits and seeing that a user was using Wikipedia as their platform. That way if somebody consistently vandalizes a page relating to politics and we see they are using wikipedia to further their philosophy by deleting opposing viewpoints or putting up NPOV banners inappropriately we can determine if the person is following Wikipedia's guidelines inappropriately and do the right thing to punish them with probable cause for breaking our clear guidelines, delete and block, to preserve our fair wiki. Even if they are conservative. Thoughts? Comments? Stidmatt (talk) 05:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

New subsection

I'm going to organize the subsections a bit. I'd like to see specific party and movement affiliations have their own subsection, to make them easier to find. ozhu (talk · contribs) 00:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)