Forum:Possible establishment of a userpage policy

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As some of you may be aware, a certain user who was permanently blocked the other day had been a major nuisance with his userpage as well as those of other users, as evident by his final contributions. From a quick overview it appears that this had been influenced by the commonly used "Friends lists" that appear on many userpages here. It also appears that he had used his userpage to post flamebait/attacking images of other user's activity in Chat.

While these kinds of issues don't happen too frequently, there's nothing saying that they won't happen again. With this in mind, I'd like to propose the possible implementation of a userpage policy outlining what you can and can't put on your userpage and (even though I'm sure this is a rule already) something saying that one shouldn't edit another's userpage without good reason.

Obviously we can say that anything that can be seen as offensive or distasteful is forbidden otherwise free reign is allowed but the point of discussion comes at editing other's userpages, particularly with friends lists. I do have my own personal opinions about friends lists on userpages but to allow for some serious discussion I'll vocally withhold my thoughts for now.

What's everybody's thoughts, views and ideas on this? Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 12:58, March 24, 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Well, I suppose we could have a rule in which in that you have to ask the person before you can add their name to your list, and they can remove themselves at any time. And perhaps we could have a rule in which in order to be able to copy and paste certain parts of a users page you have to ask. I'm Deskita Talk to me If you want 22:43, March 24, 2013 (UTC)

We've always held the standard that users should not edit other users pages without a good reason. This rule is widely enforced as it is, so I support "making it official." As for friends lists... I don't like them. Additionally, I think getting rid of them would ultimately prevent/eliminate a lot of drama between users who are/are not on each others' friends list. However... I don't necessarily know if getting rid of the lists is a viable option, since we'd be limiting - for the first time in the wiki's history - the content of a userpage. (Granted, we already control for content, but that is just to keep those pages in line with wiki content rules).

If the community chooses to kill friends lists - and I emphasize that the community at-large should be involved - then I support their elimination. Regardless, I would support an addition to the General Policies outlining acceptable actions for users editing other users userpages. In my mind, this policy would specify that edits to others' userpages can be made only to correct minor issues, fix formatting or revert vandalism. Additionally, users making these changes would have to leave an edit summary describing the action, and (possibly) leave a message on the user's talk page notifying them of the action. I was also thinking, perhaps we could use Abuse Filter to prompt users to confirm userspace edits (except to their own pages), so that they are aware of the rules before their edits are published.

That's all I've got for now. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 22:46, March 24, 2013 (UTC)