Is this allowable? (In the case of the first one, I only discovered the page while scanning through the MfD and finding this page). There is potentially divisive views on whether or not this is allowed, according to the MfD, with some people citing WP:Censored and others citing this very page. WP:User pages#What I may not have in my user pages doesn't explicitly say that this sort of content is prohibited in userspace, so I'm asking for comment on this. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 07:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

• Now this is difficult to prove further, but unless these pages are used for building an encyclopedia or to .. represent themselves and their work on the encyclopedia, I would qualify them as 'personal pages', which would be in violation of WP:NOTWEBHOST. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
• I strongly concur with Dirk; see also WP:POINT. -- Orange Mike | Talk 17:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
• Agree. This has nothing to do with Wikipedia being not censored - that's a red herring. This sort of page is a 'personal page' and shows up in Google if you search on ""weird pictures" wikipedia". Although a different issue, this bothers me User:Kingstonjr - a list of the prettiest Wikipedians? Do they know they are on that page? Dougweller ( talk) 17:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
• Agree as well. NOTCENSORED is about dealing with encyclopedic topics that certain groups want to censor for whatever reason without giving in to such demands... it is NOT a license for people to put whatever they like on their user pages. Let's keep the sexual content to appropriate articlespace, and deal with it there in a superlatively professional manner. Jclemens ( talk) 21:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
• For me, I would say: 1-2 images=meh ( AGF, some user latitude, possibly files that he uploaded to support an article); 4-5=pushing the envelope (not likely to produce constructive edits); 10-20=entirely inappropriate userpage that should be CSDed). I would delete those pages if it was allowed. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 22:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

• IAR, no numbers, (let's not be creepy!). I support NOTCENSORED for articles, but content like this (in thix context) is disruptive. — mono 02:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

• In general agree with an option to remove a few narrowly defined types of material from userspace (including express or implied sexual material not directly related to the project's benefit), without needing an extensive MFD. But a broad-worded ban may cause more disruption than anticipated (some people will class anything as "sexual" if it touches on the topic). I am not convinced the best way to word it yet, and it also might get taken wrongly as part of the current "Fox News" scenario which it isn't, so I haven't proposed anything on this. Quick thoughts:

1. Some content should be much easier to remove from userspace, without causing issues, but the leeway in userspace means this will probably be hard to word in a way that's widely accepted.
2. The guidance and norms on removal should be updated to make WP:UP less ambiguous on how to handle contentious material and allow saving of bureaucracy for clear or likely problem material.
3. The material considered contentious may need review, the current leeway could be a little wide in some areas (although it is not hugely abused). We might be able to address how material is dealt with better.

Now someone else has also suggested this I will try to give it some thought. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 17:49, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Should "Vandalspaces" be allowed or deleted, according to the recent MfD for User:NerdyScienceDude/Vandalism space? In other words, following this MFD (please take a look at the consensus for delete; its really important), I've decided to create this discussion for the deletion of this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. Avicennais suggested that I bring it over here. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 05:47, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps having a "my vandalism page" was once funny, but any humor has long gone, and these pages are not appropriate. All instances should be deleted because they serve no purpose; indeed, such pages may promote the idea that some forms of vandalism are fun. I have seen a claim that having a vandalism page helps to reduce vandalism on the user page. This claim is very misguided because a genuine vandal would not even notice a vandalism page, and they certainly would not respect it. The best procedure for handling vandalism is revert, block, ignore because vandalism thrives on attention: denying that atttention is the best response. No page on Wikipedia should contain WP:BLP or WP:CIVIL or WP:NOTMYSPACE violations – this consideration also rules out having a "my vandalism page". Johnuniq ( talk) 07:36, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, which is why I opened up the discussion on an MfD page (if that's a mistake, then I'm sorry; but it looks like it's going nowhere at this moment). There should be a policy against this kind of thing. Probably we should get more admins on this. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 03:34, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Johnuniq; vandal spaces should be banned. In addition to what Johuniq stated, they serve as a source of a dirty reputation for Wikipedia; as I and others have said in past AFD discussions, there have been attacks made on them that range from racist comments to homophobic slang. The fact that Wikipedia supports content like that being on here is simply preposterous to me; it doesn't matter where it appears, it's there, and it's hurtful. I believe that they very rarely, if ever, actually "divert" vandalism; if a vandal wants to actually vandalize Wikipedia, they won't be doing it in a spot meant for it. In addition, all the edits in vandal spaces does not necessarily mean that those edits would have appeared elsewhere otherwise. A long while ago, I made a "vandal" edit to a vandal space; but does that mean that if that vandal space wasn't there, that I would have vandalized elsewhere? Of course not. ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 20:18, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they should be specifically disallowed unless people are just myspacing on them. I haven't really seen much "real" vandalism on most, but they don't really encourage vandalism to me. Perhaps redirect all of them to the sandbox, or just keep them as is. But there's no reason to waste our time with this discussion--it's not that big of a deal, really. And who might be practicing something other than what he or she preaches...? — fetch · comms 22:17, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I placed no such homophobic comments on their page! I simply called the page "useless"and experimenting Wikicode. That's not that big a deal, right? :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 00:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

In reply to Fetchcomms: Forgive me for not understanding, but what do you mean when you say "real" vandalism? Regarding myspacing, I don't really understand that rational either. If myspacing is bad because it distracts from building an encyclopedia, how is a vandal page any different? It certainly doesn't contribute to building one. As for whether or not it encourages vandalism is up for debate, but the perception of what Wikipedia is may very well be distorted by such pages. JamesBWatson, in this MfD, mentions how he has "actually known vandals to object to reverting and warning, giving reasons which amount to 'Wikipedia is just supposed to be somewhere where you can have fun editing.'" ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 00:29, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

"You're useless"? Could have been clearer. Don't you have your own sandbox...? Real vandalism, as in not just regular users being bored, but like a vandalism-only account targeting the page. I said that the vandalism pages can be deleted if there is MySpacing on them--which I have not really seen. It doesn't hurt, and has the potential to help. Perception due to these pages? To be blunt, that's ridiculous. Perception of Wikipedia is bored kids thinking they can be stupid and no one can find them. These pages help to reduce vandalism in mainspace, not promote it. — fetch · comms 17:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

"Doesn't hurt"? MySpacing is the thing that doesn't hurt; uncivil and slanderous claims do. I don't understand why you find MySpacing to be bad on vandalpages, but insulting content to not be. To be blunt, that's what's ridiculous to me. Do you have any evidence that suggests that these pages help reduce vandalism is the mainspace? I don't see any; the most interesting thing I've seen are anonymous users who "vandalize" a vandalpage, then proceed to actually vandalize the mainspace. I've seen that happen at least once. If that supports anything, it's not your claim that it helps reduce vandalism in the namespace, but rather, it supports the opposite claim that it does support it. In addition, individually deleting vandal spaces when MySpacing occurs on them is also an odd concept to me. You state that this discussion is a waste of time; well, individually having discussions for vandalpages that happen to have MySpacing going on on them is an even bigger waste of time. Deleting these pages would be the best solution; their negative characteristics outweigh their only positive one, which is that they divert vandalism from the mainspace (which, even that claim is debatable). ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 18:21, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Both hurt. I have NEVER, EVER said that any BLP vio, libelous comment, slanderous claim, or any other form of attack statement made ANYWHERE is by any means acceptable. So I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't slander me with that sort of accusation. I do indeed have evidence that these pages dispel vandalism in mainspace pages--look at a more active one's history. Do you have any evidence that suggests that these pages defame Wikipedia? None that I have seen so far. There are always exceptions--there is no proof that the vandalpage caused them to vandalize an article. In fact, it likely caused them to NOT vandalize an extra article! I think all claims here are debatable--there is no really solid evidence either way. I think MfD for these sorts of things are odd; see my comment below about my "official" view--if no one cares about them, then just CSD. If it belongs to an active user, then there's no real issue when they are diligent in removing libelous comments. — fetch · comms 21:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Apologies if it seems that way; the point I'm trying to bring across is that if vandalspaces are present, then that sort of thing will appear on them, and that supporting the presence of vandalspaces is, in essence, supporting the appearance of that negative content. I know you, or any one of us, definitely don't want to see that, but if vandalspaces are present, they will. Most of the current active ones do not contain any significant problematic material, the worst being "lol, you suck." The recent ones that have been deleted, however, showed the worst of the worst; these contained the things I was talking about, such as racial insults and homophobic comments. These linked pages have the potential to become the same thing, which is why they are a problem. And I still don't see any evidence - as I said before, edits made to a vandalpage don't necessarily signify that those edits would've appeared in the mainspace. ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 21:27, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

But my point is, that sort of thing appears inevitably everywhere. By your logic, we should semiprot all BLP pages due to potential vandalism. And I do agree that there is no evidence either way. — fetch · comms 22:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

RFC: Vandalspaces

Across Wikipedia in userspaces, you'll find plenty of sandboxes for developing articles, testing wikicode, and more. Then, you'll find vandalism spaces (places for semi-/experienced editors to be "funny") serving no purpose. Many of them contain innappropriate content,^{BLP violations, MYSPACE violations, and CIVIL violations} while the typical rationale to keep them is "having a vandalism space helps to reduce userpage vandalism", which, as Johnuiniq points out, is "very misguided" and "the best procedure for handling vandalism is revert, block, ignore." Finally, as SuperHamster indicates, "they serve as a dirty reputation for Wikipedia," expecially when they turn up in search results. monosock 23:00, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

• Wuh? If 'sandboxes' are outside policy, I'll happily zap them. Examples? Fences& Windows 23:41, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

• See the pages linked in TeleComNasSprVen's post above for examples. I would be inclined to delete the lot since they encourage exactly the type of edits we are supposed to be discouraging. They can also turn up in search results as pointed out unless NOINDEXed. Not good for WP's reputation if you are making homophobic comments or claiming that a certain (named) Hollywood actress likes to have sex with horses or whatever... -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 23:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I was attempting to say: "Sandboxes good. Vandalspaces bad." monosock 00:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Dear me. Yes, all those should be deleted, per WP:NOTMYSPACE: "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia."; WP:UPNOT: "there is broad agreement that you may not include in your user space material that is likely to bring the project into disrepute, or which is likely to give widespread offense."; and WP:UP#GAMES: "Games, roleplaying sessions, secret pages and other things pertaining to "entertainment" rather than "writing an encyclopedia"." We may want to update WP:USERPAGE to specify that these are not acceptable pages. I'm not aiming to be a curmudgeon, but a trawl of Category:Wikipedia humor might also be wise. Fences& Windows 16:12, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

If and when vandal spaces become "officially" not allowed, it would be wise to also list vandal pages at Wikipedia:Subpages#Disallowed_uses in addition to, as you said, WP:USERPAGE. This may be a bit excessive for this small topic, but would it be a good idea to create a page at, for example, Wikipedia:Vandalspaces? On this page, it could describe what vandalspaces are, that they are not allowed, and give reasons why. I'd be happy to make it, then have it reviewed. ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 16:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to say that this is only part of a time-wasting campaign by mono, et al, to purge the project of any sort of "MySpacing" in userspace. Should we delete all the humor pages as well? Can we remove guestbooks too? (Oh wait, who's been changing his opinion on those for the past month?) This is a ridiculous discussion to be having. Do those pages hurt? Well,
  • "(places for semi-/experienced editors to be "funny") serving no purpose. Many of them contain innappropriate content,^{BLP violations, MYSPACE violations, and CIVIL violations}" -- well, let's see. Uh, regular users introducing BLP violations? Block, please. MySpace violations? How frequent is that, and how many times have you MySpaced that often? Everyone does it occasionally; no one actually vandalizes for fun regularly. Show up in Google searches? Yeah, can I have an example please? Unless anyone actually looks for, say "User:Chancellor Alt/vandalize", you find it. I searched for

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• and did not come up with User:King of Hearts/Notepad/Vandalism on Wheels!, which does not have noindex as far as I can tell. Reputation? Who takes us seriously, we have a disclaimer! Wait, the media is the one who has caused the current perception of Wikipedia. Not these vandalspaces, saying that these bring us into disrepute is just absurd. And ""very misguided" and "the best procedure for handling vandalism is revert, block, ignore.""--misguided how? "because a genuine vandal would not even notice a vandalism page, and they certainly would not respect it."? Can someone explain how just even one vandal noticing and not vandalizing an article is a Very Bad Thing? And revert-block-ignore is something that needs to be applied on a case-by-case basis, because of AGF--any VOA can be blocked quickly, yes, but if one decided to be silly on a vandalspace, how does that hurt? Prove that that's never happened, and I'll be happy. Lastly, if our vandalism patrollers can't catch BLP vandalism on these pages, we have a much more serious issue in the mainspace, too. Obviously, things will fall through, but that doesn't mean all such pages should be deleted (can we remove the Seigenthaler page too?) — fetch · comms 17:57, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't take it too kindly to be considered as part of a "time-wasting campaign". I'm not sure about others, but the reason I'm against vandal pages in not because I am against all MySpacing, and it is not part of my evil plan to "purge the project of any sort of "MySpacing" in userspace". I support the use of guestbooks and humor pages. By all means, I like guestbooks and humor pages. I have a guestbook and I do read humor pages quite frequently. These pages, as long as they are in limitation and are in good humor in relatedness to Wikipedia, are great. The reason why I'm against vandalpages is because those pages are a host for scandalous claims, racist and discriminatory comments, and other insults. Yes, MySpacing does also occur on them. But there is a formidable difference between the MySpacing that occurs in guestbooks/humor pages and the MySpacing that occurs on vandalpages. The MySpacing that occurs on vandalpages is often not in good humor and not related to Wikipedia in any way. It is often random junk that is only humorous to a select group of people, usually only being humorous to the one that is writing it. Guestbooks and humor pages, as far as I know, are not a place for this sort of thing. If they are, I'll happilly support the banishment of them.

Now, you state that things such as BLP violations, in addition to appearing on vandalpages, also appear in the mainspace, which is very well true. But there is a difference in it appearing in the mainspace and the vandalspace. In articles, such things are not allowed. But on vandalpages, it is allowed for such things appear. Of course you won't delete the Seigenthaler page, because what has happened before is not supposed to happen. On vandalpages, however, it is supposed to happen, and that's just wrong. But let's say that it isn't allowed, and that vandalpages are to be patrolled to rid of any over-the-line content. Suddenly, vandalpages have become pages that have to be patrolled just like normal articles have to be. That would be a complete waste of time, to patrol pages that have barely any, if any at all, positive return for Wikipedia. Beyond that, the whole point of a vandalpage has been destroyed, because it is now being patrolled just as articles are (of course, with more leniency, but being patrolled just the same). You call this discussion a waste of this; it is patrolling vandalpages that would be the big waste of time.

As for reputation: No, of course Wikipedia won't be known as the place that has evil and malicious content on it's vandalpages to the entire world. But to a select group of people, these pages are offensive. Regarding your comment where you say, "Can someone explain how just even one vandal noticing and not vandalizing an article is a Very Bad Thing?", I believe you read the comment wrong. Johnuniq is saying in the sentence that you quoted that a genuine vandal who wants to vandalize would not vandalize on a vandalpage, but would rather vandalize on an actual article. ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 19:25, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

MySpacing is okay, when used in the spirit of building an encyclopedia, and only to a certain extent. I'll use the most extreme example of bad humor out there: do you actually like to visit this page? I'd be comparing vandalpages to such a page; whereas other pages such as guestbooks are treated in lighter respect. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 20:50, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

When has a vandalpage been a "host for scandalous claims, racist and discriminatory comments, and other insults"? Al that I've seen is general harmless messing around with code and stuff. And "But on vandalpages, it is allowed for such things appear."--no, it is certainly NOT allowed, anywhere. It is not supposed to happen. "Suddenly, vandalpages have become pages that have to be patrolled just like normal articles have to be."--uh, all pages need to be patrolled. Like, one's user sandbox, or one's guestbook, or some obscure project page, all of which I have seen gross vandalism on that was not caught for weeks. Obviously, anyone who wants to cause real harm (like a run-of-the-mill VOA or Willy on Wheels, etc.) would target an article. But a curious, new user, might decide to vandalize a vandalspace page instead, thereby reducing the overall amount of mainspace vandalism and letting them avoid a warning--which sometimes defeats the purpose of DENY for certain users, but that's a whole different issue. If a user chooses to create such a page, it is his or her own responsibility to patrol the page--and if they leave, sure, feel free to delete those pages as useless. But for someone active in vandalism patrols, and whose userpage might be a target for persistent vandals, it is a useful page to keep. I never said that you are personally part of a time-wasting campaign--but I just see this as a useless discussion. I have, however, seen some other users continue to lead a sort of crusade against these sorts of pages--most of which are inactive and do no harm. Let sleeping dogs lie, no? Some of the rationales I have seen from others are rather POINTy to me, and some seem more valid. But can we just write articles and forget about this?

When would MySpacing be in the spirit of helping the encyclopedia and be OK? The concept of MySpacing is detrimental to advancing Wikipedia. ED is NOT close to a vandalpage at all. They do not exist solely to attack people. Their purpose to avoid such attacks.

My "official" stance is, for any user whose vandalpage serves no real purpose because no one will see it, sure, delete. But for anyone whose page is still employed in a useful fashion, keep. We can't mass delete these things--it has to be case-by-case. — fetch · comms 21:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Do you suggest that we tag vandalism pages with "no real insults allowed"? So we delete some vandalpages and keep others. The problem here seems to lie in how useful a vandalism page actually is. For an example in how difficult it is in determining the usefulness of a page, see Chancellor Alt's: :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 22:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I would say that usefulness is determined by pageviewability--so any editor who has edited recently (maybe the past year to be a bit broad and general) and who was a vandalpage can keep their page in light of it being useful. But any useless page, from someone with maybe 20 edits or who hasn't been around for years, those can be deleted as generally useless. (Also, I moved your comment down...) — fetch · comms 22:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

How is ED not a vandalpage, when it clearly exists to disparage BLPs such as President Bush? This content-free encyclopedia is exactly what's encouraging vandals and co. to mess up main- and user-space. And what is pageviewability? I think the usefulness of a vandalism page should be determined by whether it fulfills its purpose or not. For example, you mention that it diverts vandalism away from userspace; has anyone vandalized this, as opposed to the Userpage (see userbox to right)? :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 03:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• Of course, yes, we're here to build a reputable and reliable encyclopedia, but do you propose to turn the whole of Wikipedia into a Victorian school, or some sort of dictatorship where any form of amusement is treated with the upmost scrutiny? Honestly, what is the point of living if you can't have a bit of fun in a while? I personally have a slightly amusing user page (whilst I do not have a vandalspace), and I don't think it at all distracts me from doing work on Wikipedia. No, we're not a social network, but my page, and I'd say that most, if not all user pages I've been on have not in any way reminded me of my Facebook profile at all, they are just a bit of harmless fun that helps other users mesh with other users so that our work only here is a little less painless. WackyWace ^{talk to me, people} 20:26, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

@Fetchcomms: the NSD vandalpage contained several very racist, homophobic, and sexist comments; this Google search contains three vandalpages, including the cached version of Nsd's page from 16 May 2010. I initially also thought that Mono's action against NSD's page was a waste of time but quickly realised he was correct in his assessment. "Reputation? Who takes us seriously, we have a disclaimer!" Well, if no one takes us seriously, not even us, ourselves, there is little point editing...

@Wackywace: no, I don't want "to turn the whole of Wikipedia into a Victorian school, or some sort of dictatorship". The last thing I want around here is the Ministry of Happiness ensuring everone is miserable and working as hard as possible on articles, policies, deletion discussions etc. On the other hand, we have Policies and Guidelines for a reason: we are ultimately working towards the same goal so we need to follow the same strategies even if we use different tactics for certain aspects of the campaign. The ultimate goal of WP is the creation of an encyclopedia. Certain things would seem to be peripheral to that goal but are actually there to motivate the editors: guestbooks, humour pages, userboxes, and many other things. Many of my user talk discussions go off at weird tangents and we often do discuss things off-topic to WP, such as other websites we have joined or what grade piano we got to. If all we were doing was discussing such stuff, we might as well join MySpace or FaceBook; but those aspects of the discussion are generally short and intended as light relief from the often onerus tasks we have voluntarily decided to undertake. Nothing wrong with that.

One issue only touched upon so far is that these pages contain "rules". Well, vandals have no rules so how do you expect anyone vandalising a vandal page to follow the rules? It is a contradiction in terms.

The main reason I object to vandalism spaces, though, is that while they might not cause Wikipedia's reputation to be damaged they certainly contribute to that damage. Imagine if we all had such pages: the perception that the rest of the world would have of us would be that we are a bunch of hypocrits. "Look", they would say, "these people hate vandalism in articles and even block vandals but actively encourage it their own user space but never block themselves." OK, it is unlikely that everyone would create such pages or even that 10% of active editors would do so; however, the perception is still going to be that we allow vandalism when it suits us but delete and block when it doesn't. Pure hypocracy, according the rest of the world. Should we care what they think? Of course we should if we are to retain any sense of dignity and encourage intelligent and thoughtful editors to join us. If all we want are hacks who couldn't care less about the stuff they write about, then what does it matter what the rest of the world think? Vandalism pages represent a dumming dowm of Wikipedia's standards that needs to be checked here and now. The fact that they often contain offensive or libellous material (that still turns up in cached results) is almost secondary to that -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 23:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

That was a joke... but we do indeed have a disclaimer. No one actually searches on Google for "vandal space", correct? We do not encourage all vandalism by having these pages--we discourage it in the mainspace. It's a preventive or alternate method, not a hypocritical one. Anyone who thinks "that we allow vandalism when it suits us but delete and block when it doesn't" needs a cluebat, you can't make everything clear enough for a very stubborn person. As I said, I see no real way that these contribute to our "bad reputation" of sorts. There is simply no evidence either way--no "evidencial consensus", if I can say. So, deal with these on a case-by-case basis, but keep those which still serve their purpose. — fetch · comms 23:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

In any case, I am advocating that any user with a vandalpage needs to keep an eye on it. Not trying to blame anyone, but the fact that BLPvios were let in and not immediately removed brings only disrepute to that user. — fetch · comms 23:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

In reply to Fetchcomms:

I confess that I did a purely-bad job at conveying what I wanted to say regarding what's allowed and what's not. You're completely correct about the BLP-violations and all the jazz not being allowed anywhere on Wikipedia, and I worded what I said to sound just like the opposite; however, what I basically wanted to say was that on vandalspaces, based on all of the ones that I've seen, none of those policies were actually enforced, which is why I say that they are "allowed". In technical terms, yes, they're not allowed, but in reality, it wasn't actually enforced, as was seen on NerdyScienceDude's vandalism page; as a result, in essence, it's "allowed". Now, if the pages were to actually be enforced, I would think that that would be a large waste of time: to patrol a page that is simply used to place random junk on. That's my view, at least.

However, I like what you said about it being a user's responsibility to upkeep their own vandalpage. If a user wants to make sure that their vandalpage is clear of any out-of-line content, that's fantastic, and I wouldn't have as much as a problem with such pages. It's just that I haven't seen it happen yet, and I doubt that many users who say that they will patrol their page will actually live up to that standard for an extended period of time, and I do believe that it will end up being more problematic in the end. From what I've seen, many vandalpages are also created by new users; these users are not aware of Wikipedia policy, and as a result, don't actually clean out their vandalpages. This leads to problems, like this whole discussion for starters. I know that I keep rambling on about you calling this discussion being a waste of time; however, I doubt that all those individual discussions to delete individual vandalpages, which may very well stretch on with arguments as we see here and have seen in past MfDs, would constitute as being a useful use of users' time either. Vandalpages may be helpful and could possibly be held up by several users, but when so many haven't been and aren't being done so, I think it would be wise to simply ban them altogether to avoid foreseeable problems in the future. If users want to direct new users who want to make curious edits elsewhere, there's always the Sandbox that they can link to.

When I say "good" MySpacing, I mean things such as guestbooks. They certainly constitute as a form of communication that is often not directly related to Wikipedia; however, it is a mode of collaboration, which is what Wikipedia thrives on, and they are generally problem-less and help promote both a good atmosphere and potential collaboration. I myself have met a user through my guestbook that sparked up my involvement in different areas of Wikipedia, and another user met me through signing mine, in which they promptly invited me to a WikiProject afterwards. ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 00:22, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The issue is, many vandals (though not all) find every page something to put their crap on. Yes, I agree that upkeep of the vandalpages is not evident currently, and I certainly agree on the guestbook issue. Perhaps, as I mentioned earlier (I think) that we simply redirect all these vandalpages to the general sandbox, and any user who commits to maintaining his or her own vandalspace can change the redirect back. — fetch · comms 00:35, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

You did mention that earlier. I like the idea, but there are some things wrong with it that I don't like, as I think that it would end up a bit more problematic than necessary. In the long run, we'd have to inform new users who create a vandalpage about upkeeping it and we'd have to make sure that vandalpages are actually being monitored by the user, all while it's a page that doesn't have that much of a great product as a result of its existence. It's completely up to anyone's guess, but I also believe that over time, there is a chance that interest in maintaining vandalpages (on the behalf of both the users who own the page and others who are checking them) would decline back to where it is now, unless we have some sort of a "foundation". Since users didn't do a great job of monitoring them in the past (because as you said, the presence of those attacks and BLP-violations is a no-no anywhere, but their presence was still in the vandalspace for long periods of time), I believe that if we do go with what you suggest, it may be a nice idea to make a new page that acts as a policy regarding vandalpages that basically tells users that they have to upkeep their vandalspace from out-of-the-line edits, or it'll be redirected. Anyone else who's reading this want to add their input? It would be appreciated, since I guess we're pretty much at a standoff right now (though I'm pretty much neutral with Fetchcomms' idea; it it's implemented, great; if not, that's also great). ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 03:12, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Basically, a vandalpage is only acceptable if it lives up to its own standards. Does this mean that since most vandalpages don't live up to that certain standard that they can be deleted? :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 03:40, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree with making some sort of guideline about it, and I would say redirected first, but deleted is fine in most cases as well, I suppose. — fetch · comms 13:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. This is not a proposal to eliminate "vandalspaces", it's a proposal to eliminate sandboxes. Policies such as BLP already apply to user space and can be enforced there. A user subpage containing silly, irrelevant edits may appear to be useless, but is actually a tool for community development and community relationships which later aid in the coordination of editing. It may also allow editors to provide feedback on the editing skills of other editors. Dcoetzee 15:02, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Dcoetzee, please take a look at the links at the very top of this section before going off about sandboxes rather than vandalspaces. These are clearly degrading, insulting use of userspace. I also provided an example with the picture above. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 18:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Others seem to think that my stance is "eliminate sandboxes," which is incorrect. I use sandboxes heavily, and approve of them, as long as they remain appropriate for the encyclopedia, based upon policies/guidelines such as WP:BLP and WP:CIVIL. I fully understand that Wikipedia is not censored. — mono 18:57, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I am undecided on the issue of vandalboxes. I do not feel that inappropriate content or images should be allowed in them, but I also feel that, if a user is going to make inappropriate edits, it is much better for those edits to be madfe in a vandalbox than on a userpage. Immunize _{Contact me} Contributions 20:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

If sandbox pages contain offensive content then it should be removed. There's no such thing as a "vandalspace" - to my knowledge no user has ever created a page designated for use by vandals, and the very idea of creating one is silly. The so-called "vandalspace" page deleted in that MFD discussion is just a sandbox page with a facetious name, and contains very similar content to Wikipedia:Sandbox. I'd like to think we can also distinguish harmless frivolity from actual attacks. Dcoetzee 21:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

If you looked at the page that NerdyScienceDude had before it was deleted, it clearly had a tag on the very top of the page designating "For vandals, only". You could also say that the tag contained, "Please do not place offensive material here", but whether the user was checking for that is in dispute. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 21:20, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The tag did not say "For vandals only." As far as the offensive material goes, I only considered personal attacks, such as things like "Suck my dick" or "Fuck off", as well as swearing to be "offensive". None of the vandalism were attacks pointed directly at another editor. I'm now neutral about this since I really don't care anymore. ~ NerdyScienceDude ( ✉ • ✐) 21:24, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have misunderstood the tag then. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 00:31, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Just a note (and a page break)

Note: It is interesting that most of the people who comment in the Vandalspaces section appear to be Mono's tps. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 05:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

We do not appear to have consensus on what to do with Vandalspaces. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 05:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

What I think we could possibly do is to have a list of the different options, similar to what is being done with the RfC for unsourcd BLPs. Users then provide either their support or oppose for each one and provide a bit of reasoning. If enough users participate, it would *hopefully* end up being a consensus. ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 14:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposal:

• Rename "vandalspaces" to "sandboxes", changing the "idea" to present a more constructive use of pages.
• Remove "vandalspaces" from user page design materials, such as WP:UPD, instead encouraging sandboxes.
• Delete all "vandalspaces" with content violating policies/guidelines.
• Delete vandalspaces on a case-by-case basis, similar to the "secret pages" MfD.
• Clarify that content violating WP:BLP, WP:CIVIL, etc. will be deleted in userspace.
• Encourage renaming of "vandal spaces" to sandboxes. — mono 23:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Regards, — mono 19:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Good idea, I only thought of simply deleting and then recreating those vandalpages as sandboxes (like the Great Flood). :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 19:12, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose This is nothing but instruction-creep. Defamatory statements and the like are prohibited by existing policy. There's no need to ban vandalspaces. Wikipedia isn't a gated community with a restrictive covenent. As long as users aren't allowing toxic waste to spill out over their yards, let them put whatever lawn ornaments they like in their space. Violations can be dealt with individually; there's no evidence that this is a widespread problem that can't be dealt with under existing policies. -- Danger ( talk) 20:38, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

But this is exactly the problem; "let[ting] them put whatever lawn ornaments they like in their space"; especially when such lawn ornaments become insulting and degrading, as I've pointed out by providing the picture above: "Your mom dad, ooohhh!" Is that acceptable? Also, it violates this. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 21:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, lawn ornaments that violate civility or anti-defamation policies are part of the toxic waste category. There is no need for my town to pass an ordinance prohibiting the creation of outdoor galleries of nude statues made of human feces; it's already covered under the health code. As to your example, I really can't be bothered to get worked up over it; this is the internet and we don't have to look at bare buttocks if they offend us.

And regarding the existing rules about user space use, I'm agnostic about whether vandal spaces are or are not prohibited. My point still stands though. If they are already prohibited, then this proposal is redundant. If they are not prohibited, it has yet to be shown that they are a problem great enough that they cannot be dealt with under existing policy. -- Danger ( talk) 21:53, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The problem I see is that, while policies certainly exist that disallow the appearance of BLP-violations, attacks, etc., they are (or were) a common sight to see on vandalpages for very long periods of time. The reason I say "were" is that the worst vandalpages have already been deleted as a result of several MfDs that occurred a short while before this RfC was initiated. Moving on, there are policies, it's just that they aren't being applied like they should be. The current vandalpages that we see linked at the very top of this section contain only a very limited amount of insultive content as compared to what's been seen in the short past; however, the reason I support the deletion of vandalspaces overall is that based on what I've seen before, these pages have what I describe as the easy potential to become what's been seen before, that being highly offensive pages that are against policy. Now, perhaps not every single one may turn out badly given exposure to vandals; some users actually patrol their own vandalpage, such as this one. However, the large bulk of them are far more "exposed" to inappropriate content that will likely not be removed for a long period of time once it's been placed. As stated, not every vandalpage is a bad one, but I believe the solution to delete them is far simply and much more hassel-free than if we are to individually check each one on a timely basis to see if it actually falls in-line policy. The only other alternative I see to deleting them is to make sure that they are all actively patrolled, which isn't the current state-of-mind that the community has towards them, as evident by current and past vandalpages. However, once again, I believe that that would turn out to be too much of a hassel for something that is not very detrimental, of even helpful, to Wikipedia.

But either way, I guess what Jubilee said below is what will unavoidably happen; this discussion will never actually reach a solid consensus. ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 22:28, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose all per Gimme danger. We cannot simply mass eradicate these, because some are still, and eliminating all of them is basically eliminating the idea of a sandbox, regardless of what you claim. Can you explain what the difference is between vandalism at WP:SAND or on a vandalpage? None, the same rules still apply. — fetch · comms 21:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Per above. I feel that the vandalspaces containing defamation or other very inappropriate content should be dealt with on a case by case basis. Immunize _{Contact me} Contributions 21:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - I suspect that banning, restricting or otherwise limiting vandal-spaces is going to become one of those Perennial Proposals that some agree with and some don't but with no consensus either way. Personally, I think we should ban them for the reasons I stated above; clearly, others disagree with my reasoning and think we should tolerate them but not necessarily encourage them. We all agree that unacceptable edits on vandal-space pages should be dealt with in exactly the same manner as unacceptable edits on any other page. Perhaps that latter should be our priority for now -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 21:22, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Yep. — fetch · comms 23:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
    • You mean, like this? :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 17:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

We should simply revert back to the last revision that does not contain offensive content. Immunize _{Contact me} Contributions 13:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I would support an outcome like the secret pages MfD. These are simply too wide to deal with accurately on a mass scale. — fetch · comms 21:00, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Another Proposal

Okay, let's say we decide to review them on a "case-by-case" basis.
Then we can, for the users who are long gone, no longer contributing, and that they're vandalpages are no longer functioning:

1. Delete Chancellor Alt's, Charlie Huggard's, SlightlyMad's, Dark Ermac's, Crisspy's, Crodo's, and MJfan9's vandalpages.

or

2. Redirect them to the Wikipedia sandbox.

Remember, the rationale for this is that the users are no longer active (aka "retired"). :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 17:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

• Obviously I am inclined to say "yes, delete the lot". OTOH, those pages haven't been touched for years and contain very little of real offence. The picture of someone's backside is actually a photo of a replica of Donatello's David and is in fact used in the article on Buttocks. I would personally kill new vandalpages... Some one else will reject that idea though! -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 19:10, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
• I would just say redirect. That way, anyone who happens to stumble upon it somehow will get to the sandbox and vandalize there rather than see a "oh this page is gone guess I have to mess up a real page now"-inducing message. — fetch · comms 21:00, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
• With respect to no longer active users, review on a case-by-case basis with redirection to the sandbox for non-functioning vandalpages seems appropriate. Shanata ( talk) 14:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
• The problem with vandalspaces is that they don't work. At least not as advertised: An RC patroller active in anti-vandalism puts up a vandalspace page politely asking vandals to "please vandalize this page instead" so that those nasty vandals won't vandalize his userpage. A vandal comes along, sees the vandalpage, laughs and does whatever the hell he wants anyway. Does noone see how absurd this is? If a malicious vandal really was intent on vandalizing someone's userpage I doubt they would be swayed by any polite notice or directions to a subpage. They're very much aware that it's meant to distract them away from the person's userpage. Plus having a target accessible for the mischief makers is no different from feeding the trolls and just validates their actions. -- œ ^™ 09:27, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
• Of course OlEnglish is correct: no vandal would want to vandalize a page saying "vandalize here". What such pages will tell vandals is that there is a certain acceptance of vandalism, even a form of respect because some Wikipedia editors feel that vandalism is sufficiently funny to dedicate pages in its honor. Johnuniq ( talk) 11:18, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't see any proof for that conclusion, nor did I think that there is a form of respect for vandals to dedicate funny pages (they aren't even funny) when I first saw one of those pages, before I was an active user. — fetch · comms 16:17, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't see any proof for the opposite conclusion either (that a vandal would want to vandalize a page saying "vandalize here"). So we're at a deadlock. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 21:47, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Another proposal (2)

Without question test pages and sandboxes are useful, Wikipedia humor has a valid place, and a page for witty or off-topic comments can add a smile or a lighter side to Wikipedia. There is a difference between those and permanent, invited, "homage to vandalism" pages or "vandalism shrines". It's hard to draw a line, but I would say users should not have pages that invite actual vandalism or appear to endorse or support vandalism. Even if the vandalism were in one namespace or a subpage it would contribute to a perception that vandalism has a place somewhere - a view which I do not follow and would not wish to see gain any legitimacy.

In other words, sandboxes are obviously not a problem, but inviting or condoning vandalism is. There is usually no good reason why a sandbox must use or invite vandalism for its test edits. Even "If you want to vandalize my page do it here" pages are poor ideas - WP:DENY and WP:RBI are better.

Proposed addition to " #What may I not have in my user pages?:

Pages that encourage or condone vandalism, disruption, copyright violation, privacy breach, or defamation. Vandalism in userspace may be removed by other users (see Handling inappropriate content).

FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 14:44, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

But the issue is, vandalism will always exist, so we are "encouraging" it in a less disruptive setting. I don't feel that this is actually encouraging anything (none of the vandalspaces are heavily used), and none of them encourage personal attacks or copyright violations. To use a blunt example, this is like advocating safe sex--you can't eliminate people having careless sex altogether, but you can certainly tell them to do it in a safer, healthier manner, if that makes sense at all. — fetch · comms 16:21, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I am doubtful that edits made to a vandalpage signify that those edits were diverted out of the mainspace. I believe that vandalpages only add to the vandalism already on Wikipedia, not divert it. Looking at your safe-sex example, it sort of follows this line. Condoms, while they help with safe sex, also increase the amount of sex that takes place that otherwise wouldn't have occured. In comparison, vandalpages, while they place vandalism in a less-important area, also increase the amount of unconstructive edits that take place that otherwise wouldn't have occured. Of course, there's no evidence of this, but that's what I believe happens. Thankfully moving on from the safe-sex analogy, as OE states, someone who wants to vandalize an article wouldn't go, "Oh! Look! A vandalpage! Instead of hurting Wikipedia and vandalizing an article, I can just do it in a less-harmful way and vandalize a vandalpage." Yes, vandalism occurs in the mainspace, but now similar edits are also happening on additional pages where it need not be (once again, no evidence, but that's what I believe is happening). As for whether or not it encourages vandalism: it may unclear how vandalpages contribute to the perception of Wikipedia, but I think it puts it in a light similar to what FT2 said. I know that I've said this before (and you proceeded to call it ridiculous [=), but as JamesBWatson said in a previous MfD, he has "actually known vandals to object to reverting and warning, giving reasons which amount to 'Wikipedia is just supposed to be somewhere where you can have fun editing." Of course Wikipedia is supposed to be a place to have fun (which is why I edit), but it should also be to build an encyclopedia; that user's perception, however, is not that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but something more of it being a giant party. Vandalpages, which are places for users to randomly blabber (which may be considered "fun") and not focus on building an encyclopedia at all, in my view, contribute to that perception. I think it is clear, at least to me, that they do encourage personal attacks or copyvios to occur on vandalpages by simply being titled "vandalpages", especially to new users. Let's take a look at User:Blood reaper/Vandalism page. In the rules, it states that offensive language and stolen content is not allowed. However, both appear, as there is both mildly offensive content and the lyrics to a song at the bottom. The rules themselves encourage the opposite of attacks and copyvios, yet they still occur, simply because the page being a vandalpage basically makes it seem like anything goes to new users. In the end, I support FT2's proposal. Thanks, ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 17:54, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support There is no reason to imagine that a vandal would even see a vandalspace page, let alone use it in lieu of damaging an article, so the suggestion that vandalspace pages have a purpose is incorrect. Vandalism will always be with us, and experience has shown that the best results come from WP:RBI and WP:DENY. Pages suggesting that some forms of vandalism are fun are misguided. Johnuniq ( talk) 01:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support Vandalspaces do little to avert vandalism from the mainspace. Those who enjoy vandalizing Wikipedia will not be deterred by a vandalspace that condones vandalism. The potential for BLP violations and other harmful content in these unpatrolled pages significantly outweighs the benefits they may have in averting vandalism in the mainspace. Cunard ( talk) 05:49, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support Placing this in the context of pages that condone or encourage copyright violations and defamation brings this home. All such pages should be discouraged. Vandalpages do encourage BLP violations, copyright violations, and racist, sexist, homophobic language: the recently deleted pages prove that beyond doubt. It also makes no sense to claim that vandals will edit on these page rather than in mainspace: why on earth would they bother? These pages are created purely for "fun" and are not usually really that funny, at all -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 21:24, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

On reflection I'd reword my suggestion above: Encouraging or condoning vandalism, copyright violation, edit warring, harassment, privacy breach, or defamation. Such content may be removed or collapsed by other users to avoid the appearance of acceptability (see Handling inappropriate content). "Disruption" is too ambiguous and abused. I'd also add "interface-disrupting CSS codes" as well. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 18:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd omit the "or collapsing" bit; remove 'em altogether. -- Orange Mike | Talk 19:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

"Collapsed" is so as not to imply removal is the only option. In some cases the user may wish to remove the post from public visibility but leave a "click here to view" on the page. Example: someone posts such material to an admin's page, the admin may well wish to keep it "on the record" or for their own reference, but not have it on public display and will collapse-box it instead. Or the user who notices it may, as a courtesy, not presume they want it removed, but collapse-box it until the admin reviews it. The collapse box makes the same point as removal - this content is inappropriate. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 02:30, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Probably-way-too-simplistic proposal

My understanding of the rules surrounding userpages is essentially: If a given edit would be quickly reverted in articlespace(for reasons of personal attacks, profanity, BLP, etc) then it's probably not something that should be included ANYWHERE--not on a userpage or in a user "sandbox". Even granting that our policies for userspace are more lenient than those for articlespace, our policies exist for a reason, and these policies should still have at least SOME teeth no matter what kind of "space" the violation is in.

These "vandal pages" sound as though their content, in whole or in part, is prohibited in most of WP; if that's the case, if these edits wouldn't survive any policy-based scrutiny, then they DO NOT belong in userspace--whether it's a subpage, a userbox, or a sandbox. Does this make sense to anyone else? GJC 03:15, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense to me, and I think it would be safe of me to say that everyone else here agrees that BLP violations, attacks, and copyrighted content should not be allowed anywhere. That's been something used in both sides of the discussion; on one hand, all pages are subject to violating policy when they are vandalized, so does that mean that all pages should be deleted since their content, at one point, has in the past or may in the future be prohibited by WP? On the other hand, many vandalpages, as evident by looking in the past and in the present, are often not as heavily patrolled, if at all, as compared to articles and the such and are often subject to holding inappropriate content for extended periods of time. Even then, there are two sides: do "many" vandalpages constitute as all? Should all vandalpages be deleted just because only some of them hold inappropriate content for longer periods of time? Or should they all be banned for the sake of simplicity and less hassling on an otherwise non-detrimental page, where they could all end up with the same faith as their counterparts? IMO they're all valid reasoning. I side with the latter, others side with the forerunner, but everyone agrees that content prohibited by WP is not allowed anywhere.~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 04:08, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, as stated by SuperHamster, such edits are disallowed everywhere onwiki. As I said earlier, I'm willing to compromise with redirecting or deleting all existing found vandalpages and anyone who is willing to patrol their own may have one; if they do not keep that up it may be deleted. It's not too hard (I think) to run a DBR based on a regex to find all these pages, and any new ones. — fetch · comms 21:11, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I'm jumping to this discussion a bit late, but I agree here. Kayau Voting IS evil 02:36, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

This seems to make sense. However, I was involved in another change of guideline and, believe me, it is slow and there is careful consideration. So a bold change is ok for a suggestion but really needs input of about a month.

I fully support the prohibition of shock value images. Jimbo Wales already said he doesn't want pornographic pictures on Wikipedia. However, pages is a different thing. Who is to say what pages are shocking. If the page is shocking, that page should be AFD and then deleted.

I propose the following...

When such spoofing exists, it must not contain links to shocking images. Possible shocking images may include nudity which clearly show genitalia.

Suomi Finland 2009 ( talk) 22:59, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I reverted your last edit, which replaced "images or pages" with "images containing nudity". This is for two reasons. (1) It still needs to say 'or pages' and (2) the discussion above was about shocking images. Naked people are not shocking. They are merely as nature intended. Nipples, pudenda etc are not intrinsically shocking, they are merely anatomy. If you mean images such as 'a man pulling open his anus so that one can see his rectum', then really 'nudity' doesn't cover it. With respect, I think you need to discuss the form of words more, before amending the text to the specific. -- Elen of the Roads ( talk) 23:38, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

This is always the problem when discussing matters like this. What is shocking or offensive is very much in the eye of the beholder. It's more or less impossible to accurately define what is and is not a "shock image." On the other hand I would say that in most cases if images are added with the specific intent to shock or offend it will probably be fairly obvious. Beeblebrox ( talk) 23:48, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the reversion, but that's because I think the rewording limited the scope instead of improving the guideline. I also agree with the idea that nudity in general is not shocking. That said, if someone was using this stupid new messages "joke" to trick people into viewing images of breasts or pudenda or penes or whatever, I would expect little resistance from the community in a forced change to their user space. -- Onorem ♠ Dil 23:59, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Can we poach some wording from the offensive username guidelines? "Offensive usernames are those that offend other contributors, making harmonious editing difficult or impossible." If no one finds the link offensive then its probably not a problem. If people object to being taken to the page/shown the image, then it is a problem. Since there's no reason (other than a practical joke) to have the thing anyway, a couple of editors saying "Eurch, I don't wanna see that!" should normally suffice to ask the user to change it (or take more serious action if there is other evidence of disruptive behaviour). That way it doesn't matter if it's genitalia, insulting cartoons or pictures of lynchings, the key thing is that other editors don't want to see it. -- Elen of the Roads ( talk) 10:16, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I see others' viewpoint on not specifically saying nudity. OK.

Why not just make it simple as in the original version that lasted for several months, which read:

The Wikipedia community strongly discourages simulating the MediaWiki interface, except on the rare occasion when it is necessary for testing purposes.

This way, we discourage it. The way it reads with Fughett.'s edit, it weakens it. His revision implies....the community discourages it, but then you can have it as long as it is not shocking. The argument to discourage is weakened. Maybe that is the intend.

Maybe the intention is....the community discourages it, furthermore, having shocking images is an even bigger 'no-no'. Of course, if we decide on this version, it needs to be reworded to proper English. Suomi Finland 2009 ( talk) 15:12, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

First, when we say something is strongly discouraged this means that it is permitted (but grudgingly so). If we mean to say that UI spoofing is not permitted, then we need to say something quite different than "strongly discouraged". For that reason, I don't know what you mean when you talk about the revision implying it is discouraged "but then you can have it as long as it is not shocking." By saying "strongly discouraged", we not only imply, but expressly state that it is allowed. In any event, the reason this came up was because a user was sending people through his joke banner to our articles on Adolph Hitler, Nazi Germany and later, decapitation. None of these are images. It's not that this content is shocking, in and of itself, but that the intent of the link was to send people to a jarring article as a "joke". So maybe shock pages does not quite capture what is meant (but nude images is doesn't approach roping in what was intended, and would not only exclude all pages, but all images of violence, death, etc., which is what I think of as true shock images.-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 22:24, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I don't know how it got onto genitalia either (isn't this a general downward trend in all conversations?), as I saw the original report. Do you think there is any value in the suggestion above about being likely to offend. That covers anything from Adolph to Bonsai kittens. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 22:32, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that's fine. I like Beeblebrox's language "specific intent to shock or offend." Though as I said above, implicit in "strongly discouraged" is that it's permitted, we can take out any implication Suomi finds of weakening the statement with a lead-in turn of phrase that emphasizes disapproval again. Suggested language:

The Wikipedia community strongly discourages simulating the MediaWiki interface, except on the rare occasion when it is necessary for testing purposes. Where users nevertheless spoof the user interface, any internal or external links included must not send unsuspecting users to images or pages that have the apparent specific intent to shock or offend.

-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 23:48, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Fuhghettaboutit's wording is good, but it needs more. By having wording like this, we are saying that anything not mentioned is ok (a troll will not care about "discourages"). It is most definitely not ok to simulate the user interface and include a link that logs out the user, or that does other bad stuff (some links could probably move pages or other idiocy). Also, under no circumstances should a link which pretends to go to my talk page (for example), actually go to an external site (apart from shock/lulz, such a site could log the IP address and web browser information of each visitor). I'm not sure how to resolve my concerns without violating WP:BEANS, not to mention the bureaucratic detail that would be needed to spell out precisely what kinds of simulated interface were acceptable. Also, since it is impossible to prove intent, I am currently favoring a simple "no way dude, we're here for the encyclopedia" approach. Johnuniq ( talk) 00:29, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, we can't list every bad thing a link can do. Very few people, by the way, know how to do stuff like <span class="plainlinks"> Maybe some kind of catchall at the end would work... "or otherwise violate Wikipedia prohibitions on linking". As for the last part, are you saying we should change it to simply say UI spoofing is verboten?-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 00:44, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes: a simple and problem-free solution is to prohibit user interface simulation (except temporarily, for testing). I am remembering the pointless arguments about someone's userpage which consisted of a sexually explicit photo with some wording intended to offend one side of U.S. politics, and the user's signature only linked to that userpage. People find ways to exploit vague requirements, and while we will never agree on what images are appropriate for a userpage, we should agree that messing about with the interface is disruptive: if I need to deliver a message, I do not want to waste time wondering about jokes that distract from the function of a talk page. Johnuniq ( talk) 04:17, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

My personal take is that I don't like the joke banners much but I do think they're rather innocuous most of the time—it's not exactly a big deal to to be spoof linked here—but it doesn't really matter what you or I think because the community has already spoken. The problem with your suggestion is that we are not in the era of "let's be bold and see if we are reverted and then discussion can ensue." Rather, we are post vast discussion on this very issue having already taken place and consensus (apparently) having been against banning them.-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 05:25, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) Following Fuhghettaboutit's edit, I think I spotted a better way to achieve this. Been bold and fixed it - please revert or discuss if it doesn't in fact help. In effect:

• Simulation of the interface requires CSS and formatting code (for the overwriting function). So I merged it in as an example of disruptive CSS which it always will be ("...replacing the expected interface with a disruptive simulation...")
• The other issue, shock links, can be handled as Fuhghettaboutit and Johnuniq said, by giving a general rule: "Inappropriate internal or external links that unexpectedly direct the reader to unreasonable locations or violate prohibitions on linking may also be removed or remedied by any user".

These have the advantage of not being limited to specific kinds of shock links or simulations, but covers all kinds of disruptive simulation or inappropriate unexpected linking on user pages or user talk. So it catches uses that are likely to be disruptive - but doesn't outlaw "harmless jokes" like a link to rabbit.JPG or reasonable and well coded simulations, nor does it suggest WP:BEANS as much. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 13:59, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Quite a tidy solution in fact. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 15:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Looks fine to me as well. This would have applied to the situation that started all this, and is more inclusive.-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 23:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC)