Policy:user page control

From Cfcot

Revision as of 17:27, 19 February 2007

Issue Summary

The question of how much control users should have over their personal pages has recently come to a head in a dispute over CivGeneral's personal page. CivGeneral asserts that he has the right to be the final arbiter of what goes on his page. This raises the question: how much control should a user have over his person page? Should he be able to remove truthful details that he finds unflattering? Should he be able to describe himself in a way that others would not agree to? This speaks to a deeper issue: should a user's page represent a database of encyclopedic knowledge, or a profile account for the forums?

Issue Bullets

• Should a user, or the public, decide what is on their personal page?
• Should a user's personal page represent a base of factual knowledge, or a personal profile?

Stating an opinion

To reply to this issue, please add it to the bottom of this portion of the page, above this page's categories. Either state your opinion or reply to someone else's. Make sure to sign your post with four tildes ("~~~~").

Discussion

• I would say that all disagreements about the truth of a statement should be reserved for the discussion page of each person's page. If you want to issue a general warning that you will not tolerate other people editing your page, then you should do so in the discussion. Tyke 03:42, 8 February 2007 (IST)

Yes, disputes about the veracity of the statement should be referred to the article's discussion page. But there's a bigger issue than that. Should users be able to say, "this is true, but it can't go on my page?" Gogf 04:27, 8 February 2007 (IST)

• This shoudn't be a vanity site, this should give the basic rundown of each poster including potentially unflattering details. --Perfection 06:49, 8 February 2007 (IST)

• Posters should have control of their own articles, especialy if they dont want their personal histories used against them CivGeneral 10:35, 8 February 2007 (IST)

• I think people's pasts are their OWN BUSINESS and not the business of EGOTISTICAL PEOPLE like PERFECTION who dont think people can CHANGE. Fifty 22:58, 8 February 2007 (IST)

• If the poster descriptions are to be useful at all, they need to not be merely descriptions of their positive traits. (and for some posters that positive trait can be simply "He exists") We can look for precedent at Wikipedia: Wikipedia strives to be NPOV and since one cannot be NPOV for an article about himself, said person is, for the most part, barred from editing his own biographical page. While we don't need such a policy in CFCOT Wiki, since that will reduce editing posters' articles significantly, (since people obviously care about their own articles) both the positive and negative aspects of the poster need to be displayed in an article - as Perfection said, this is not a vanity site. It's one thing to remove something that is merely trolling - another thing altogether to remove unflattering, and true, details. Ultimately some posters' info will just have more unflattering details than positive ones, (Commie and RS come to mind) and if we can't desribe posters as such properly, then there is no point to the wiki. As well, the article is not the property of the person, but the property of the community: It's the standard basis of a Wiki, after all. As it says on the bottom: "Please note that all contributions to Cfcot may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then don't submit it here." The article about me, Bill3000, is not the property of myself, but the property of the collective CFCOT Wiki community. - Bill3000 23:36, 8 February 2007 (IST)

I think I might tentatively agree with Bill's opinion. If these articles are going to have a point beyond what users would put in their signature or profile, they need to be able to contain all relevant details. If a poster was threatening to hack the forums

, is it their right to remove that detail? I think not.

So, without further ado, here is my proposal: all relevant facts are permissible on a user's page. The discussion page can be used to determine whether a fact is relevant or not. If a fact's veracity is called into question, we can institute a system like the one Wikipedia employs. If users want to have a personal profile that others are not allowed to edit, then they can user their User:username page. Gogf 03:31, 9 February 2007 (IST)

I agree with Gogf. This wiki becomes pointless if the only thing the articles include is the good qualities, and leave out the unflattering and controversial. --Greekguy 18:26, 11 February 2007 (IST)

Gogf's proposal is, as far as I can see, hereby the official CFCOTWiki policy. It's sound and rational, and it's not like we're three-year-olds either. Azash 19:27, 19 February 2007 (IST)