|
Archives
|
New Religious Movements
[edit]
- How could any new religious movements be mentioned, if they are to be at all mentioned? --Apisite (talk) 21:25, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
- Anyone who wants to read the background behind this question should look at User talk:Apisite, and the simple answer is the traveller comes first. This is a travel guide, not a place for any religious movement or members of it to try to promote (tout) that sect or religion. All the rest is self-interested posturing, and I suggest you stop that and do what you suggested: start your own website. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Ikan Kekek, AlasdairW, SHB2000: Could and would the Wikivoyage for and about new religious movements be better off at Gan Jing World rather than anywhere else online? --Apisite (talk) 01:44, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- That isn't a question for me to answer. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 02:15, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- I have no advice to give you about where or how to launch a site to promote your religion (or similar religions and sects), Apisite. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:38, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
- That isn't a question for me to answer. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 02:15, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Ikan Kekek, AlasdairW, SHB2000: Could and would the Wikivoyage for and about new religious movements be better off at Gan Jing World rather than anywhere else online? --Apisite (talk) 01:44, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
When should promotional user pages be deleted?
[edit]My answer is "whenever they are noticed." I've been here a long time, and to my knowledge, that's been the practice for all these years. I was originally informed about it by User:Dguillaume, if I remember correctly (or possibly User:(WT-en) Burmesedays), who explained to me that Wikivoyage:Don't tout extends to user pages. But since this practice has been questioned, I guess we have to spend time discussing what our policy should be, even in the case of promotional user pages of long-gone users... Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:45, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- And one question is whether we ever need to have Vfd threads on whether promotional user pages should be deleted or not, to which I say a resounding no! Because it's unimaginable to me that there would ever be any doubt about the outcome of such threads. Ergo, they are wastes of time. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:49, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- I don't know the specifics of the practice, and cannot find it in Wikivoyage:Speedy deletions or Wikivoyage:User page help, the latter of which only says "user pages should not be used for advertising". I removed the touting language, changing the user page to what I see is a legitimate page for a contributor affiliated with a business.
- Speedy deletion is allowed for "Non-contributing user pages created for the purpose of non-travel related spam or vandalism". The touting was travel related, it was not spam and the user did contribute.
- So, if such pages are to be summarily deleted, we need an addition to the speedy deletion instructions. I think it is good to discuss it a bit.
- I agree that we shouldn't need VFD threads for spam or typical touty user pages. For the latter, when the user has engaged in discussion, we might decide to just remove the touty parts. If leaving a link to their business isn't seen as OK, then we need to decide whom we see as a real contributor and on what grounds we can leave contributions (as such or in tweaked form) without regarding the person as a contributor.
- –LPfi (talk) 08:05, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, I don't think it's OK to leave a link to their website, nor do I think for a second that tour touters shouldn't have their user pages summarily deleted. The precedent you've set could require a deletion request for the kinds of long spambot touting of tours, resorts or hotels because they're travel-related. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:16, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- OK. I now removed the links that I left, leaving only the WMF edits about VW/VT. I don't think I set any precedent on spambots. This is a user who clearly told their affiliation and engaged in discussion. I know the practice of just reverting edits that add a listing with touty language, and in cases where a user's mainspace edits have all been reverted (or there are none, such as often with spambots), I don't see them as contributor. If they engage in discussion, I wouldn't delete their user page, although I might blank it if there isn't any non-touty content. –LPfi (talk) 08:40, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- @LPfi: A bit of a legalese/copyright question, but are we legally required to leave the banner saying that user is from Wikitravel per copyright? I'm not an expert in this field, but it would affect how I perceive things. //shb (t | c | m) 13:47, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- This is a problematic area. The licence says that attribution is required, the terms of use say that one agrees that the mention in history is enough, but I cannot see how a web site like ours could be allowed to change the user name or the page linked at will. Especially, if a user page present a user or links to an external web page that does, that content or link should probably be retained in most scenarios.
- For touts this is probably no real issue, if we only look at the current pages, as what remains hardly reaches the threshold of originality needed to invoke copyright. I choose to regard the former revisions as internal material not really covered by laws on distributing material to the public – I don't know how lawyers see this theory, but nobody seems to really care and I don't want us to make our projects unfeasible by being copyright zealots.
- For anybody who did contribute significantly, proper attribution should be given. I wouldn't like any mirror site giving the impression that I am involved in them, and those who did not migrate may see Wikivoyage in the same light – at least theoretically they could.
- –LPfi (talk) 14:27, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- I know this isn't what you're discussing, but one reason I don't hesitate to delete promotional user pages is that user pages are not needed for users to have credit for their edit histories, and many users never have a user page. If we were discussing the deletion of edit histories, that would be quite different. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:39, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hmm, my bigger question is would we need it specifically for Wikitravel users who didn't migrate post-fork? I asked earlier because technically the "(WT-en)" bit is not something you agreed to when you signed up to Wikitravel back then so I've always been under the impression that the yellow boxes on Wikitravel userpages aim to mitigate this issue. But I'm no copyright expert and I'd defer to what both of you have to say. //shb (t | c | m) 08:06, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I think that the addition to the user name isn't too disturbing (the "~svwiki" etc. from the SUL reform are similar), but as these users haven't contributed to the WMF site, we shouldn't pretend they have. That, what site they did contribute to (and might continue to contribute to) and their identity over there is told by these boxes.
- Just listing user names is OK for people who contributed here and never created a user page – that was their choice.
- For people who chose a pseudonym but through their user page connected that pseudonym to their real-world identity, their affiliation or their identity elsewhere, deleting the page is indeed depriving them of the attribution they had every reason to expect when choosing to contribute.
- –LPfi (talk) 09:05, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Do you mean in cases of non-touty users whose user pages we wouldn't delete? If so, we could discuss that separately, but I agree with LPfi to the extent that we should distinguish between users whose contributions were solely to Wikitravel before the fork and those who contributed to Wikivoyage, that the yellow box is how we chose to distinguish them, and that there's no point in revisiting that. However, I disagree that there's any need to respect a presumption a user had that their user page would give them some kind of special real-world credit for their edits and definitely don't think that overrides Wikivoyage:Don't tout or means we should hesitate to summarily delete a touty user page we come across or are informed of, regardless of how old it is (although it's probably a poor use of our time to search for touting on the user pages of users who haven't contributed in many years). Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:17, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I think we generally should not delete any pages over a few years old without a VFD nomination.
- Old pages can be de-touted by removing the links etc, but it is worth retaining the information that the editor had a business connection. In this particular case if the resort name is changed to XXX resort, then we can see that the editor had an interest and look at the page history if we want to know which resort when deciding whether to keep a listing etc. AlasdairW (talk) 21:57, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I disagree and don't believe that when a touting user page has not been noticed for x amount of time, it should be treated differently, but since you do, propose a time limit for discussion. But let's recognize that there's virtually no chance a WT user who never made the switch to Wikivoyage will suddenly make new edits, and if they did, it wouldn't be under a "WT-en" username. Moreover, if someone wanted to create a non-touty listing for a resort that was touted 15 years ago, that would be totally fine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:15, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed – what makes "a few years old" any different to a page full of touting only created yesterday. //shb (t | c | m) 23:25, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I disagree and don't believe that when a touting user page has not been noticed for x amount of time, it should be treated differently, but since you do, propose a time limit for discussion. But let's recognize that there's virtually no chance a WT user who never made the switch to Wikivoyage will suddenly make new edits, and if they did, it wouldn't be under a "WT-en" username. Moreover, if someone wanted to create a non-touty listing for a resort that was touted 15 years ago, that would be totally fine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:15, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, kinda – in cases like this, would blanking everything but the yellow box be a more favourable option than deleting it altogether? //shb (t | c | m) 23:26, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Well, you know my view - I speedily deleted the user page (admittedly, after it had flown under the wire for many years) before that action was reverted by LPfi. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:21, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- We might want to add a bullet to Deletion policy#Speedy deletion (I linked this discussion from the talk page).
- Touty user pages of users with no copyrightable unreverted contributions, unless they have shown intent to contribute constructively. The page may be kept to show the user's affiliation, if stated, at the administrator's discretion. User pages that should not be speedy deleted may still be de-touted.
- The preconditions in the first part of the first sentence would cover the legal requirement of attribution, the second part is to keep user pages of good-faith users even if they didn't note our touting guidelines. The second sentence is for cases where the user is active and the affiliation may be relevant. The third is a reminder.
- There may be further tweaks to be made to the policy, but I think this bullet in some form should be pretty uncontroversial.
- –LPfi (talk) 10:01, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- That looks good – I'd maybe change it to:
User pages containing touting with no copyrightable unreverted contributions, unless they have shown intent to contribute constructively. The page may be kept to show the user's affiliation, if stated, at the administrator's discretion. User pages that should not be speedy deleted may still be de-touted.
- Indifferent on maybe adding a sentence to clarify that the policy on touting is different on how we handle spam (which would be deleted either way). //shb (t | c | m) 13:26, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- There is no legal requirement for user pages for attribution, if you're trying to suggest that. I support giving leeway for speedily deleting touty user pages regardless of the number of edits a user has, though not requiring it. For example, if a user has 400 edits, many of which are constructive, and they start touting a religious sect (which happened), an admin could revert their user page to its previous state and/or start a discussion on their user talk page, but if they or some bot that spoofed them suddenly posted a spambot-like full page of touting, there would be no reason to laboriously attempt to detout it instead of summarily deleting it. Also, our usual practice is that user pages are not edited except by the user themselves (I thought that was policy - it certainly is cited as such), so do we really want to charge admins with spending time detouting user pages? Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:44, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- Answering three of your points:
- I maintain that proper attribution is to the user page, if the user chose to create it. Unless the username is the real name or a well-known pseudonym of the user, attributing the username only is a nonsense pseudo-attribution. For most touts, we don't keep copyrightable contributions, but if we do, we have to attribute properly.
- In the spambot case, we can protect the page as easily as we can prevent its recreation.
- For de-touting user pages, I consider pages where the touting is separate from actual user presentation. As touting is not allowed, removing it should be allowed. The situation resembles de-libelling posts in discussions, which I see justified if the posting is otherwise constructive.
- –LPfi (talk) 15:05, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- If you think a user page is essential for attribution, then all users should need to have one, so I find that illogical, and moreover, there is no previous policy or guideline giving such great importance to user pages. It has always been the username or IP that has gotten credit for edits on wikis like this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:29, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- The username links to the user page, which users may choose to create. If somebody doesn't want to tell anything about themselves, no problem. That choice has little relevance for the case where a user chooses to present themself.
- What about a professional travel writer linking their professional website, but using a pseudonym over here? Do you think they are appropriately attributed if the user page is deleted? Do you think the expectation that the user page would remain as long as the site does was unreasonable?
- The situation may be different when the user page content is unacceptable, but I hope we can agree that that is a special situation, and that the user pages of contributors should be retained unless there is good reason to delete them.
- –LPfi (talk) 16:20, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- There is no way to link to one's real-world identity from a username. You can use your real name, but if that happens to be John Smith, you are out of luck unless you can use your user page for the disambiguation (telling an affiliation in your username is disallowed on some projects, and I hope we won't see domain names or stories about which John Smith this is in user names). –LPfi (talk) 16:26, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- What do you think the chances are that a professional travel writer who's adding good content will get their user page summarily deleted for gross touting? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:55, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- By the way, for the record, I had no user page at all until I was already nominated for admin. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:55, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- If a userpage contains tout or promotional contents, it should be deleted. In cases where attribution to Wikitravel account is required, we can blank the userpage or replace promotional contents with a generic "This is the migrated user page of (insert username)" message. OhanaUnitedTalk page 22:03, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
- Why do we need to keep that empty shell? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:13, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
- If a userpage contains tout or promotional contents, it should be deleted. In cases where attribution to Wikitravel account is required, we can blank the userpage or replace promotional contents with a generic "This is the migrated user page of (insert username)" message. OhanaUnitedTalk page 22:03, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
- By the way, for the record, I had no user page at all until I was already nominated for admin. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:55, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- What do you think the chances are that a professional travel writer who's adding good content will get their user page summarily deleted for gross touting? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:55, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- There is no way to link to one's real-world identity from a username. You can use your real name, but if that happens to be John Smith, you are out of luck unless you can use your user page for the disambiguation (telling an affiliation in your username is disallowed on some projects, and I hope we won't see domain names or stories about which John Smith this is in user names). –LPfi (talk) 16:26, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- If you think a user page is essential for attribution, then all users should need to have one, so I find that illogical, and moreover, there is no previous policy or guideline giving such great importance to user pages. It has always been the username or IP that has gotten credit for edits on wikis like this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:29, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- Answering three of your points:
- We might want to add a bullet to Deletion policy#Speedy deletion (I linked this discussion from the talk page).
- Well, you know my view - I speedily deleted the user page (admittedly, after it had flown under the wire for many years) before that action was reverted by LPfi. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:21, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hmm, my bigger question is would we need it specifically for Wikitravel users who didn't migrate post-fork? I asked earlier because technically the "(WT-en)" bit is not something you agreed to when you signed up to Wikitravel back then so I've always been under the impression that the yellow boxes on Wikitravel userpages aim to mitigate this issue. But I'm no copyright expert and I'd defer to what both of you have to say. //shb (t | c | m) 08:06, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I know this isn't what you're discussing, but one reason I don't hesitate to delete promotional user pages is that user pages are not needed for users to have credit for their edit histories, and many users never have a user page. If we were discussing the deletion of edit histories, that would be quite different. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:39, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- @LPfi: A bit of a legalese/copyright question, but are we legally required to leave the banner saying that user is from Wikitravel per copyright? I'm not an expert in this field, but it would affect how I perceive things. //shb (t | c | m) 13:47, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- OK. I now removed the links that I left, leaving only the WMF edits about VW/VT. I don't think I set any precedent on spambots. This is a user who clearly told their affiliation and engaged in discussion. I know the practice of just reverting edits that add a listing with touty language, and in cases where a user's mainspace edits have all been reverted (or there are none, such as often with spambots), I don't see them as contributor. If they engage in discussion, I wouldn't delete their user page, although I might blank it if there isn't any non-touty content. –LPfi (talk) 08:40, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, I don't think it's OK to leave a link to their website, nor do I think for a second that tour touters shouldn't have their user pages summarily deleted. The precedent you've set could require a deletion request for the kinds of long spambot touting of tours, resorts or hotels because they're travel-related. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:16, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
I would like to establish that retaining a user page may be necessary for attribution. I think it may be a legal requirement in the case where we keep copyrightable contributions, and a moral issue if the user has contributed significantly, regardless of whether their contributions are copyrightable.
Then we can discuss what kinds of user pages can be deleted, and under what circumstances. There are certainly cases where a user can be seen as having forfeited their moral right to a user page (the legal right remains as long as we keep copyrightable contributions, to the extent that the page has relevant content).
–LPfi (talk) 05:50, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
- Are there any lawyers on this site? I think you are very wrong that there is any legal issue to consider, and I have no inclination to concede the point. I also don't think we have enough participants in this thread. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:19, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
- We usually don't leave enough of the contributions by touts that they would reach the threshold of originality needed for copyright, especially as the copyright is in the expression, not in the facts or ideas. Still, I don't like the idea of ignoring copyright issues in our advice. I would hope that we could leave this as a parenthetic precondition (no remaining copyrightable contributions).
- As I see it, the only problem is that such a clause requires a quick check of the tout's contributions, which is easy when the touting is noticed right away and the tout doesn't have a history of valuable contributions (what tout does?). Other contributions are routinly checked anyway, to remove touting in earlier edits.
- Although I am not a lawyer, I am pretty sure that attribution to a pseudonymous username doesn't suffice, if a user did present themself on their user page, linking to a real-world identity. There is probably little legal precedent, and as we live in different jurisdictions and the content is likewise distributed over borders, we should be very conservative in our legal assumptions.
- –LPfi (talk) 08:07, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
- Being pedantic, in the case of the imported contributions, we do not provide attribution to "Username" but to a username of our invention "(WT-en) Username". So the yellow text boxes at the head of the imported user pages assist in providing correct attribution. The imported user pages were all protected in 2012 as part of the import, and I think we should respect that, and the note the comment at that time "This pseudo user must be kept for propper attribution." AlasdairW (talk) 23:03, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
- Right, so if I'm correct in gathering from what's been mentioned here, there is no issue with deleting the userpages of Wikivoyage users; Wikitravel users is where it becomes a grey area. //shb (t | c | m) 23:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
- I'd say that for VT users with non-deleted contributions, the page is necessary (those who had contributions only in now-deleted skeletons, if that, don't need a user page, given nobody resurrects those skeletons – I added a statement in the admins' handbook), for WV users there is a grey area. If the user page contains just garbage or the user has no remaining contributions, there is no moral or legal issue in deleting it. The grey area is where the contributions are significant but not copyrightable (then there is no legal issue, but a moral one) or when the user page doesn't tell anything about the user (unclear whether such a page has anything to do with proper contribution). –LPfi (talk) 06:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
- Right, so if I'm correct in gathering from what's been mentioned here, there is no issue with deleting the userpages of Wikivoyage users; Wikitravel users is where it becomes a grey area. //shb (t | c | m) 23:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
- Being pedantic, in the case of the imported contributions, we do not provide attribution to "Username" but to a username of our invention "(WT-en) Username". So the yellow text boxes at the head of the imported user pages assist in providing correct attribution. The imported user pages were all protected in 2012 as part of the import, and I think we should respect that, and the note the comment at that time "This pseudo user must be kept for propper attribution." AlasdairW (talk) 23:03, 20 April 2025 (UTC)