The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was DELETE Andrew c ^[talk] 23:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Justin L Raines/Userboxes/Abortion and Capital Punishment[edit]

Delete user boxes calling people hypocrites are uncivil and divisive - each a criterion to delete.Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete says little about the editor, but is too negative for a userbox. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as potentially offensive and unrelated to editing. This opinion is one I share, but not one that has any place in userspace. Ironholds (talk) 09:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep There is no requirement that userboxes say "much" about an editor, or be "related" to editing. The userbox attacks no one as near as I can tell. As in the case above, the statement is made using civil language, is a legal opinion to hold, and is not something which I feel ought to be deleted. Collect (talk) 11:19, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete if the current wording stays. Disagreeing with a particular viewpoint is fine; calling that viewpoint erroneous is fine; calling that viewpoint "hypocrisy" is not. — Gavia immer (talk) 16:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Hypocrisy is a clearly definable stance with fixed criteria. In this case, the discrepancy between two simultaneously supported points of view is cited as hypocritical: a) on the one hand a calling on the "sanctity of life" motivated by Christianity and b) on the other hand a tendency to dole out death by means of an eviently imperfect system, which contradicts Christian values. A clear enough example. Trigaranus (talk) 20:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's still name-calling. I mean, if I could show empirically that Republicans/Democrats/Mormons/Martians/boat enthusiasts had a lower IQ than the general population, would I be justified in calling them "morons"? If my neighbor is overweight and chronically unemployed, can I call him a "fat loser" in my userbox? There's got to be a way to say it that doesn't involve saying "X people are X inflammatory label." Graymornings_(talk) 17:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. If someone wants to make this kind of statement, they should probably scamper off to Myspace to express it there to an audience that doesn't give a damn, rather than to do it here to an audience who doesn't give a damn. Either way, think of what kind of content addition could have been made during the time this user wasted making a stupid political statement that doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Trusilver 15:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Remove insult, then keep While I agree with the contents of this box, and considering normal values, believe it's undeniably hypocrite; It could attack some. Unless someone comes up with something better than "this user does not believe the life of a convict is worth less than that of an embryo", keep the current. --DasRakel (talk) 21:42, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• "It could attack some" and you want to keep it? That's contra policy, but I won't call you a hypocrite for that. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't know about any policies (I'm a newbie). You can't call me a hypocrite because I don't unnecessarily agree with policy. Anyway, if insulting is against policy, remove insults, then keep. --  DasRakel  ✍  18:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Sounds like a good compromise. I'd accept a phrase like "This user thinks that anti-abortion and pro-capital punishment beliefs are incompatible." Anyone else agree? Graymornings_(talk) 21:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• That wording would be OK. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:41, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. I'm going to say the same thing I said for the other, similar userbox: our policy is quite clear on this. A userbox, should say what you like, not what you hate; what you are, not what you aren't. "This user thinks (type of people) are (label)" isn't acceptable. Name-calling in general is not acceptable. It's acceptable to say you're a Democrat, for example, but not acceptable to say that you think Republicans are jerks. You can be a dog person all you want, but policy still stands and you can't call cat-lovers idiots. Graymornings_(talk) 06:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per Wikipedia:Userboxes#Content restrictions: "Userboxes must not be inflammatory or divisive." While I don't think that we should in general bother with userboxes that express beliefs, and it is true that there are many userboxes that could be deemed offensive by at least one person (anything from "This user is pro-life" to "This user is"), there is a significant difference between "This user is pro-choice" and "This user hates pro-life [insert your preferred insult]" (I paraphrase). Quite simply, there are ways to express a similar sentiment without insulting/provoking people. We are here to write an encyclopedia and, yes, have some fun while doing it, and this userbox detracts from both purposes. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:00, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• weak delete. Although I personally do not agree with the content ofthis userbox, I'd see it as the expression of an opinion. But the previous post mentioned rightfully that calling people "hypocrits" is not fitting. Debresser (talk) 12:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Look! More inflammatory and unneeded userbox crap! No thank you. WP:SOAPBOX does not just apply to mainspace. Trusilver 06:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Apparently not even userspace is safe anymore from the anti-userbox crowd. The reason these exist in userspace is because they are divisive and couldn't belong in templatespace. Other then that, it's a personal opinion this user holds. People hold different opinions, get over it and move on. -Royalguard11(T) 03:09, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - divisive, potentially offensive and of no value to building the encyclopaedia. Robofish (talk) 05:53, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.