Wikibooks:Requests for deletion/User:Indiaebooks

User:Indiaebooks
I think this is the second speedy delete nomination I've seen for a user page on the grounds that it is spam. Personally, it doesn't really bother me that people put links to their companies on their user pages. In fact, I don't really care much what people do with their user pages as long as they aren't being used as private hosting and don't affect the content of books.

The reason is that deciding what is spam and what is a personal description will always be a problem. User pages are personal by nature and imposing some policy that user pages must only contain content relevant to the user's work on Wikibooks is, I think, counter-productive. Compare, for example, my user page with QuiteUnusual, Xixtas or Adrignola's: Theirs are evidently more personal, more interesting and give fellow Wikibookians a good idea who they are. Mine is just dull.

In this case, no modules link to the user-page (so it isn't spamming anything) and the page mentions a website (and thus is not using Wikibooks for hosting). I therefore say we Keep this user page. Swift (talk) 17:13, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Symbol delete vote.svg speedy delete It's been deleted twice before by myself and QuiteUnusual. Speedy the third time added by global rollbacker and small wiki monitoring team member Wutsje.  This user has only registered to promote their website and it's not about whether anything links to their page.  Links from high profile sites like Wikimedia sites to other websites are designed to increase Google Pagerank and that only counts external links from a website, not internal links to where the link is located.  While there are no functional links on this user page, is this what you really want to promote on Wikibooks?  While I'm all for personal freedom to work with one's own user page, this is a spammer. -- Adrignola talk contribs 17:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * As you note, the page doesn't actually contain any links and thus doesn't help with search engine ranking. Were this a persistent problem, I could see the need to clarify what is acceptable and what isn't.
 * "is this what you really want to promote on Wikibooks?" No, but that's largely beside the point. What matters is that it's harmless. I similarly don't care about links to open-source online roleplaying games. Demanding that links be taken down, whether site-wide or just on pages of Wikibookians not deemend committed enough is harmful. --Swift (talk) 18:15, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Symbol delete vote.svg Delete I don't think we need to be as tolerant of a business advertising their products as we might be of an individual acting in a personal capacity. Recent Runes (talk) 17:47, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Symbol delete vote.svg Delete The user account is only being used to maintain the user page. It's either webhosting (Wikibooks is being used as free host for an advertisement) or spam; I don't see any third way to look at it.  --Pi zero (talk) 18:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Symbol comment vote.svg Comment Symbol keep vote.svg Keep This is the personal user space, unless it was offensive/abusive, a copyright violation or used to display the personal data of others, it is out of our bounds to act, we shouldn't make the deletion a personal and discriminative action and bring them to RFD, this can be extremely distressing to the target and depending on the reasons create and promote instability on the general community. The community has better things to do than policy Wikibookians personal opinions, tastes or preferences, this can lead down a slippery slope, even into legal actions and problems to Wikimedia, if some limits are to be set on what is acceptable on the "private"/personal userspace it has to be done by a policy or guideline. --Panic (talk) 19:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Symbol delete vote.svg Delete. Spam. Advertising isn't permitted, links or not. QU TalkQu 21:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Symbol comment vote.svg Comment Also, the user name is the name of the company. That is forbidden on Wikipedia (see W:WP:CORPNAME), and I would have expected the same policy here. Recent Runes (talk) 22:59, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think we can copy paste that policy here, the project goals are different, for instance we have people working under foundations and recently a law firm started contributing content, some protection should be in place but a total prohibition will be hard to defend if we wish institutions and enterprises to donate or create useful free content here. --Panic (talk) 02:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * According to Using Wikibooks the use of promotional usernames is against Wikibooks policy already. see Username Policy Recent Runes] ([[User talk:Recent Runes|talk) 10:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Even if Using Wikibooks on promotional usernames is not official policy, it seems like good sense. If someone contributes using a company name, how do we know they have been properly authorised and are not just an employee being more generous than they should be? If I claimed to represent a company, how would that be verified and recorded? Recent Runes (talk) 13:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The same way we verify copyright. A similar action is done with trademarks...
 * All these are not only restricted to usernames but also booknames, etc... --Panic (talk) 21:36, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I thought copyright and trademark verification was a process of deleting submitted material which is published under a conflicting licence. What we are talking about here is a way of overriding that presumption to delete by saying company names or copyrighted material can be used here if the right person has given us permission. In the case of your law company for example, who gave and received that permission? Recent Runes (talk) 22:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * For what I gather from the user posts, he is doing contributions in accordance to a decision by the firm. Since I presume he is doing it on their behalf, the contributions may constitute work for hire, disregarding other considerations and in relation to what we have been debating, it wouldn't be abusive if the firm registered an account specifically for those types of contributions, these would make thing clearer not only for administrators but even for readers that could better understand and check the motivations and permit recognition for the work done. This would also permit some sort of promotion of the firm on that account userpage. I don't see this as something bad if the work done is productive, it could even lead in the future to sponsored work on Wikibooks with full transparency and due recognition. This could be problematic on WIkipedia but it is feasible on Wikibooks, in fact I'm aware of at least one book that documents a commercial product (VoIP) that has been mostly done by someone working on that firm (I even have corrected a minor issue of NPOV violation with that user)... --Panic (talk) 02:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no work being done, productive or otherwise. The account is being used solely for the purpose of advertising a commercial ebook site (See: Special:Contributions/Indiaebooks).  Its relationship with Wikibooks is purely parasitic, not symbiotic, leeching off Wikibooks without any attempt whatsoever to provide any benefit to Wikibooks.  --Pi zero (talk) 13:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes Pi zero, we are discussing the general cases not this specific one. I did change my vote and in general agree with you but you are making too many assumptions and expecting the worst from the user. You also seem to miss some points, there is no leeching off Wikibooks (well, space and now the time we are discussing the issue) in fact it would be within reason that this or similar accounts would be interested in donating to Wikimedia or even evolve in some sort of paid advertising, we have to understand that due to the lack of activity the number of Wikibookians that would visit that userpage is very low, mostly it would affect in site seaches that included the userspace, in any case during this discussion I think we have come to see that it isn't really doing harm to the project (Swift position above, is valid) it just isn't morally right and abuses the "spirit" of the project, but we can't generalize it, had the user done contributions I would be more worried in keeping it going that in escalating the situation because of that page. --Panic (talk) 21:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * General policy needs to be able to handle specific cases.
 * I submit that page User:Indiaebooks is in fact doing harm to the project, and I stand by my term leeching. Here is what I read off the page now (disregarding the rfd tag):
 * User:Indiaebooks
 * From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
 * indiaebooks.com was founded in June 2006 by Esource Software Solution Pvt.Ltd. [...]
 * That sounds like Wikibooks is endorsing Indiaebooks. Which is damaging to the reputation of Wikibooks.  It is essentially a sort of spoofing &mdash; and an especially virulent sort of violation of WB:SOAP.  Any general policy worth its salt should come with bounds that keep this clearly unacceptable.  --Pi zero (talk) 00:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with that in general terms, but I wouldn't call a userpage a Wikibooks project endorsement at best it is an endorsement by a particular user. This has lead us again to what we already discussed about permitting some freedom of expression, I don't see any issue in a user expressing political views or preferences on his user page (respecting civility and personal attack rules), like Free Tibet etc the line must be drawn on reducing the use of Wikibooks "only" as a vehicle to promote those messages and I believe we can came up with some limitations, for example based on number useful edits ... --Panic (talk) 01:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Returning to the issue of corporate user names, Panic, I see you have not identified any corporations making positive contributions. The main guy contributing to the VOIP book MagicJack uses the name Az2008 and does not appear to claim any connection with the company. I think it would be safer to start with a general presumption against corporate names but make exceptions for special cases with positive identity verification. They could be required to advertise their contribution to Wikibooks on their own company web site for example. Recent Runes (talk) 23:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Again this is hard to define when in the personal space. In my userspace I mention brands and several Wikibookians do also even linking to educational institutions all that would fall under the definition of advertising, we could define a policy banning blatant endorsement of commercial ventures but even that can be problematic and hard to define.
 * I remember a post by Jimbo (not that it should be a deciding view point) advancing the idea of utilizing the userspace as a blogs, all this makes defining a line of what is acceptable on the user space extremely difficult. --Panic (talk) 02:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Some people do take a strict view of user pages, in that they have to be relevant to Wikibooks work. When I imported a bunch of userboxes in the past, I did receive a remark denouncing them as not being directly related to the task of creating textbooks and therefore pointless to have on user pages.  WB:SOAP and WB:HOST are pretty clear and don't make a distinction based on namespace.  Where does it say user space gets a free pass?  I personally would expect a user page to describe a user, not to be used to circumvent policy that would apply were the content in any other location. -- Adrignola talk contribs 13:13, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That is the same in several other Wikimedia projects (I did a search to find the Jimbo post and there seems to be in general no consensus), I also note that Jimbo Wales was one of the editors of What is Wikibooks.
 * Interestingly that policy does cover Wikibooks modules (and is named "what is"), but if you read the section fully you see the mention of essays and we clearly promote the creation of those in userspace, basically the text is badly written at points it mixes the project and the Wikibooks themselves, this makes WB:SOAP and WB:HOST not applicable on userspace or at least opened to valid challenge if the "violation" is within reason.
 * The closest project to Wikibooks is Wikisource. For policies/guidelines and practices we should look there first.
 * I do agree with you that the userpage (the root of the userspace) has a very specific function and limits should be imposed for it to continue to serve a standard purpose, this is expected by the users.
 * Regarding standardization of format, I'm strongly opposed to it, people should be free to express themselves as they wish (within civilized constrain that we already have as policies). In your case you decided to comply or agreed with the points presented to you, fine but that wasn't the only possible outcome.
 * I'm willing to change my vote since the user in question hasn't decided to defend his content and it is clearly abusive of the function of the userpage, taking in consideration also the level of involvement he had with the project. I think I made the necessary points to prevent this RFD to serve as a base to future similar deletions.
 * In any case don't you agree that this issues should be clearly defined in a policy or guideline and not be dependent of personal viewpoints and chance ?
 * We should start by reexamining What is Wikibooks and debating a section about userspace to be included there or as stand alone guideline. --Panic (talk) 21:36, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * As a start, I propose we formally adopt the username policy in Using Wikibooks. see Username Policy Recent Runes (talk) 22:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I see that there is a rejected policy No_offensive_usernames, so relevant parts of the Using Wikibooks page are presumably not acceptable, even if they had been presented to new users for the past 2 years as the Username policy. Recent Runes (talk) 23:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That was only rejected in favor of Profanity instead. -- Adrignola talk contribs 00:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)