Wikipedia:Editors matter

This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcut WP:EM

This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia's most important resource is its contributors. When considering the value of content in projectspace and userspace, don't just inflexibly apply policies and guidelines; think about the impact of the content on editors' feelings, and whether deleting the content may drive them away.

discussions.

From time to time, a good-faith editor who is contributing to the encyclopedia will create pages in their own

who may be affected by how the Wikipedia community treats them.

Frequently, a well-meaning long-term Wikipedian, who views their use of userspace as inappropriate, will

, and say something along the lines of "This user has more userboxes than edits" or "If they're not interested in contributing to the encyclopedia, there's no point keeping their userpage". This is completely the wrong approach, as it is likely to drive the user away.

Instead, the approach to take is to tactfully try to encourage them to contribute to the encyclopedia. Keeping surplus pages around for a while does not do any significant harm to the encyclopedia; Wikipedia needs editors more than it needs webspace (and deletions don't actually free up webspace, as deleted material stays in the archives). What does harm Wikipedia is to drive an active good-faith contributor away by threatening their userpages with deletion. So, if you encounter a new user of this type, don't go for a deletion nomination as the first step. Instead, be nice to them, don't

, and try to encourage them to concentrate more on editing the encyclopedia rather than their own userspace.

Note that this does not apply to blatant abuses of userspace. For instance, a user who is attempting to use their userspace for obvious advertising purposes (for an individual, business, charity or other organisation), and has already been warned that this is inappropriate, may justifiably have their pages deleted through the

process. Such accounts are unlikely to be used for constructive contribution.

All too often, in deletion debates, people churn out references to policies and guidelines without actually relating them to what's best for the encyclopedia, or thinking about them. All too often, this happens at MfD in debates relating to userspace. For instance, someone's userpage will be put up for deletion on the grounds that "

is a policy, and they assume that anyone who cites a policy must ipso facto be right. They fail to consider the fact that deleting someone's userpage will drive that contributor away, which is bad for the encyclopedia.

In a deletion debate, don't just use trite policy-based catchphrases like "Wikipedia is not X". While the core content policies serve as reference points, it's always more helpful to relate an argument to what's actually best for the encyclopedia, and

justify it in detail

.

Questions to consider in debating a deletion

When content in someone's userspace, or in the Wikipedia namespace, is put up for deletion using the

miscellany for deletion

process, don't just quote inflexible policies and guidelines, and don't blindly follow those who do. For instance, try not to do this:

• Delete.
  WP:NOT a free webhost. DeleteItAll 13:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Delete per above. OneWithTheCrowd 13:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Instead, try to consider the following important questions.

• Does the content make an editor happy, or strengthen Wikipedia's sense of community and shared enjoyment? If so, this is an argument for keeping, as it makes them more likely to contribute to Wikipedia. Unless it can be shown that the content is harmful, the presumption should be in favour of keeping it.
• Will deleting the page actually do Wikipedia any good? Remember that deletions don't actually free up space, and, as per Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance, we're not meant to worry about the capacity of the servers. In general, unless a page is actively harmful to the project, there's no reason to delete it.
• Is it harmless? A lot of editors counter valid arguments to Keep by citing the redirect
  WP:HARMLESS, which is taken from the essay Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions
  . While "it's harmless" is certainly not a valid reason for keeping encyclopedic content (such as articles, templates and images) which does not meet Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, it is a perfectly valid argument when applied to the Wikipedia namespace and to userspace. In general, content in these namespaces should only be removed if it's harmful to the encyclopedia. Remember, however, that user namespace is indexed in Google and other search engines. Consider whether outside users stumbling upon the material would harm the encyclopedia or not.

See also

• Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers
• Wikipedia:Readers First
• Wikipedia:Some observant words regarding editing and people
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a community
• Wikipedia:Zeroth law of Wikipedia