User:Quarl/Userfy

Userfy instead of deleting

One of the most common newbie mistakes is to create an article about oneself in the main article namespace. The usual reaction by Wikipedians is to mark it for speedy deletion. This is the wrong reaction. A better reaction is to userfy, i.e. move the page to the user's user page where such personal information is allowed.

Userfication has advantages

• It avoids biting newcomers; in fact encourages them to be part of the community.
  • New users hate seeing their hard work deleted. It was just a simple mistake that the article was created in the main namespace; just helpfully fix that mistake.
  • Remember: they are not vandals; we want to keep well-intentioned users.
• Non-administrators can do it.

Candidates for speedy userfication

• Article created by a new user
• Titled the same as or similar to the user's username or real name
• Autobiographical in nature
  • May be written in first-person ("Hi, my name is Mike. I have 3 kids...") or third-person tone ("Mike is a student at FooBar University").
• Non-fictional
  • User pages don't generally have to be verifiable, but if it's not plausible then it's probably just a prank.
• Not offensive
  • Attack pages don't belong in Wikipedia whether in the main namespace or user namespace.
• User does not yet have a user page
  • If the user already has a user page, usually he knows he can write there. It is still possible to userfy to a user subpage, though.

To userfy

• Move the article to User:USERNAME.
• Leave a note on the user's page explaining what you did, e.g.:

  Hi USERNAME, I've renamed the article [[ARTICLENAME]] to your user space, [[User:USERNAME]]. Feel free to write about yourself or other personal information relevant to Wikipedia here. Please reserve the main article namespace for encyclopedic content, thanks! ~~~~

  • You can also mention the sandbox, or combine this message with a Welcome message, if appropriate.
• If the now-userfied page has deletion tags, remove them.
• Wait for the user to acknowledge, then tag the original article, now a #REDIRECT, with {{db|userfied}}.