Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Til Eulenspiegel/Religious narratives as sacred canon

This userpage simply serves as a polemic - it's a collection of quotes supporting the user's view on the use of the word "myth", with an introduction attacking other editors who believe the word "myth" can be used in a certain way - claiming that their usage is "offensively POV". Per WP:UPNOT, WP:BATTLE and WP:NOTSOAPBOX, this page is not appropriate userspace material - it is essentially an opinion piece, claiming to tell the "other side of the story", and does not qualify under the "small and proportionate amount of unrelated material" - "Pages used for blatant promotion or as a soapbox or battleground for unrelated matters are usually considered outside this criterion." I'm not sure whether this is divisive enough to fall foul of WP:UP#POLEMIC, but I myself find that it shows a battle-ground attitude towards editing. Claritas § 16:06, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

:*Speedy Keep' I find this a Violation of WP:POINT, a collection of Sources that an editor can use in a dispute does not foul of any rule. Similar such subpages exist across wikipedia. This is one of those times where a Content dispute has spilled over from the talk page and is being fought by proxy on the Wikipedia Mainspace (and not by Til Eulenspiegel) Also why does Claritas on Til Eulenspiegel's talk page claim its [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.phptle=User_talk:Til_Eulenspiegel&diff=373852601&oldid=373706754 "attacking other editors"] but no such claim in the actual MFD? Weaponbb7 (talk) 17:03, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

'Speedy Delete I am sorry till but i cant twist the legalese of fair use policy into anything that could be read any other way. B's arguement is too convincing Weaponbb7 (talk) 00:16, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

::Weapon, thanks, you may wish to reconsider B's argument again light of User:Quantpole's response below. Quantpole actually bothered to look up the relevant policy, which could have saved us all a lot of trouble arguing, because it actually destroys B's assertion that "Fair use of quotes doesn't apply to userpages" - by directly contradicting it. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:56, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

:::Indeed missed that changing back per Quantpole

:*Speedy Keep This nomination is absurd, there is nothing polemic on the page, it is a private userspace resource of third party quotes from theologians and bible scholars, etc. that the nominator perhaps wishes would go away and disappear entirely, and this is just another blatant politically-based attempt to remove all evidence of a referenced and widespread point of view even existing, and write it completely out of wikipedia like a damnatio memoriae. If anyone is polemic, it is Claritas as he has on multiple past occasions called for me to be outright banned and persecuted from wikipedia, but to little avail. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 17:49, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - My issue is not with your resource of quotes, but with the commentary accompanying it. I think your reply speaks for itself concerning your attitude, but I'd like to ask you, if it's just a resource of quotes, what a commentary, especially that concerning other editors, and their viewpoints, is doing. Claritas § 18:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

:: Thats a concern that should have been conveyed and discussed with the user prior to an escalation to MFD. Weaponbb7 (talk) 21:05, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I cannot actually vote keep because I do not personally think this is an appropriate use of user space, but I'm afraid that I do not see a policy justification for my opinion presently. I believe Til is using the following rationale, from the user-space policy -- "Expansion and detailed backup for points being made (or which you may make) in discussions elsewhere on the wiki." I personally believe that the spirit of that clause is not to create permanent user pages or ongoing works of original research that are never going to be removed. I believe the spirit of that clause is for building arguments to be used in current ongoing discussions. However the policy does not state this explicitly. I do not agree with Claritas that this is obviously polemical or offensive to anyone in particular.Griswaldo (talk) 01:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
• Keep Not sufficiently a polemic as to warrant deletion. OR is permitted in userspace. Collect (talk) 12:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
• keep as long as duly tagged as a userpage. The page is actually useful a useful collection for the :wikt:myth entry, and also for clarifying Til's angle. This doesn't change the fact that Til is pursuing a long-term campaign of disrupting the pertaining articles, but deleting this page will do nothing to alter that. Til is a problem editor, but this needs to be handled at the administrative level, not via MfD. --dab (𒁳) 12:35, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
• Speedy delete as a violation of the fair use policy. A large portion of it quotes modern copyrighted sources. Fair use content is not permitted in user space. I don't particularly feel that the editorial is harmful or necessary either way - but as it violates our fair use policy, it needs to go, possibly subject to a rewritten version that does not incorporate copyrighted content. --B (talk) 14:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

::The purpose of copyright law is to prevent people from copying and distributing a whole work. Brief quotes or extracts from a source under a certain number of words have never fallen under, nor ever been prosecuted under copyright law, and I have never seen any precedent for such an argument on wikipedia with regard to brief quotes appearing on userpages. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 14:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

:::You're confusing US copyright law with Wikipedia fair use policy. US copyright law would allow content to be used on user pages under a claim of fair use. Wikipedia policy does not. There are plenty of things that are legal in the United States that are not appropriate on Wikipedia. --B (talk) 15:03, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

::::WP uses US and Florida law as binding. WP, in point of fact, is full of quotes from copyrighted sources! As are many userpages filled with quotes. Collect (talk) 15:10, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

:::::Again, Wikipedia policy is MORE RESTRICTIVE than the law. Copyrighted content that is not CC-BY-SA 3.0 and GFDL (basically meaning it came from anywhere other than a Wikimedia project) should be removed from userpages. The fact that it is improperly present elsewhere does not mean that it is ok to be used on your page. --B (talk) 15:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

:::::: I read the policy carefully and I have yet to see anything that says quotes are not allowed on user pages, nor any past application of such a whimsical "policy" Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:14, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

::::::: Please see restriction #9, "Restrictions on location. Non-free content is allowed only in articles (not disambiguation pages), and only in article namespace, subject to exemptions." --B (talk) 15:16, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

::::::::Despite your peculiar interpretation of policy, the fact remains that it has never been practice to delete userpages with brief quotes or extracts considering them "copyright violations". If your ultra restrictive interpretation that they don't want it done were correct, it would be spelled out clearly, that brief attributed quotes on userspace are a violation of fair use. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:35, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

:::::::::It is spelled out clearly. I don't know how much more clear it can be. --B (talk) 18:21, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

::::::::::If they didn't want users to put attributed quoted on their personal pages (which is done all the time) they would clearly state this. It is only by your novel strict interpretation that hasn't been actually applied, that this would not be allowed. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:13, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

:::::::::::Over half of the page is quotes from copyrighted sources. Even if the various standards like minimal use were applied to user pages, this still wouldn't qualify. --B (talk) 19:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

::::::::::::There is no reason why the policy should suddenly be interpreted according to your novel restrictive interpretation, and no precedent for it whatsoever. Your selective application of wikilawyering here is most unjust. This is an issue pertaining to POV content versus suppression of POVs and your idea that this new interpretation of policy applies only to me and no one else, is very suggestive that this is really only the latest flimsy, shifting pretext to try and do away with the quotes and opinions that are themselves being attacked. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 20:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

• Delete: I am persuaded by B's argument that this runs afoul of fair use policy. Yes, it is allowable under copyright law, but WP policy can and is more restrictive. A single quote or two would be fine, but this page is a majority of quoted material. In light of that, I can not in good conscience support this. If the user wishes to retain these quotations, he may do so on his own computer's hard drive. Imzadi 1979 → 20:23, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
• Keep. From WP:UP: "The same rules for copyright apply on userpages as in article space. Text must either be non-copyright or out of copyright, otherwise only a short quote can be used. If you use text from another source on your userpage, it should still be credited to the author, whether or not it is in current copyright." In other words, the use of quotations on userpages is not considered the same as fair use images. (See also, the essay WP:QUOTE). In addition, the page has a clearly defined purpose, whether you agree with it or not. Quantpole (talk) 13:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
• Jimbo hath spoken [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=374457548&oldid=374457436]. --B (talk) 14:17, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
• Keep - this is essentially a user essay, and there is nothing wrong with that. He makes (what seems to me to be) fair use of quotations to support his argument. That many may disagree with his argument is not a reason for deletion. LadyofShalott 23:18, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
• Keep God has commanded it. ;) ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 19:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

: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.