Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Template:User kid

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: no consensus. ‑Scottywong | [communicate] || 06:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Template:User kid

Per WP:Guidance for younger editors and WP:Child protection, it's not a good idea for editors to publicly state that they are minors. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 18:03, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom, and because it only has three transclusions and it's, frankly, ugly. Given the nom's rationale, substitution should not be done; just delete it. Period. If this had said, "[t]his user is a teenager[,]" then an argument could be made for keeping this since teenagers can be up to ages 18-21 (depending on the age of majority, if using that as the metric). In this case, though, kid is, unambiguously, anyone under age 13. Now, someone could be jokingly referring to themselves as a kid, and, honestly, I hadn't initially considered that scenario, but given that there's only three transclusions, I suspect it's unlikely. Nevertheless, someone can easily recreate a userbox in their own userspace that reads, "This user thinks of themselves as a kid." Doug Mehus T·C 21:41, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, wrong approach, counterproductive to espoused concerns.

The essay Wikipedia:Guidance for younger editors does not appear to tell kids to keep it secret that they are kids.

The legal-policy page Wikipedia:Child protection does not speak to this either.

IF you think user disclosure of young age should be actively prohibited by policy, you should advance that argument on a policy talk page. It has happened before without success. You are promulgating Security through obscurity, a long-since firmly rejected theory. Hiding kids from public awareness enables pedophiles to prey more secretly.

An alternative approach I recommend is to watch templates like this, see who uses them, and, if they are being careless, counsel the users about being careful with personal details, as per Wikipedia:Guidance for younger editors. Kids in public view tend to be protected by the majority responsible adults. Kids are safer if they hang out with kids, and if others know that those kids are kids. Kids are in danger if they are isolated. These userboxes encourage and enable user networking, and are good for child safety. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:24, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't this be at TfD? Chess (talk) Ping when replying 01:40, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chess, userboxes are always listed at MfD: see here. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 01:51, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@SpicyMilkBoy: and Chess, yeah, at first I thought it was odd, but seeing as they're related to userpages, it makes sense. What's odd, though, is that userpage templates and banners, which are not userboxes, are still listed at TfD. Frankly, I think all userspace-oriented templates should be listed at MfD. ;-) Doug Mehus T·C 02:04, 1 March 2020 (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.