Hi everyone,
I've recently been working through adding some {{Inactive}} tags to inactive userpages, and I've noticed there are some minor holes in the current policy. WP:USER currently states:
- Users with no Wookieepedia editing contributions after twelve (12) consecutive months are considered inactive and may have their user page replaced with the {{Inactive}} template by another user. All subpages of inactive users will be redirected to their main user page. Users are welcome to return their user page and subpages to active status at any time.
The main problem is that "editing contributions" are not defined. Is this mainspace only? That seems too harsh as many good work is done outside of this, and we've been moving away from this idea for some time. Or, is this instead implying any edit can be used to fill this quota? I feel this goes too far the other way; a user could spend far too much time maintaining endless user subpages while not contributing that much to other namespaces (of course, they would still need to be within limit of the excessive user page edits section on WP:USER, but there is still room for excess within this boundary). So, I've drafted the following:
- Users who do not make at least one non-userspace, non–talk page edit that is not reverted by another user within a twelve-month span shall be considered inactive. Any users who have not made any non-userspace, non–talk page edits shall be deemed inactive twelve months after their first edit. User pages of inactive users may be replaced by the {{Inactive}} template, and all subpages of inactive users should be redirected to their main user page. These tasks may be performed by any user. Users returning from inactivity are welcome to revert these edits and return their user page and subpages to active status, provided they make at least one non-userspace, non–talk page edit that is not reverted by another user.
So, this hopes to specify the actual namespaces here to reduce confusion, taking inspiration from WP:A. I've also specified for the instance where, for example, a user's only edits are user or talk edits. This obviously isn't ideal, so the policy would allow for such users to be marked as inactive within a set timeframe too, this time going off their first edit. The old version nicely allows any user to add the Inactive template; I've expanded that to also include redirecting subpages, since that's also quite a simple task to do so may as well specify this isn't just for admins. I'm also hoping these tasks will be botable going forward, and this would formally open the door for redirects to be handled this way, but we'll see. Finally, I've specified a small quota for users returning from inactivity, so we don't see people get marked as inactive, only to make one edit to revert their userpage, but then the Inactive can immediately be re-added since the user has still not made any non-userspace, non–talk edits in 12 months.
The only possible "gap" I see is if, for example, a user makes their last mainspace edit on Jan 1st 2024 but then continues editing their userpage until Dec 31st 2024. Under the above, they would still be eligible for Inactivity on Jan 1st 2025, despite clearly not being "inactive," as they edited one day ago. Still, I think this would be bulky to include in policy for a likely uncommon occurrence. This also pushes the importance of making non-userspace, non–talk page edits to give a user the right to maintain a userpage. The last clause of the above would also necessitate this hypothetical user making one non-userspace, non–talk page edit to rv the Inactive tag, meaning a back and forth isn't permissible.
Please let me know what you think; it's been a while since I've written policy, so I'd love some feedback. Thanks to the other admins for some good discussion about this already. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 12:36, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
Discussion
- All sounds good to me. In the case of someone editing their userpage all year without any namespace edits, reminding them to make atleast one mainspace edit seems like a positive thing to me. Ayrehead02 (talk) 12:49, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
- CT now live, please see here. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 10:20, 31 May 2025 (UTC)