Userfication and incubation are ways of removing unsuitable material from Appropedia's "mainspace" (i.e. the main part of Appropedia where the articles and projects are), but still keeping the page intact so that the creator of the page can work on it, or use it elsewhere. It is a friendlier alternative to deletion.
In userfication, material posted in mainspace (or possibly in project space, i.e. a page with the prefix "Appropedia:") is moved to the userspace (prefix "User:") of the person who posted it. E.g. if User:Jane creates a page on "Building a foobar" which for some reason is unsuitable here, it is moved to [[User:Jane/Foobar]].
In most cases, pages should be improved while remaining within Appropedia's mainspace. However, if the article is in need of serious work and is in a state where it gives poor advice or significantly incorrect information, it can be moved to userspace. This can also apply to an article intended as a joke or an off-topic page (which might be suitable to be transwikied).
Steps[edit | edit source]
It will usually be admins who userfy or incubate other people's pages. However, if it is all your own work, there is no problem. If you aren't an admin and want to userfy/incubate a page, but aren't sure, check with an admin first.
Steps:
- Move the article to the article creator's userspace. You can refer to [[Appropedia:Userfy]] in the reason for moving. (Additional comments are possible, but it's more important to add these to the {{userfied}} tag in the next step.
- Add {{Userfied|REASON}} to the top of the page, where REASON is the explanation for userfying.
- Put the categories inside hidden comments. (Use the button in the edit toolbar, with the small red x over a page; or just add <!-- before the first category, and --> after the last category.)
- Delete the redirect from mainspace.
- Leave a note on the user's talk page, notifying them of the move.
If you're not an admin, place a delete tag on the redirect page, with an explanation, e.g. {{Delete|redirect from userfying}}.
Incubation[edit | edit source]
"Page incubation" is the same idea as userfication, but it is moved to a common area at Appropedia:Incubator. Any editor may move an article to the incubator, by clicking the move tabe and adding A:Incubator/ to the beginning of the page name.
Incubation may increase the chance of collaboration, as draft articles are placed in a central location. However, if you want feedback on an article, the best thing is to ask people for the feedback, on or off the wiki.
Anonymous material[edit | edit source]
Note that material posted by an anonymous user should not be userfied under their IP address's user page, as the IP address doesn't always correspond to the same user. Instead, this should be moved to the Incubator.
Pages which cannot be userfied or incubated[edit | edit source]
Pages should be deleted, not incubated or userfied, if they consist of material not permitted anywhere on Appropedia, including userspace. See Appropedia:Policies. Material not permitted includes:
- Personal attacks
- Potentially libellous material
- Spam
- Highly dangerous suggestions or instructions
- Copyright violations - if there's a copyright problem, it doesn't belong on Appropedia. (Note we do have an Original namespace, but this is specifically for content that we believe is permitted to be reproduced here, but not under Appropedia's open license.)
- Material which could bring Appropedia into disrepute - (Wikipedia has a policy like this... Do we need to work out a clearer explanation of this point, or leave it as a catch-all for things we didn't specifically predict?)
Also, files (image or multimedia) and categories are not able to be moved, for technical reasons. These should be flagged for deletion or to be dealt with as appropriate.