User talk:Stone roller

Welcome!

Welcome to Wikipedia, Stone roller! I am Sumsum2010 and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time. Thank you for your contributions. I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to Wikipedia! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page or by typing {{helpme}} at the bottom of this page. I love to help new users, so don't be afraid to leave a message! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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Sumsum2010 · Talk · Contributions 21:42, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Longstanding draft article

Hello, Stone roller. I see that you have now had a draft article about a footballer named Andy Gray at User:Stone roller/Sandbox for over seven months. Are you intending to move this to main (article) space? A sandbox in user space is a good place to work on a new draft article temporarily until it is ready to be posted as an article, but it is not a place for long-term storage of article-like content. I know nothing about Andy Gray, but looking at your draft it seems to me that it would be perfectly suitable to move it out as an article now, and if so you should do so, rather than keep it in a place which, as I have said, is intended only for short term temporary use. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your very helpful reply to this on my talk page, explaining the situation. I am copying your message to here, so as to keep the discussion of this together in one place, for convenience. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:09, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi JamesBWatson,

The article in my sandbox is fictional, me and my friends update it every now and then about a fictional footballer (the names we come up with tend to be random). If you look through the history you can see that we reset it every now and then (it's generally based on computer games). Is it a problem to have it in the sandbox or is there somewhere else you would like us to place it? We like to pretend he's a real person :) Stone roller (talk) 23:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, it seems that you have made a mistake that many people make about Wikipedia. Many people think that "anyone can edit Wikipedia" means "anyone can put anything they like in Wikipedia", but it actually means something more like "anyone is welcome to help to contribute to the building of the encyclopaedia, provided they do so within the framework of Wikipedia's guidelines and policies." Unfortunately, using Wikipedia to host a page for the personal use of yourself and your friends in this way is contrary to both policies and guidelines. Perhaps the clearest single relevant statement is to be seen in the user page guideline, which says "Userspace is not a free web host and should not be used to indefinitely host pages that look like articles". (See WP:FAKEARTICLE.) Also, the policy on what Wikipedia is not says "Wikipedia is not a blog, webspace provider, social network, or memorial site", but you are clearly using Wikipedia as a free webspace provider to host this page. (See WP:NOTWEBHOST.)

In the light of these remarks, I'm afraid the page must be deleted. The page may be nominated at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, which will mean that a discussion will take place to decide whether it should be deleted, and usually a week is allowed for the discussion. However, this is such a clear case that there is no doubt at all that it will be deleted, and the discussion will be nothing but a waste of time for the people who take part. It will save time and trouble for everybody concerned if you can accept that the page has to go, and post a message asking for it to be deleted. That way, the deletion will clearly be uncontroversial, and can be done without any trouble. I will therefore be grateful if you will do that. Rather than Wikipedia, somewhere such as FaceBook, MySpace, or blogspot would be more suitable for you and your friends to edit your fictional article. You are, of course, still very welcome to contribute to real Wikipedia articles if you would like to, and if you do choose to do so then the practice you have had with this fake article will be useful to you. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:09, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is no problem at all. I will delete the page immediately. Sorry to have caused you any hassle! Stone roller (talk) 14:03, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]